According to remarks made by a senior level staff official for Congressman Scott Franklin (FL-18-R) to a lobby occupied by multiple constituents on 5.20.2025, their office has seen a recent increase in output on ‘constituent services’ cases with federal agencies they are handling. It was a remark that was not necessarily intended as a statement to media, as this writer just happened to be there on different matters that included manufactured housing. Nevertheless, that asserted increase in performance of federal employees working on constituent related requests follows the Trump Administration’s executive order mandating a return to work in offices by federal employees.
As with many issues that are in the news since President Donald J. Trump (R) and Vice President J.D. Vance (R) were sworn in on January 20, 2025, there are reports available online that both confirm what that congressional staffer said and contradicting those statements too. A review of headlines on this date about that topic will serve to illustrate.
What is happening to the federal workforce under Trump …
National Federation of Federal Employees
https://nffe.org › Archives: NFFE News
Feb 21, 2025 — President Trump also signed a return-to-office executive order that instructs agencies to order their federal employees to return to work at the …
Missing: speed output increasing
Is it too late for the Trump administration to try something …
https://www.brookings.edu › articles › is-it-too-late-for-…
May 14, 2025 — Elaine Kamarck examines how the Trump administration’s attacks on federal workers are undermining its own goals for government reform.
Missing: speed output
Agencies will still see strict limits on recruitment once hiring …
https://federalnewsnetwork.com › 2025 › April
Apr 18, 2025 — Agencies will only be able to hire one employee for every four employees who leave, following the end of a hiring freeze that’s now extended to July 15.
Missing: increasing | Show results with: increasing
Federal workers ordered back to office find shortages …
https://www.npr.org › 2025/03/26 › nx-s1-5338945 › f…
Mar 26, 2025 — Telework saved federal agencies more than $230 million in fiscal year 2023, OPM’s survey found, led by reduced costs for commuting and transit, …
As it is early in the Trump Administration version 2.0 (a.k.a.: T2) much of these reports are essentially anecdotal, as there has not been enough time to develop a formal study of something that has only recently occurred. That doesn’t confirm or deny what that congressional staffer said, it is merely a point for truth seekers to keep in mind. Media often reflects the bias of its publishers. Which is one of several reasons why MHProNews has since 6.9.2017, used the graphic below to illustrate the possible bias influencing a media narrative.
Understanding Agenda Driven Narratives
There are often multiple versions of events depending on what media outlet is being considered. That is why that bias chart shown above was and remains useful. MHProNews has over the years refined bias information and graphic to include the bias of search engines and sources such as Wikipedia. Conflicting claims should be sorted out and sifted in a process akin to seeking the truth analogous to sifting the wheat from the proverbial chaff.
By using resources such as Influence Watch, which has an extensive database of quotes and references that routinely cite the organization being probed, it may become clearer or clear as to what the possible bias or agenda of a source can be. Influence Watch website on this date said this.
InfluenceWatch provides fact-based, accurate descriptions of all of the various influencers of public policy issues. Armed with 30-years of research and data on advocacy organizations, we’ve built profiles that will inform the debate.
The Joe Biden-Kamala Harris (D) Administration has been, and is being, accused of a range of purportedly corrupt behavior. There are claims asserting evidence which appears troubling but plausible that has emerged that federal data was corrupted in order to make the Biden-Harris agenda seem more successful than it actually was. There are also claims about Biden himself and his fitness, or lack thereof, for having occupied the White House. While some can and do assert that the reverse is occurring under Trump-Vance (for example, accepting a Boeing Jet from Qatar being a form of corruption, despite the fact that negotiations for such a donation reportedly started while Biden was still in office), once more bias and a range of insights should be considered in order to discern what is true and what is merely a demeaning smear.
So let me get this straight the plane that was a gift from Qatar was actually a conversation that was started a year ago by the Biden administration with the Qataris? You literally can’t make this stuff up. pic.twitter.com/LDjs2yR5NK
— Insurrection Barbie (@DefiyantlyFree) May 15, 2025
That is left-leaning CNN reporter Jake Tapper in the video above. Tapper once worked as a Democratic Congressional staffer.
🚨BOMBSHELL REPORT🚨
Jake Tapper reports on everything we reported over a year ago.
The White House lied about authentic footage showing Joe Biden’s declining health by calling it a cheap fake.
