Preserving Access to Manufactured Housing Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. Speaker, it pains me to stand in opposition to my friend, the ranking member of the committee, and in support of H.R. 650, but I believe that H.R. 650 is a commonsense bill that actually preserves financing options for manufactured homes while preserving and maintaining consumer protections.

I want to add too that my friend from Missouri noted the health of the industry, and I would like to provide a countercomment on that. In the last decade alone--this very tough economic decade that we have had--there has been an 80 percent decline in the production of manufactured housing in the country. Some 160 plants have closed, and there has been a loss of some 200,000 jobs. Therefore, this industry is important to our Nation. As a percentage of total housing units, in my home State of Arkansas, we have 170,000 units, which is some 13 percent of housing units in our State--one of the largest percentages in the country.

For many years, I was a community banker with offices in the Mississippi Delta region of Arkansas. For many of our families, especially in rural areas, manufactured housing is not only the best option for housing, but it is the best option for clean, safe, modern, and affordable housing. Often, due to low volumes in these kinds of towns, it is the only option, as many of my colleagues have noted.

However, under the new mortgage rules issued by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, many of these manufactured housing loans are now automatically considered high cost and, therefore, would subject both the consumers to higher costs and the lenders to greater liability. Therefore, many of my old colleagues in community banking offer fewer loans, and that impacts hard-working, low- to moderate-income families across Arkansas and particularly in rural America, families whose only objective is to own a home, to have the dream of homeownership.

The Director of the CFPB has acknowledged that its rules may, in fact, have this issue of constraining credit, but as the executive director of Arkansas Manufactured Housing Association said in a recent letter:

Most low-income Arkansas families don't have the luxury when it comes to their mortgage options, and many of our member businesses won't last through a few more years of decline in sales.

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Regarding consumer protection, I agree with my colleagues that this bill does not weaken any current laws. It protects consumer access to affordable credit; it preserves the consumer's choice; it helps Americans achieve financial independence; and it prevents the CFPB rules from overprotecting low-income consumers out of the option of a manufactured home.

H.R. 650 is about protecting the American Dream of homeownership. I am proud to support this bipartisan bill. I think it is common sense.

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