AUGUST 17, 2026
TO: HUD CODE MANUFACTURED HOUSING INDUSTRY MEMBERS
FROM: MHARR
RE: MHARR CALLS ON HUD SECRETARY TO FUNDAMENTALLY
REFORM FEDERAL MANUFACTURED HOUSING PROGRAM
MHARR, in an August 12, 2026 communication to HUD Secretary Scott Turner (redacted copy attached), has called for a complete investigation of – and fundamental wide-reaching reforms to – the operation of the federal manufactured housing program administered by HUD’s Office of Manufactured Housing Programs (OMHP).
Citing multiple examples of irregularities, manipulation and potential “inside-outside” coordination of key functions and aspects of the HUD program – all to the extreme detriment of the industry’s smaller mainstream businesses — MHARR seeks, and has requested that the Secretary undertake, a full and independent investigation of the OMHP with regard to – among other things:
- HUD/OMHP manipulation of Manufactured Housing Consensus Committee (MHCC) appointments;
- Repeated, overlapping MHCC appointments for certain favored persons/entities;
- HUD/OMHP exclusion of collective small business voting representation on the MHCC;
- Targeted, biased HUD/OMHP rejections of independent MHCC nominees;
- HUD/OMHP manipulation of MHCC procedures and processes to exclude small business representation and input;
- Overall anti-small business bias in the operation of the MHCC and other HUD/OMHP functions;
- A near-total lack of transparency regarding OMHP actions, policies and decisions including, but not limited to failure to comply with multiple Freedom of Information Act requests;
- Evidence of possible “inside-outside” coordination related to former program officials;
- A total failure to implement the enhanced federal preemption of the Manufactured Housing Improvement Act of 2000; and
- A failure to conduct legitimate competitive solicitations for the program monitoring contract or to comply with sole-source contract safeguards, resulting in the selection of the same program contractor for the entire 50-year history of the program.
While the legitimate functionality of the HUD program gained some ground in the immediate aftermath of the enactment of the landmark Manufactured Housing Improvement Act of 2000 (2000 Reform Law) and took additional steps toward a more even-handed approach with the reassignment and replacement of its former administrator during the first Trump Administration, OMHP – particularly over the years of the Biden Administration – has steadily regressed back to the type of biases, regulatory excesses and anti-small business practices that were commonplace prior to 2000. This specifically includes – and centers upon – a worsening abuse and manipulation of the MHCC and its processes.
Designed by the 2000 Reform Law to be the centerpiece of a reformed HUD program with uniform, consensus-based performance standards, federally-coordinated enforcement, robust federal preemption and related practices, and to serve as a bulwark against excessive and excessively costly regulation, the MHCC, its membership and its activities, are being increasingly corrupted and twisted to serve the interests of HUD and the industry’s largest corporate conglomerates. Effectively, then, the MHCC, instead of serving as an independent, fair, balanced and unbiased guardian of the affordability and reasonable regulation of the manufactured housing industry – as expressly stated by the 2000 Reform Law – is steadily becoming little more than a clone of the toothless former Manufactured Housing Advisory Council, which it replaced under the 2000 Reform Law.
All of these irregularities, as detailed extensively in the MHARR communication, point to a program that continues to be mismanaged, continues to violate key elements and aspects of the 2000 Reform Law – including the broad and liberal enforcement of its enhanced federal preemption in order to prevent the discriminatory zoning exclusion of HUD-regulated manufactured homes from communities around the nation – and continues to fail both the industry (and especially its smaller businesses) and the millions of American consumers who rely on mainstream manufactured homes for affordable housing and homeownership.
The need to fundamentally correct and reform the federal program is especially urgent now – and essential to the survival and prosperity of the industry’s mainstream core – given the failure of the Manufactured Housing Institute (MHI)-supported 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act (ROAD Act) to address and fully remedy the major regulatory bottlenecks (i.e., discriminatory and exclusionary zoning restrictions and impending unnecessary high-cost “energy” regulation) which continue to suppress the production, placement and sale of federally-regulated manufactured homes (together with the failure of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to implement the statutory Duty to Serve with respect to manufactured home consumer chattel loans which the ROAD Act also fails to address). Without a statutory remedy in the ROAD Act, these key issues must now be addressed and rectified within the HUD regulatory system, through an MHCC and MHCC process that has been fully reformed to comply with all aspects of the 2000 Reform Law and not the current MHCC/MHCC process which has been hijacked, tainted, distorted and mismanaged by the HUD program. It is urgent to the fundamental legitimacy and validity of the federal program that all industry members and consumers support such necessary reforms to prevent further lawlessness.
To resolve these crucial deficiencies, defects and failures, will specifically require the direct involvement and leadership of Secretary Turner. Alternatively, Secretary Turner should – at long last – provide for an appointed non-career Administrator/Deputy Assistant Secretary for the HUD program, who would report to, be accountable to – and be directly supervised – by him. Through such leadership, MHARR believes that the federal program can finally be brought to full, fair and objective compliance with all reform elements of the law for the benefit of the entire industry and Americans in need of affordable homeownership.
MHARR will continue to aggressively pursue this initiative going forward and will advise you accordingly.
Manufactured Housing Association for Regulatory Reform (MHARR)
1331 Pennsylvania Ave N.W., Suite 512
Washington D.C. 20004
Phone: 202/783-4087
Fax: 202/783-4075
Email: MHARRDG@AOL.COM
Website: www.manufacturedhousingassociation.org
