JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Manufactured housing plays a key role in providing affordable housing, especially in Florida, which has one of the largest numbers of mobile home parks in the country.
But unlike single-family homeowners, mobile homeowners do not have the same legal protections against displacement, and every year, mass evictions leave residents with few options.
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Bazil Trotman, 82, thought he’d found his forever home when he purchased a mobile home in Jacksonville for under $100,000. Like most park residents, he owned the structure but rented the land underneath it.
Nationwide, the average lot rent in 2023 was about $470 a month, far below traditional rental costs. In 2025, those rents are rising.
Trotman’s lot rent was closer to $800. Still, the arrangement worked for him until he was evicted. He said the eviction stemmed from an argument with his community manager.
“She made up a story that I choked her, that I’m stalking her, that I drew a gun on her,” Trotman said. “I definitely say the eviction…was illegal.”
News4JAX reviewed Trotman’s eviction filing, which details a violent argument. But when the police came out to make a report on the altercation, Trotman and his neighbors told police that the story was exaggerated. With no evidence of wrongdoing, no official police report was filed.
Still, the eviction was filed successfully by the mobile home park. Trotman’s home now appears to be listed for sale by the property owner.
Trotman says the loss has been devastating. He is now living in his daughter’s garage, unable to secure a new loan because of the repossession on his credit record.
“At my age now, to start all over again…I was very happy in that home. I had it put together beautifully,” he said.
An article published in Urban Studies recently documented eviction activity in Florida’s mobile home parks for the first time. Researchers wrote that residents who are evicted often must choose from “the least bad” of three options: abandon the home outright, sell it for pennies on the dollar, or attempt an expensive and difficult move to another park.
For Trotman, abandoning his home was the only choice.
In Duval County, the eviction filing rate for mobile home parks is the highest in Florida at 7.6%, more than triple the state average.
Juan Pablo Garnham with Princeton University’s Eviction Lab says that while mobile homes offer a rare source of affordable housing, they also come with significant risks.
“Mobile homes are giving us something that is very unique right now in the United States: affordability. But the problem is that affordability comes with a cost,” Garnham said.
Unlike apartment renters, mobile homeowners may have invested tens of thousands of dollars in a property they can’t easily move or sell. Losing the lot to eviction often means losing the home entirely.
“Places where we see high eviction rates, it is places where eviction is really easy, happens really fast, and there aren’t a lot of options for tenants and renters to protect themselves,” Garnham said.
For residents like Trotman, the impact is life-changing.
“I didn’t have a chance because I had nobody to represent me in court,” he said. “I would hate to see it happen to another person.”