Owners of manufactured homes in the South land call for rent control, hold ‘silent protest’

By BILL JONES
DAILY SOUTHTOWN |
NOV 15, 2020 AT 5:34 PM

Nobert Snow and Monee Mayor Jim Popp stand together Saturday in a silent protest against rising rents and more at Golf Vista Estates and other manufactured home communities across the state. (Bill Jones / Daily Southtown).

The numbers and details vary, but the stories have a common thread: Manufactured homeowners in Chicago’s Southland, many of whom are older adults on fixed incomes, are tired of rising rents threatening to price them out of their residences.

Members of the Manufactured Home Owners Association of Illinois held what it called a “silent protest” Saturday throughout the Golf Vista Estates community in Monee. A parade of cars near the entrance off Court Road and others throughout the streets of the community posted a similar message in their windows: “We need rent control now.”

Norbert Snow, secretary for MHOAI, is a resident of Golf Vista Estates. He said the display was designed in hopes of catching the eyes of politicians who could reverse course on a 1997 law that allows property owners of communities such as this to charge “whatever the market will bear.” The law, per Illinois statute, prevents local municipalities from enacting any form of rent control.

“We have to get that LAW off the books,” MHOAI President Terry Nelson said.