Today at 2 p.m. HB 101, which seeks to provide some rights for trailer park residents, goes before the House Business and Labor Committee.---

The Manufactured home owners' rights bill sponsored by Rep. Janice Fisher [D-West Valley City] could not be more timely or more urgent argue trailer park activists, sick and tired of seeing poverty-stricken families desperate for a roof over their head being sold trailers that are unfit for human residence.

The bill, according to a Utah house democrats press release, seeks to "establish an aribtration process for homeowners and park owners, hold rent increases to once yearly and create a park owner-supported fund for dispute mediation." Intriguingly the bill would also require park owners to register annually with the Department of Commerce. Typically many park owners, often corporations, are located outside Utah.

City Weekly looked at the work of one trailer park activist, Salt Lake City's Community Action Program's Virginia Martinez, in a cover story called Trailers Trashed in 2007. Martinez continues to fight for residents because, she says, "unscrupulous vendors of old broken down mobile homes are selling these homes for ridiculous prices." She calls for an education program to "teach people to stop buying these homes."

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