‘A thunderclap that unpacks UMH CEO Sam Landy’s statements defines the benchmark for failure’ in ROAD to Housing Act

UMH CEO Sam Landy should be thanked for sharing via HousingWire his recent op-ed, which puts together a perhaps subtle call for the Manufactured Housing Institute (MHI) to do what the Manufactured Housing Association for Regulatory Reform (MHARR) called for amendment of the ROAD to Housing Act 2025. Think carefully about what Landy said and didn’t say in: Manufactured housing is the future of affordable housing. Landy states, “Manufactured housing offers a proven, scalable path to affordable homeownership – if policymakers remove outdated barriers.” Landy’s evidence-based argument includes the points that manufactured homes allow households to buy with less than half the income and for potentially hundreds of thousands at a lower overall cost than conventional “site-built” homes.

Landy specifically cited the “Road to Housing Act.” He outlined points that those in the know would know that the ROAD Act – unless modified as MHARR encourages – will not resolve.

Examples, quoting Landy.

“Federal mortgage agency loan programs (FHA, RHS, VAFannie Mae and Freddie Mac) can also help. These programs finance 65% of all new mortgages (Page 8, Urban Institute Mortgage Chartbook). But together, they didn’t finance a single piece of personal property last year. In fact, this disconnect stems from the fact that personally owned homes make up about 70% of the manufactured housing market.

Local communities across the country can also help with affordable manufactured housing. Unfortunately, too often communities adopt discriminatory zoning laws that unfairly exclude manufactured housing. This has to change.”

For example, UMH has experienced this in Coxsackie, New York, where village officials repeatedly rejected well-planned designs for a community and ultimately resorted to rewriting the village’s zoning code to prevent UMH from building a manufactured housing community on land it purchased for that purpose.

Among the facts or terms not specifically mentioned in Landy’s op-ed? However, the words “Manufactured Housing Institute” (MHI) are not mentioned Landy now serves on the MHI board of directors.

Per MARR.

“These issues and the failure to address them in the ROAD to Housing bill are detailed in a MHARR analysis titled “A Critical Analysis of the U.S. Senate ROAD to Housing Act of 2025”, which was widely distributed to the industry and other interested individuals and companies on August 14, 2025. important bottlenecks are:

• (1) The proliferation of zoning regulations that discriminatorily exclude or unreasonably restrict the placement of HUD-regulated manufactured homes; And
• (2) The failure of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to implement statutory Duty to Serve Underserved Markets (DTS) with respect to the nearly 80% of the manufactured consumer credit market represented by personal property loans.”

Landy has been a lawyer for decades. According to sources deemed reliable, he regularly reads industry and other news. He knows that without millions more HUD code manufactured homes the America’s affordable housing crisis cannot be solved And without the MHARR amendmentsthe The ROAD Act will fail to solve the housing crisis. His job is to know that MHARR’s two points above would solve the problems he mentioned via HousingWire, cited above.

The timing of Landy’s op-ed is remarkable.

By accident or design, Landy waited to join MHI’s board of directors.

Under the fact-evidence analysis (FEA) checks by multiple third-party artificial intelligence (AI) systems, the following findings were of Twin.

• “Landy’s statement defines the failure metric (“Has not financed any personal property manufactured in a home”). MHI’s actions, or lack thereof, on mandatory legislative solutions (such as those advocated by MHARR) are the mechanism allowing this failure to continue. MHI’s stance is consistent with Landy’s rhetoric, but its behavior in Washington is consistent with preserving the market structure that is leading to Landy’s stated failure.”

Second pilot said this.

• “MHI: Public silence on MHARR amendments/DTS urgency. Paywall hides advocacy…’

Per Grok.

• “MHI sincere effort on ROAD Act per MHARR? ❌ None clear
• MHARR’s August 15 white paper demands amendments to the Senate-passed ROAD Act 2025 (e.g., enforce DTS ownership, avoid chassis disposal pitfalls). MARR White Paper”

From there MARR White Paper.

• “MHARR President and CEO, Mark Weiss, stated: “While MHARR welcomes the elimination of the statutory ‘permanent chassis’ mandate for newly manufactured homes, we are disappointed that our colleagues at the Manufactured Housing Institute (MHI) – ostensibly the ‘lead’ trade association advancing the manufactured housing-related aspects of this legislation – apparently allowed critical flaws to be incorporated into the legislation while simultaneously addressing the most serious bottlenecks that have stymied the industry. were omitted.” Weiss continued, “Hopefully, MHI will step forward and seek solutions to these issues as the legislative process unfolds.”

The CEO of MHI, Leslie Goochis listed with comments similar to those of MHARR in a letter to then-HUD Secretary Ben Carson.

Democratic lawmakers with secretary Mel Martinez (R) and a Republican lawmaker with Secretary Marcia Fudge (D) are known for calling for enforcement of what is usually “improved priority’law made under the Manufactured Housing Improvement Act from 2000.

That power under the The 2000 reform law to overcome local zoning barriers has rarely been invoked by HUD. Congress held oversight hearings 2011 And 2012 that both MHI and MHARR indicated they wanted to enforce HUD.

So why is “improved priority” Missing from the MHI website?

Why isn’t MHI putting pressure on Congress to enforce existing laws that board member Sam Landy has effectively drawn attention to through HousingWire?

Who benefits from the status quo that is almost guaranteed to continue if the ROAD to Housing Act is not amended as MHARR has called for if not the intermediaries That dominate the MHI board?

That’s Landy’s de facto thunderclap. Like one lawyer, Landy undoubtedly knows that if federal precedence was enforced that the development in Coxsackie, NY to which he referred would not have been blocked.

“There are many types of journalism, but at the heart of their constitutional responsibilities, journalists are concerned with monitoring and keeping an eye on the people and institutions in power.”

– The American Press Institute.

If MHI is serious about returning manufactured housing to historically robust growththe procedure is clear. To get Congress to change AWAY to the Housing Act to solve the problems MHI board member Sam Landy exposed.

Tony Kovach is co-founder of ManufacturedHomeProNews.com and ManufacturedHomeLivingNews.com.
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of HousingWire’s editorial staff and its owners. To contact the editor responsible for this piece: [email protected].

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