Tiny houses get all the attention, but mobile homes–despite the stigma–are already a huge part of the country’s housing, and could have a bigger part to play.

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Manufactured homes are already somewhat common. A new report from Apartment List calculates that one in 18 Americans, or 17.7 million people, live in a manufactured home nationwide; the average monthly housing cost is $564, versus $1,057 for a typical house or apartment. In the 100 largest metro areas, people living in mobile homes spent around 40% less, on average, than others. At a time when the lowest-income families can’t rent an affordable two-bedroom apartment anywhere in the country, and only 11% of low-income households get Section 8 support for housing, the report found that 1 in 10 people households living below the poverty line lives in a manufactured home.

“Mobile homes are kind of the last really cheap unsubsidized sorts of housing in most places,” says Sydney Bennet, a senior research associate at Apartment List. They’re particularly common in some areas–in Lake Havasu City, Arizona, for example, around 25% of the population lives in manufactured homes. Production swelled in the 1980s when the government cut funding for affordable housing. But new construction, despite the need, is slow. One challenge is zoning–communities heavily restrict where the homes can be installed, whether on single-family lots or in traditional mobile home parks.

“I think a lot of it really comes down to the stigma around living in a mobile or manufactured home,” says Bennet. “I think there’s still a lot of stereotypes about the communities who live in those areas . . . and maybe policymakers don’t consider it a desirable option.” That’s the case despite the fact that manufactured homes can, of course, be well-designed.

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