Tapper now acknowledges this since he has a book to sell. pic.twitter.com/w4ZloUJsIc
— Breanna Morello (@BreannaMorello) May 19, 2025
CNN’s Jake Tapper finally admits the White House hid Biden’s decline—what many shouted for years. They misled you, the cabinet, the world. Where was Tapper when truth mattered? Media silence greased the fraud; complicity is a scandal of its own. Demand answers now. 2/11 pic.twitter.com/uiRFA0lZMD
— Next News Network 🇺🇲 (@NextNewsNetwork) May 14, 2025
The evidence for the ‘drive by and wrap up smear’ is provided by no less a figure than former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (CA-D).
To the point of Tapper’s book, who some say was mostly the work of others and Tapper was enlisted in the effort to help sell copies.
Jake Tapper’s new book, Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again, is an inspiration. He blames the whole scandal on “the White House,” but not its media enablers. Jake’s ability to monetize his personal failure is awesome. pic.twitter.com/FdRUM6qYgi
— 🌴🌴 The Tropical Cow 🐄🌴🌴 (@Tropicow) May 19, 2025
Unsurprisingly, @megynkelly was mega-prepared to expose Jake Tapper’s lies and excuses.
No matter how humiliated Tapper is, he’s making millions off this book. The sad part is his co-author, @AlexThomp, is one of the very few in corporate media with credibility to write it: https://t.co/QXWZvoNitp
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) May 20, 2025
Some Democrats and thinly veiled Democratic supporters attempt to deflect responsibility for what occurred, perhaps with the idea of attempting to reposition that party for 2026 and 2028.
To rebuild trust, Democrats must be honest. In light of the facts that have come out, Joe Biden should not have run for reelection, and we should have had an open primary. @chucktodd and @davidaxelrod were right.https://t.co/PCVbeRYTyT
— Ro Khanna (@RoKhanna) May 14, 2025
But none of that is news in the strict sense. For those with a memory and who have been reading MHProNews for multiple years, this platform reported on the clip below when in the 2020 Democratic Party’s Presidential Debate longtime Democrat and former Obama-Biden HUD Secretary Julian Castro accused Joe Biden of forgetting what he said just moments before.
Meaning, the left-leaning LA Times and the ABC News clip above document concerns predate Tapper’s book “Original Sin” by several years. One has to be willing to look at the facts and evidence across the spectrum and be aware that uncomfortable truths can emerge from left-leaning (in this case) sources. However, they can quickly be buried under an avalanche of counter claims. This is one of the ways how perceptions of reality are massaged, and “consent” is “manufactured.” Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman are both men from the political left who nevertheless shed light on how this process has been employed in the U.S. for well over a century. See the link below that includes Edward Bernays book on Propaganda that includes its use in the U.S.
During the 2016, 2020, and 2024 campaign cycles, MHProNews and MHLivingNews shed periodic light on misleading and false claims, often by showing how a person’s own words could undermine what that same person later said or did. That is a time-consuming process. But it can prove useful.
An Alternative to the Nursery Rhyme/Folk Song Billy Boy
It is curious, but whoever first shared the once popular nursery rhyme/folk song “Billy Boy” with this writer did so in a way that differed from the actual version. This is how the opening verse was shared. The question in the first segment is replied to by “Charming Billy” in the second verse.
“Oh, where have you been Billy Boy, Billy Boy, oh where have you been Charming Billy?
I’ve been to see my wife, she’s the apple of my life, she’s a young thing and cannot leave her mother.”
One this date, Gemini said the following about the above.
“The lines you provided are from the traditional English nursery rhyme “Oh, Where Have You Been, Billy Boy?”. The rhyme is a series of questions and answers, with Billy Boy (and sometimes Charming Billy) answering about his activities, often in a playful or even contradictory way…”
Note the last phrase by Gemini: “often in a playful or even contradictory way…”
There have long been stories, real or fictional, that have revealed the reality that some narrative is manufactured and that a narrative can entertaining, interesting, or whatever, but when carefully examined it may be “even contradictory…” This is nothing new, as the linked references above to Edward Betrays, Edward Herman, and Noam Chomsky illustrated. Long before the military industrial complex warning remarks were made by President Dwight D. Eisenhauer (R) as part of his farewell address, Marine Major General Smedley Butler said something quite similar.
That noted, there isn’t just a “military industrial” complex. There are many institutionalized corporate and governmental influence and interests. During the 2024 campaign, MHProNews spotlighted the remarks by a self-described liberal who nevertheless was blowing the whistle on the ‘tens of billions’ wasted by the ‘affordable housing industrial complex.’
Hold those thoughts, while we pivot back to the headline point and what that Congressional staffer said to constituents.
