MINNEAPOLIS, MN – Today, U.S. Senator Tina Smith (D-MN), Chair of the Senate Housing Subcommittee, sent a letter to the Chief Executive Officer of Equity LifeStyle Properties (ELP), an Illinois-based corporation, expressing deep concern over the company’s mistreatment of residents in Lake Elmo, Minnesota. Her letter comes following extensive reporting that residents of Cimarron Park, which is owned by ELP, are being priced out by egregious rent increases, dealing with hostile management and suffering under unfair rules that make selling or moving into a new home more difficult.
“This corporation’s well-documented practices of hiking rents and making it more difficult to find other housing options only serves to boost shareholder profits while hanging Minnesotans out to dry,” said Senator Smith. “Residents have been pleading for help for nearly four years, and Equity LifeStyle Properties has failed to show they are even listening to concerns. I want them to meaningfully engage with residents instead of putting their shareholders ahead of hardworking Minnesotans.”
Cimarron Park is home to roughly 500 Minnesota families. Their conflict with ELP was first reported by WCCO News in December 2020, when residents decried a rent increase at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Since that initial report, residents said the situation had only worsened, with the Minnesota Star Tribune reporting declining services and poor management earlier this year. Most recently, residents reported unfair rules that make selling or moving into a new home unnecessarily expensive, trapping households into a cycle of ever-increasing rent, now totaling a 30% increase over the last five years.
Equity LifeStyle Properties owns roughly 72,0000 homes and operates in 35 states and British Columbia. They own 200+ manufactured home communities, 200+ RV resorts and campgrounds, and 23 marinas. In the letter, Senator Smith called on ELP to meaningfully engage with Cimarron Park residents and promptly address the many concerns that they have raised with management.
Senator Smith has long championed solutions to America’s housing crisis. She teamed up with Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to introduce the Homes Act, a comprehensive piece of legislation that would level the playing field against corporate housing investors while building and maintaining over 1.3 million affordable homes. She co-leads a bill to tax private equity companies if they own large numbers of single-family homes and use the proceeds to build millions of housing units for low-income households. She also cosponsors bills to ban hedge funds from owning single-family homes, restrict tax breaks for big corporate investors that buy up homes, and a bill that supports the PRICE Program, which aims to preserve long-term affordability of manufactured home communities.
You can read the letter here or below.
Ms. Marguerite Nader
President and CEO
Equity LifeStyle Properties, Inc.
Two North Riverside Plaza
Chicago, Illinois 60606
Dear Ms. Nader,
I write to express my deep concern with the situation at the Cimarron Park community in Lake Elmo, Minnesota. Without a safe, stable, and affordable place to call home, nothing in your life works. Unfortunately, the business practices of your company are jeopardizing the livelihood of my constituents. I encourage you to listen to residents and work to address their needs.
For years, residents of Cimarron Park have shared their frustrations over Equity LifeStyle Properties’ management practices and steep increases to lot rent. Rent has increased by more than 5% on average for each of the last five years. Now, residents face another 6% hike in the New Year. These continuous increases have added up while at the same time, residents report poor physical maintenance and crumbling amenities. This means that they are paying more and more towards rent, with little to show for it. This is especially concerning for the many residents who rely on fixed incomes and are struggling to make ends meet.
I am also very concerned with your company’s practices that make it more difficult for a family to sell their home. Your rules make selling or moving into a new home are unnecessarily expensive and can trap households in a cycle of ever-increasing rent. Residents also report unacceptable treatment from the park’s management, including unannounced lot entries, arbitrary enforcement of regulations, and retaliation for their efforts to advocate for their community.
We know that private equity firms and real estate investment trusts are buying a growing share of manufactured home communities in Minnesota and across the country. Profit-driven corporations must stop putting their shareholders ahead of hardworking Americans like those in Cimarron Park and the other 72,000 homes owned by Equity LifeStyle Properties. Again, I encourage you to engage with Cimarron Park residents to promptly address the many concerns they have raised to you and take action to address similar concerns at any of your other Minnesota properties.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Sincerely,
Tina Smith
Chair
Subcommittee on Housing, Transportation, and Community Development
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