‘A Decent Home’ Gets Built on Digital Oct. 25

Billionaires like Warren Buffet and Wall Street now control the mobile home industry in the U.S. where tens of thousands of Americans are at the mercy of these owners and lenders who are squeezing profits from people who face the housing crisis and see mobile home parks as the last resort.

The award-winning new documentary film A Decent Home brings the crisis to life through mobile home park residents fighting to save their homes.

When housing on the lowest rung of the American Dream is being devoured by the wealthiest of the wealthy, whose dream are we serving? “A Decent Home” examines the wealth gap through the lives of mobile home parks residents struggling to keep a roof over their heads, as it explores the urgent question — When are the rich, rich enough?

A Decent Home is a character-rich, feature-length documentary about the uniquely American phenomenon of mobile home parks, and the nation’s critical affordable housing crisis. The film examines urgent issues of class and economic (im)mobility – the growing flaws of a faltering system and a widening wealth gap – through the lives of residents in mobile home parks across the country, including:
 
Denver Meadows in Aurora, Colorado, where residents fight to save their low-income park from being shut down by an owner who wants to re-zone the land and sell it for millions. Here we meet park residents Luz and Petra, and Hilda and Lalo, and follow their fight to save the park and we meet their supporters Alison, Bryan and Juan, city council candidates who are trying to overturn the status quo in Aurora’s pro-developer government and allies including Congresswoman Cori Bush (then a candidate).
 
Santiago Villa in Mountain View, California, where Silicon Valley workers and their families are struggling to make ends meet in a mobile home park literally next door to Google headquarters. We met Barbara and Brad, a legal secretary and a delivery driver, and some of their neighbors, who all wound up in the park because it was the most affordable option they could find in Silicon Valley. 
 
Baker and Birch, in Boscawen, New Hampshire, where the six residents of a tiny park, all on disability, bought their park with the assistance of a housing non-profit racing against time to try to save parks before they are bought up by a range of ultra-rich investors, including the Carlyle Group and billionaire Sam Zell. Here we meet George, Henry, Mike and Kathy, as they celebrate their first Fourth of July since becoming park owners.
 
Golfview Mobile Home Park, in North Liberty, Iowa, where residents, local politicians and the  Teamsters are fighting back against a Utah-based private equity firm that is buying up parks across Iowa, and jacking up lot  rentals by 50 to 60 percent. Here we meet Candi, a 71-year-old grandmother, who starts a media battle against the publicity-shy firm. As the fight becomes an election-year issue, even presidential candidate and U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, who has gotten involved in the issue, takes a seat at Candi’s dining room table to talk with local activists.