Voters in eight Maine communities approved measures Tuesday to protect mobile home park residents from rising lot rents, marking a major victory for residents who have spent months organizing against escalating housing costs and corporate ownership. Every community with a measure on the ballot voted in favor of it, most by large margins.
Augusta, Eliot, Farmington, Jay, Oakland, Standish and Wells approved lot rent stabilization ordinances, while Wiscasset passed a 180-day moratorium on rent increases.
“Mobile home owners across Maine have been squeezed by corporate park owners who buy up parks, jack up the rents, and let maintenance fall by the wayside,” said Joe Hupperich, organizing director for the Maine Labor Climate Council.
The victories bring the number of Maine municipalities with mobile home park lot rent stabilization ordinances to 16, according to the Maine Labor Climate Council.
Unlike traditional homeowners, many mobile home residents own their houses but rent the land beneath them, leaving them vulnerable to rent increases they have little power to negotiate. Residents, many of whom are older Mainers or live on fixed incomes, have increasingly organized to push back against corporate park owners.
In Wells, where nearly 80% of voters supported the ordinance, resident organizer Lynzy Kosmes credited months of grassroots organizing for the victory.
“We knocked on doors, we went to meetings, and we refused to believe we were powerless on our own,” Kosmes said. “People coming together, inspiring each other, and cheering each other on – that’s solidarity.”
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