IF that remark cited in the opening is true (and it is plausible) that federal employees returning to the office is making the federal workforce more efficient, that will beg its own questions. How swiftly (or slowly), for example, will HUD Secretary Scott Turner be in responding to the concerns raised by the Manufactured Housing Association for Regulatory Reform (MHARR) in that previously reported face-to-face meeting with Turner and several HUD staffers in attendance?
Note the MHProNews article below uses the same photo used by MHARR above but has distinctive content.
While it may be hoped that MHARR’s efforts will bear fruit at getting federal laws that have long been in existence to be routinely and properly enforced, whatever occurs, MHProNews plans to objective monitor and report accordingly. If federal staffers are getting more done faster for constituents, how much time should be allowed before HUD leadership is held to account if it fails to address the issues raised by MHARR?
Hold those thoughts, as we pivot back to what follows. Because it isn’t just MHARR that has met with HUD Secretary Turner or is otherwise attempting to exert influence on the Trump Administration, HUD, the FHFA, or DOE among other federal agencies.
In reports published recently, MHProNews has been systematically providing evidence to various popular artificial intelligence (AI) platforms. Note the Q&A ‘chat’ threads revealed in those can reflect initial push-back or alternative possibilities that might explain the behavior of the Manufactured Housing Institute (MHI). But the more evidence that is presented, the more various AI systems admit that the most plausible explanation based on known evidence is that MHI is posturing efforts for reasons that amount to “optics” while they are presiding of the steady consolidation of the industry often by MHI linked insiders. Industry underperformance has to be explained, given the existence of federal laws that were meant to boost manufactured housing production rather than restrict it.
With that tee up, what follows was presented by this writer for MHProNews along with our adult son met with Congressional staffers on 5.20.2025. The meeting was booked with the person named in the document. But for whatever reasons, others working for Rep. Scott Franklin (FL-18-R) where in attendance during that face-to-face meeting, as photos taken afterwards reveal. Two phone numbers have been edited out of what follows that appeared in the original. Note that the way an item displays below is different than in a WORD or PDF document, but the content is the same.
—
Gabrielle Fazekas | Field Representative
Office of Congressman Scott Franklin (FL-18)
124 S. Florida Avenue, Suite 304
Lakeland, FL 33801
W: 863-644-8215 | …
RE: Affordable Housing Crisis: Causes-Costs-Hurdles and Solutions that are already Federal Law
Ms. Gabrielle Fazekas,
The U.S. housing crisis is both simple and complex. Among the simple realities is that a recent poll indicated that the top priorities for over half of all Americans was to get the cost of living down. For most Americans, the single largest cost is housing. After four years of Biden-Harris (D) policies, housing became less affordable despite record federal spending.
The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) 2025 annual “priced out” report indicated that some 75 percent of the population can’t afford a new median priced new conventional house.
HUD researchers Pamela Blumenthal and Regina Gray said the basic causes and cures to the affordable housing crisis have been well known for over 50 years, yet Democrats and Republican alike have failed to fix the root causes of the lack of affordable housing.
Odds are that the vast majority of Americans don’t realize that Congress studied the affordable housing crisis for over a decade and passed a law in a widely bipartisan fashion in 2000 to fix one of those root causes. The problem is, not unlike immigration/border control laws, often becoming law is just a step on the road to resolution. Public officials have to be willing to enforce laws that already exist in order for even a good law to produce results.
A range of third-party researchers have praised modern HUD Code manufactured homes because they cost about half-the-price per square foot than conventional housing. For a variety of reasons, including competing special interests, the Manufactured Housing Improvement Act of 2000 (a.k.a.: MHIA, MHIA 2000, 2000 Reform Law, 2000 Reform Act) gave HUD the authority to override local zoning barriers.
I’ve addressed several FHFA “listening sessions,” either live and in person in Washington, D.C. or virtually. I’ve been cited by mainstream media, the NAR in Scholastica “Gay” Cororaton (CRE) report on the Market for Manufactured Housing (pg 48 Footnote 1), and in the acknowledgements of a doctoral dissertation by Lisa Tyler, Ph.D. on manufactured housing. I’m considered an expert in the manufactured home field, perhaps because I’ve worked in the industry most of my life since the early 1980s. My wife and I are the co-founders and publishers of MHProNews.com and MHLivingNews.com. See praise by peers and competitors linked here or my LinkedIn profile for dozens of remarks by others in the industry. That’s stated so that what is shared via links and in this document will be taken seriously.
Researchers with associated with the Federal Reserve system have since at least 2018 to 2025 have been periodically writing and presenting their findings on what they say is ‘sabotage monopoly tactics related to the manufactured home industry.
