Iowa lawmakers recently sent legislation to Gov. Kim Reynolds intended to protect mobile, manufactured and modular homeowners from out-of-state companies purchasing lots while dramatically raising rents and fees.

Trouble is, the bill does precious little to actually protect residents.

The bill would require landlords to give 90 days’ notice of rent increases, up from the current 60 days, and 90 days’ notice of utility fee increases. It would also increase from 60 to 90 days the period for notifying a tenant of a lease termination. It would extend protections against landlord intimidation and would prohibit forcing tenants to alter their homes in a way that would make it difficult to move out of a park.

Republicans backers argued they strove to strike a balance between landlord and homeowner concerns. But in the end, that balance catered to the Iowa Manufactured Homes Association, representing landlords, while scrapping the goals of the Manufactured Home Residents’ Network, representing mobile homeowners socked by high rent and fees.

The network wanted statewide caps on rent increases and frequency, good-cause eviction standards, limits on fee increases and language requiring leases to spell out park owners’ responsibilities while prohibiting abusive lease provisions. The bill includes none of these objectives.

“Legislators said, as they began to work on this, that they were anxious to balance the power of ownership between the landlords and the residents, the homeowners,” said Candi Evans, co-chair of the Iowa Manufactured Home Residents’ Network on Iowa Public Radio’s River to River. “That did not happen. They gave more power to the landlords. And they took away more from us.”

Evans is among mobile homeowners who have been seeking changes since 2019 when an out-of-state company bought her North Liberty mobile home park and sharply raised the rent.

At that time, state numbers showed 45.6 percent of lots in Iowa were owned by out-of-state companies, according to an analysis by The Gazette. In 2019, several parks owned by out-of-state firms saw rent increases from 24 to 69 percent.

Since then, mobile homeowners have been looking for help from state and federal officials. They’ve heard lots of promises but have, so far, received little help.

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We understand the art of lawmaking often requires compromise. But we’ve seen too many actions in recent years at the Statehouse where business interests are favored over providing real help to struggling Iowans. This is the latest sad chapter.

Reynolds should sign the bill, but only because it’s better than nothing. This issue isn’t going away. Lawmakers must do far more create a real balance. Not one with an interest group’s thumb on the scale.

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