City of Tucson awarded $11.5M HUD grant to refurbish mobile homes

The city of Tucson was awarded an $11.5 million grant for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to provide financial assistance for moderate- and low-income households living in manufactured housing, local officials announced last week.

Tucson was one of 17 cities out of a pool of 175 applicants to be awarded the funds, called a Preservation and Reinvestment Initiatives for Community Enhancement or PRICE grant.

The funds will be used to rehabilitate or replace aging or unsafe housing units and make them more climate efficient, city officials said, and will provide emergency eviction prevention and legal assistance for Pima County residents both inside and outside of Tucson city limits to prevent displacement from manufactured housing areas and mobile home lots.

The initiative will focus on residents living in the 85705 zip code and the areas near Flowing Wells, Benson Highway, and between I-19 and South Mission Road.

Manufactured housing is the most affordable housing type available in Tucson, Mayor Regina Romero said in a release, and the funds will be used to weatherize housing in order to lessen the financial burden of extreme utility bills in one of the fastest warming cities in the country.

The funding “will help the city of Tucson create housing affordability in communities that are most vulnerable to displacement,” Romero said.

Manufactured housing and mobile homes account for around 10 percent of all housing units in the Tucson area, according to the release, which is more than twice the amount in other Western U.S. cities.

Around 35 percent of Pima County’s manufactured homes were made before 1976 and were built with poor insulation, hazardous materials and fire-prone aluminum wiring.

“Many of these homes provide shelter for vulnerable families and individuals who, if they didn’t have safe and adequate manufactured homes, could become homeless,” said Tucson Housing and Community Development Director Ann Chanecka in the release. “The deterioration of aging manufactured homes is an overlooked aspect of the housing crisis.”