"This Bud's not for Jesse"

Site Index:

Previous Notes

Confessions of an Average Joe

Give Jesse Boswell credit even before you give him justice. When Boswell takes on an opponent, he doesn't pick a lightweight.

Boswell, 64, claims he was wronged when he was a tenant in the Colonial Estates mobile home community, 14139 S. Western Avenue in Dixmoor. According to Boswell, he was prevented from selling his mobile home after deciding it was time to move. As a result, Boswell is suing Manufactured Housing Communities, which owns the mobile home park, for what he lost after he resorted to junking his mobile home. He's also suing for expenses.

The total estimated by Boswell is something in the neighborhood of $15,000. More significant than the money involved, however, is what Boswell has learned since he filed suit.

First, Boswell discovered that mobile home owners who rent space in parks have very few rights as guaranteed by law in Illinois.

Second, Boswell discovered that the reason he and his fellow mobile home owners have few rights is because of people like Edwin "Bud" Zeman, who is the force behind the limited partnership that is known as Manufactured Housing Communities.

Zeman's partnership, limited in name only, reportedly operates 29 other sites in Illinois and Indiana. With the help of the Illinois Manufactured Housing Association (IMHA), a high powered lobby group of which he is a director, Zeman has been influential enough to control mobile home park legislation in Illinois.

It is Zeman's name that is on the real estate broker's license for all 30 Manufactured Housing Community parks. And according to Illinois law, or the absence it, Zeman's credentials permit his employees to rent or sell in mobile home parks as if they were licensed real estate agents.

That's right, park managers, whether they are qualified or not, can sell and lease mobile homes or lots without any knowledge of real estate or professional standards. They are not required by law to take any courses or even to hold an associate's license.

As you can imagine, the absence of regulation can cause even more problems than a lack professionalism. Case in point: according to Boswell, when he announced he was moving from Colonial Mobile Home Estates and would sell his trailer, he was informed that he could sell only to a buyer approved by Colonial Estates management.

After 11 qualified buyers applied and were denied, Boswell decided to take action. He consulted with an attorney and filed a lawsuit.

"I was told up front by my neighbors in the park that they [Colonial Estates management] would never let me sell," Boswell said. "I had qualified buyers who wanted to buy my mobile home, and not one was approved. So I filed suit. Then they finally told me I could sell, buy only to one of their preferred buyers and with the stipulations that I drop the lawsuit and give them a kickback."

The manager of the mobile home park who allegedly asked for the kickback is gone, but her departure didn't help Boswell. He moved out of the park but left the trailer behind, continuing to pay for his lease and maintenance. Refusing to bow to the pressure of Colonial Estates management, which threatened to take the trailer because they said it was abandoned, Boswell finally junked his trailer for $500 ($6,500 less than he'd been offered by several buyers) and had it hauled away.

Depositions in the case were taken only recently, so it could be months before the case of Boswell vs Bud gets to court. But one day out of the blue, Boswell decided to contact the Blue Island Sun Newspaper about his problem and the plight of other mobile home owners. The story was intriguing, so I did some checking into the mobile home industry, which in some ways is like a series of Third World dictatorships right in our own backyards. This is what I learned.

Though there is very little on the books protecting mobile home owners, legislation has been continuously reintroduced for at least a decade. Most recently, state senator Christine Radogno of LaGrange introduced Senate Bill 70, which would have created an ombudsman to settle disputes between tenants and park owners. On March 23 of 1999, SB 70 passed the Senate by a total of 57-2.

After the bill sailed through the Senate, it should have had no problem humming through the House, right? Guess again.

With Zeman and the powerful IMHA waiting to bushwhack it in the House of Representatives, the legislation was beaten to death before it even reached the floor. In fact, during a subcommittee hearing of the House Executive Committee, Zeman himself testified that the legislation was unnecessary because there were so few problems between tenants and owners. He reportedly also told representatives that disputes are settled within the mobile home parks by the mobile home park owners and tenants.

Said one witness to Zeman's testimony, "He came in and talked down to everyone. He was the most arrogant person I've ever seen. That's the best way to describe him."

According to the witness, Zeman, who should have known better, also added the ultimate insult to injury when he continuously referred to mobile home owners as "trailer owners," a term which tenants find offensive by its connotation.

Not that Zeman singlehandedly did the entire hatchet job on the legislation. Cronie Ralph Caparelli (D-Chicago), who helped Zeman get his name on the application as one of the prospective owners of the neww riverboat casino in Rosemont, was one of the big bashers of the bill.

Caparelli, Brent Hassert (R-Romeoville), and other Members of the House Executive Committee, according to the State Board of Elections, have been the recipients of campaign contributions from Zeman and IMHA. Caparelli accepted approximately $12,000 from mobile home park owners, which includes $1,000 from the IMHA. Hassert accepted over $2,500, including $1,449 from Zeman's limited partnership.

If there's one law in Illinois that we desperately need to get off the books, it's this: politicians don't bite the hand that feeds them.

In the meantime, the group that continues to be snakebit is the mobile home owners. They have their own loggy, the Mobile Home Owners Association of Illinois, but it's one in which there is no strength in numbers. M.H.O.A.I. has approximately 6,000 Members, but all of them seem to be completely intimidated by park owners like Zeman.

"The mobile home owner in Illinois is so worried about being evicted that he won't do anything to upset the park owner," said M.H.O.A.I. president Bob Heddinger. "He's subject to arbitrary rent increases, changes to the lease, you name it, but he's afraid to fight."

"Without unity or the financial resources, we can't battle IMHA. Why, in Wheeling there is one mobile home park that takes in over two million dollars a year in rents alone." Heddinger continued. "That kind of money helps to pay for IMHA and it's full-time lobbyist. That's why we can't get legislation passed."

Radogno agrees.

"It's difficult to fight IMHA. They have a powerful lobby," she said. "It's too bad because SB 70 is good legislation. It's fair, and it would probably pass if it reached the House floor. We just can't get it out of committee."

In the meantime, Boswell is hopeful. He believes he has a good case against Zeman and Illinois Manufactured Housing. He also thinks the case might open a few eyes to the problems mobile home owners have with park owners.

"Sure, I want what's coming to me, but there are a lot of good people out there who are living in mobile homes who are unprotected," said Boswell. "I'd like to see them get the rights and protection they deserve, too."