There are several mobile home parks in our area. Some have the same owners.

In an Erie News Now investigation -- we find how residents at one in Erie County are fed up with rising lot fee increases and have taken their worry to the state capital.


Patti Starvaggi has been a collective voice for her neighbors They have gathered over time to share their struggles about the rising lot fees where many of them have lived for years.
She says, "I like it here. This is my home. But if they keep raising these lot rent up, to this amount, there's no way we'll be able to afford it."


The Summit Heights Mobile Home Park is off Route 19 and Robison Rd. in Erie County.

Neighbor Wendy Henry says, "I still work, I'm 68 years old so that's why I'm able to stay here."

But that's not the case for everyone in the more than 300 manufactured homes. It's marketed as a 55-plus community with widowed spouses, veterans, and others on fixed incomes. 

They tell us, that the owners who took over the park more than four years ago have raised prices a total of $248 dollars. It started with 50 dollars, then 30, then another 50, and the latest 118 dollars. 

So, Patti and Wendy have put together informational packets and went door to door to deliver them.  Then -- their plight -- was taken to the office of Pennsylvania State Senator Judith Schwank in Harrisburg.

The legislator who covers the City of Reading and parts of Berks County is the main sponsor of Senate Bill 861.

It would put a 10 percent cap on lot fees at all Pennsylvania manufactured home parks under 3 conditions that would include the hike being advertised in a suitable amount of time, and that it does not exceed the consumer price index.

Schwank says the hike in costs is a growing problem in PA. Often, out-of-town investors are now owing parks instead of local on-site owners.

Bob Besecker is also instrumental in the fight. He is the co-chair of the rent issues committee for Douglass Village - a manufactured home park in Berks County.

He says, "We will be talking to people on those committees."

That includes a discussion on House Bill 805.  T two measures have not yet been voted on in Harrisburg but will be closely watched and fought for.

Erie News Now reached out to the park office and visited it but has yet to hear back from the owners.

A local presence will be back in Harrisburg later this week. Erie News Now will follow the developments.