Preserving Access to Manufactured Housing Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Today, I stand in support of H.R. 650, the Preserving Access to Manufactured Housing Act. Manufactured housing serves as an affordable and sustainable housing option for roughly 22 million Americans. In my State of Alabama, more than 300,000 families reside in manufactured housing, which comprises in excess of 14 percent of the State's housing market.

In districts like mine, where we face tremendous economic disparities and suppressed rental markets, manufactured housing must remain an option. Oftentimes, it is the only safe and affordable mortgage option available to families.

Without this bill, working families and retirees with poor credit or limited income can't obtain credit at all and are forced into more expensive housing options; and, in some parts of my district, the more rural parts of my district, the only option for many is manufactured housing.

H.R. 650 makes a simple but necessary adjustment to these thresholds to enable lenders to fully meet the demand for affordable, responsible loans for manufactured homes.

In many ways, Mr. Speaker, this bill is an acknowledgement that manufactured housing is different from regular dwelling housing. It is, in fact, not real property, but personal property, more like a car than it is like a home.

The fact of the matter is I believe that Dodd-Frank did not anticipate--was an unintended consequence of Dodd-Frank--that manufactured housing would get wrapped into the regulatory scheme for dwelling homes.

In fact, most of the lenders are not loan originators, as it would be in the mortgage context; rather, they are lenders giving limited options--I should say giving families, working families, the only option in many, many of the jurisdictions, the rural communities, that I represent.

With all due respect, I don't see this as a predatory lending bill. This is all about access to affordability. I, like the ranking member, strongly advocate against predatory lending, would not be supportive of an industry that preys upon the most vulnerable in the community.

In fact, many of my constituents represent vulnerable communities. Instead, I really see this as an opportunity for them, many of the communities I represent, to have affordable housing at all.

It is with that that I ask my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to consider H.R. 650 as an opportunity for rural communities all across America to have, as a viable option, manufactured housing.

I want to repeat something that was very important. In no way does this bill take away consumer protections. The consumer protections that were established by Dodd-Frank are really important.

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The consumers will continue to have the wide range of consumer protections that Dodd-Frank affords and which I think many of us agree with.

Steering would be prohibited. We would still have truth-in-lending disclosures, which are critically important, and loan-term disclosures that are critically important; and the prohibitation against mandatory arbitration and other State laws are not affected.

I see this not as a predatory lending bill, but an access to affordable housing bill, and I ask my colleagues to support H.R. 650.

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