The Founder recently went looking for the Leader of Spiritual Architecture for the Dirtlease Group. Spiritual Architecture is housed in an out-of-the-way office in the Bosworth Building on the main Dirtlease campus, next to Human Resources. It used to be called the Psychology Department. The name was changed during a re-branding initiative in the late 2010s. When the Founder found Spiritual Architecture, the department head was digging through a box of obsolete Dirtlease Psychology swag.
‘Do you want a tee shirt’, SA asked. ‘We have boxes and boxes of them’. He held up a long-sleeve shirt that read, in gold-on-black script up one sleeve and down the other, Its Redneck Rage to You, but It’s My Bread and Butter. Another showed a picture of a mobile home and an eagle with the caption, Where Eagles Dare.
‘Pack them up and send them to Burkina Faso’, the Founder said. ‘You’ll make a mint’.
‘How about this one’, SA said. He held up a baseball cap that read, I’m Not Cranky. It’s Just The Motherfucking Orangeburg. ‘Sorry’, he said. ‘Maybe I need a shrink.’
The Founder looked at his watch. If he were Elon Musk, he thought, he would have earned twenty grand in the time he had already spent talking to SA. Then again, he consoled himself by thinking, his trans child liked him. ‘That’s not why I came’, he said. ‘I came to talk about Frank Rolfe’s latest News Briefing’.
At the mention of Frank Rolfe, SA’s eyes lit up. ‘That guy could keep ten of me busy forever. I mean, being his shrink would be like being a mason in medieval France who spent his whole life working on one cathedral’.
‘He can’t be that interesting’, the Founder said. ‘It’s all if-you-don’t-raise-lot-rents-park-owners-will-redevelop-their-land-leading-to-a-supply-shortage. That, and a bunch of MAGA crap. The point about lot rents is true, but you only have to say it once.’
‘I believe that it is stimming’, SA said.
‘He is a smart man’, the Founder said.
‘Very true’, SA said.
‘And extremely successful, both as a park owner and as an educator’, the Founder said.
‘The education side of his business creates an opportunity for pump-and-dump’, SA said.
‘Interesting you would say that’, the Founder said. ‘He writes about a conflict of interest case in this week’s newsletter.’
‘Really’, SA said. As he spoke, he shuffled through a bunch of bumper stickers that read, Space Aliens Ate My Heat Tape and ’Harass’ Is One Great Word, Not Two.
‘He links to a story about a park owner who sued the city of Fresno because of a rent control ruling. A park formerly known as Trails End Mobile Home Park was purchased in 2022 by an investment group named Harmony Communities. Harmony changed the name of the park to La Hacienda and applied to the local rent control board to increase lot rent by $350 a month.’
‘That’s a lot’, SA said. ‘Was it justified?’
‘From the information I have been able to find, yes’, the Founder said. ‘The park was a bona fide shithole. Its operating license had been revoked in 2021 and there were two fires that resulted in multiple deaths. It is the kind of place that requires a big capital infusion to turn around.’
‘What was lot rent before the proposed bump?’
‘$300-$350.’
‘So, it was a greater-than-hundred-percent increase?’
‘Lot rent of $650 a month is justified in that case, I think. It will cost a boatload to turn that park around, and that money has to come from somewhere. Well-run parks are better to live in than shittily-run parks. And it’s California. Apartment rents go from a fortune on up. Six-fifty a month is well under half what a resident would pay for a two-bedroom apartment.’
‘What does Frank think?’
‘Are you taking the piss?’
SA looked at the Founder through glasses that made his eyes look big. ‘I should put that on a tee shirt’, he said. ‘How do you spell the last word?’
‘The rent control board considered the proposed lot rent bump and struck it down. They said that Harmony Communities was a sophisticated investor that should have known the risks of buying a shithole park in a highly regulated market. They allowed a rent control increase of $24.92, consistent with the CPI.’
‘So, a park owner got hosed by rent control. That’s just Tuesday. That is what Frank wants us to waste our eyeballs on?’
‘It gets curiouser’, the Founder said. ‘Harmony Communities sued the City of Fresno because, they said, a member of the rent control commission is also affiliated with an entity that develops and owns affordable housing that had a vested interest in keeping the price of the park down.’
‘What’s his name?’
‘His name is Katie Wilber. He identifies as a woman, was assigned female at birth and uses she/her pronouns. She is the executive director of RH community Builders.’
‘Did RH Community Builders attempt to buy the park?’
‘The record is unclear. In their complaint, Harmony Communities claims that RH Community Builders actively sought to purchase the park. RH Community Builders did not submit a bid to acquire government funding to purchase the park when bids for that funding were being accepted. However, GV Wire did review communications that indicate that RH Community Builders had some interest in buying the park.’
SA looked up from a box full of cell phone pop-handles and whistled through his lips, lowly. ‘If those allegations are true’, he said, ‘That is significant. She could be using the apparatus of the government to suppress the price of an asset that she wants to buy’.
‘Yup’, the Founder said. ‘Kind of like the President using the State Department to strongarm the Ukrainian government to get dirt on a political rival.’
‘Wow’, SA said.
‘But that is not Frank being weird’, the Founder said. ‘That is an interesting article that brings an important issue to our attention. He paired it with thoughtful commentary. The article that made me think he is losing it again is an editorial in the Yamhill County News Register.’
‘Where the hell is Yamhill County?’
‘The article is a plea for more mobile home parks. It says that the country is undergoing a housing crisis. Manufactured housing communities are a way for working people to own their homes at prices that they can afford. The problem is that there is a shortage of manufactured housing communities. This is the result of draconian regulation that forces owners to close their parks, as well as to zoning boards that refuse to grant developers permits to build new parks. It is NIMBYISM at its worst. The editorial says that more zoning boards should grant permits to more developers to build more mobile home parks.’
‘Isn’t that what Frank has been saying all along?’
‘Yes! He says it in his blog posts and in his seminars. For all I know he sings it in the shower and mumbles it in his sleep.’
‘Do you agree with Frank on this point?’
‘Of course! More mobile home parks would mean more affordable housing, which would mean more working people with roofs over their heads. The NIMBYs prevent this from happening.’
‘So – Frank came out in support of the editorial?’
‘No! He said that the author was a NIMBY. If an actual park were proposed in the author’s backyard, the author would be the first to go to zoning board meetings to protest it!’
‘Does he know the author?’
‘Not to my knowledge.’
‘Is he privy to the author’s inner state?’
‘I suspect not.’
‘Are his objections even relevant? I mean, shouldn’t we focus on the substance of what the editorial says, rather than what the author would do in a hypothetical situation?’
‘Nope.’
‘Where is Yamhill County?’
‘Oregon, not far from Portland. A region where housing is expensive in a highly-regulated blue state. Exactly the kind of place that would benefit from increased supply.’
SA furrowed his brow and looked at the floor. ‘Wow’, he said. ‘Maybe Frank really is losing it.’
‘What does that mean for the industry’, the Founder said.
‘If he grows his hair, moves to Tahiti, starts painting pictures of local women and dumps his holdings, that might depress prices a bit. It would be like an elephant getting out of a bathtub, or George Soros dumping Sterling.’
‘Anything else’, the Founder asked.
‘I’m a psychiatrist’, SA said. ‘Not a fortune-teller.’
‘What do you see anecdotally’, the Founder asked. ‘Like, things you have noticed.’
‘Well, I have not been able to keep these on the shelves.’ SA unfolded and held up a tee shirt that read My Daughter Dated Frank Rolfe and All I Got Was This Shitty Tee Shirt. ‘They have been flying out the door. He might be crazy, but he’s doing something right.’