Extreme heat is killing people in Arizona’s mobile homes - The Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2021/07/02/arizona-mobile-home-deaths/?itid=hp-top-table-main
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The mobile homes under study were built before 1976, when the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) updated construction and safety standards for manufactured housing. HUD updated energy efficiency standards in the 1990s. (The term “manufactured homes” replaced “mobile homes” in the 1990s.)
To be “mobile,” mobile homes were intentionally built “light,” and time and the elements have rendered them even more fragile and dangerous.
Pre-HUD code mobile homes present a list of threats. The old aluminum wiring deteriorates quickly and creates serious risk of fire. It’s also inadequate for powering a modern air-conditioning unit, unless the structure can be completely rewired.
Insulation is practically nonexistent. The sun beats down on the metal rooftops, which are sometimes covered in a thin coat of white sealant to prevent water leaks. Tar holds it together, but falls apart in heat, and the roof starts leaking.
An aged mobile home can be rife with toxic VOCs, including formaldehyde. Airborne asbestos fibers compete with mold. Fixing an aging mobile home could easily cost more than it’s worth — if the structure could survive the renovation.
“They are not energy compliant in any way,” said J.J. Swinney, chief production officer at Habitat for Humanity Tucson. Mobile home residents call its emergency hotline repeatedly to beg for help with homes that are falling apart and mobile home parks that don’t care.
He finds it unconscionable that low-income people are forced into living conditions like these “just because that’s what they can afford.”
“It breaks my heart,” said Swinney, who grew up in a mobile home. There isn’t much that Habitat Tucson can do. “It could cost $30,000 to make them safe,” he said. “They aren’t worth $30,000.”
In Tucson, mobile homes and modern manufactured housing represent more than 10 percent of the housing units in the city of 550,000, more than Los Angeles and Phoenix combined. Of that, 17,000 structures were built pre-1976.
The danger extends well beyond Arizona. Of the 6.5 million manufactured homes in the United States, mostly located in the Sun Belt, from California to Florida, one-third match the deadly substandard profile, research shows.