Making Mobile Homes Safe
* “How Safe Are Mobile Homes?”(Aug. 20) leaves the impression that manufactured homes are inherently unsafe as a result of industry resistance to enhanced safety proposals and other consumer-related measures. While we appreciate your positive comments “that the average mobile home being built today is a good product,” we feel that the article contains several inaccurate and misleading statements.
On the overall issue of federal installation standards as an answer to the “shoddy” installation of manufactured homes, the article misses a key point--that federal installation standards are not the most effective and cost-efficient way to address this issue. Different parts of the country, with their different climates and soil types (not to mention different varieties of natural catastrophes), require a more flexible approach that can be found in state, not federal, standards.
Likewise, your allegations that “the Manufactured Housing Institute and its state affiliates” have opposed efforts to enhance safety regulations ignores another reality--that our organization has been, and is currently, working to effectively address manufactured home installation standards at the state level.
The Manufactured Housing Institute (MHI) developed the Model Manufactured Home Installation Manual in 1992 and has been working since then with our state affiliates to have this model installation standard adopted by state legislatures. In 1994, the American National Standards Institute revised its standard based on MHI’s 1992 model. We have also collaborated with the National Conference of States on Building Codes and Standards to urge states to pass regulations requiring manufactured homes to be installed in accordance with manufacturers’ installation instructions. Currently, MHI has a special installation task force that is exploring additional implementation strategies to achieve this objective.
The article also refers to the fact that manufactured homes suffered a disproportionate amount of damage or destruction during recent natural catastrophes, such as Hurricane Andrew and the Northridge earthquake. You overlook that Hurricane Andrew struck an area of south Florida heavily populated with older mobile homes built and installed decades ago.
Your reporter seems to lack perspective as evidenced by his concern for the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s claim of spending in California “$100 million to repair mobile homes and equip many with quake-resistant bracing systems.” This same agency estimates that the Northridge quake severely damaged or destroyed some 300,000 homes, with total property losses eclipsing $12 billion.
JERRY C. CONNORS
President, MHI
Arlington, Va.
