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<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nIf it becomes law, it would allow mobile homeowners to have live-in aides in their homes without paying additional rent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Most importantly, it would give mobile homeowners a clearer, easier way to mediate with mobile home park owners and contest unreasonable \u201clot rent\u201d increases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A \u201clot rent\u201d is paid monthly when a mobile home owner leases the land their mobile home sits on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Over the past few months, multiple people have reached out to ABC Action News about rising lot rents and how they\u2019re putting senior citizens on fixed incomes and others at risk of homelessness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One of the people who reached out was Brandi Norsworthy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI pray that I\u2019m not going to be homeless. I pray that Florida will take a stand for the little people,\u201d she said, with emotion in her voice. \u201cI\u2019m tearing up right now because it\u2019s so stressful.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Last year, she used a legal settlement to buy a mobile home at a mobile home park in Lakeland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She thought she\u2019d be paying a lot of rent at $520 a month, but Norsworthy said she got a letter in October that notified her of an increase that took effect on Jan. 1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cDue to market rent and expenses, it seems impossible not to increase,\u201d the letter specified.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lot rent went up $85 to $605 a month. For Brandi, who\u2019s barely scraping by on a tight budget, that\u2019s a lot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI bring in $963 a month,\u201d she said. \u201cBy the time I pay the $605 lot rent, time I pay my life bill, time I, you know, put gas and make sure he\u2019s got stuff he needs, I buy miscellaneous \u2014 I have nothing. Nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Norsworthy hopes HB 613 will pass and that lawmakers like Stark will continue to advocate for mobile homeowners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI feel like the little people [have] no say in [anything]. The struggling people \u2014 we\u2019re nobody,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to Stark, HB 613 and its companion bill in the Senate should both pass during the next few days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Stark said, that even after the current legislative session ends, she will continue to work on the issue in future sessions. Next, she would like to target \u201cbad actor\u201d mobile home park owners who she said are circumventing current laws.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A bill that would provide Florida mobile homeowners more tools and protections is on the verge of passage. Its sponsor, Rep. Paula Stark, who represents part of Osceola County, expects HB… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42705,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[7760],"class_list":["post-42704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","tag-bill-giving-mobile-homeowners-more-protections-on-the-verge-of-passage"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42704"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42704\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42706,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42704\/revisions\/42706"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}