Doug Ryan (then with CFED which later rebranded as Prosperity Now) said in 2016 that there is a ‘monopoly’ over manufactured housing which is keeping the industry from achieving its potential.
In 2020 Samuel Strommen then at Knudson Law produced a 17 page thesis with 130 footnotes on the “Monopolization of the American Manufactured Home Industry…”
Strommen specifically named the Manufactured Housing Institute (MHI) and some of its leading brands as apparently being part of an ongoing scheme to violate antitrust laws on behalf of its larger community operators and its “big three” manufacturers.
There are two national trade associations serving the manufactured home industry. One is MHI and the other is the Manufactured Housing Association for Regulatory Reform (MHARR). MHARR’s president and CEO, Mark Weiss, is an attorney. Weiss recently said the following in an on the record remark.
Imagine for a moment if one of the two national trade groups, which is by far the larger one, was working to consolidate the industry into the hands of its dominating members. Picture their method for doing so by keeping the industry underperforming so that low production will tend to keep new potential players out. This is the “moat” in action, barriers to entry, persistence, and exit which benefits a few while simultaneously harming the many. This isn’t a theory. It has been well documented in mainstream media and reported in our trade publications.
Google’s Gemini AI was asked to look at evidence of the concerns raised by those named above, linked and that follows. Some of Gemini’s findings are discussed linked here.
Gemini did a ‘deep research’ probe that has over 200 footnotes on this topic. It is linked below.
https://www.manufacturedhomepronews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/MHProNews-requested-GeminiDeepResearchValidity-of-SEC-Materiality-Guidance-and-Other-Allegations-Against-Manufactured-Housing-Institute-Members-4.26.2025.pdf It is published at the link below.
In 2023, four national civil antitrust actions were filed on behalf of the residents against multiple manufactured home community operators. It is similar in its argument to what the DOJ did in 2024 in the Real Page suit. The allegations are that using Datacomp, which is owned by Equity LifeStyle Properties (ELS) – which has long had a board seat on the main MHI board of directors – community operators are aggressively raising site fees (a.k.a.: lot rents) on residents. That trend has been national news for years.
MHI in their IRS Form 990 said that this is their mission under penalties of perjury.
“Improve the overall operating environment for the manufactured housing industry and expand the demand for manufactured homes by seeking fair and equitable treatment in the marketplace and the regulatory and legislative arenas.”
So, MHI tells new and potential members that they are working to expand the market. But despite posturing and lip service that Bing’s AI powered Copilot said was apparently for “optics,” the evidence reveals that their key members have often openly stated in their investor relations presentations that they like the status quo and that NIMBYism is a benefit to their business model. That’s a clear conflict of interest. Considered with other evidence, years of behavior reported by numbers of sources and researchers reveal apparent antitrust, RICO, SEC, IRS, and other violations of federal (or in some cases, state) laws.
One of the more recent research reports is a university study by Maris Jensen, who has also concluded that apparent antitrust violations have occurred in manufactured housing.
The following is an annotated (arrows, etc. added) screen capture of Copilot’s findings.
This sharp decline in production of manufactured homes results in a chronic shortage of affordable housing production.
James Schmitz, one of those Federal Reserve researchers came to a similar and complimentary conclusions.
The now late Sam Zell, former chairman of ELS said the following during an earnings call.
There are pages of examples from MHI member investor relations presentations that openly proclaim their desire to consolidate the manufactured home industry. Democratic lawmakers referred evidence of antitrust violations to the DOJ and CFPB. However, that too may have been for ‘optics’ as nothing happened after those referrals and some of those involved are big Democratic supporters.
Office of Congressman Scott Franklin (FL-18). That said, the content is the same.
Let’s sum up and then provide the request.
Without millions of more manufactured homes, which are routinely not subsidized because they are inherently more affordable, the affordable housing crisis can’t be solved.
Conventional builders can’t meet the price point, or the volume needed.
“In no market in this country can a home builder build a house that is affordable for a first-time home buyer.” – Then NAHB CEO Jerry Howard.
These are among the reasons why Congress passed the 2000 Reform Law and the Duty To Serve Manufactured Housing. MHI postures efforts to get those laws enforced, but the fact that almost 17 years have elapsed since DTS was passed by a widely bipartisan Congressional vote as part of HERA 2008, or that “enhanced preemption” under the 2000 Reform Law has only occasionally been enforced are evidence that MHI is either inept or posturing. AI powered Copilot, xAI, and Gemini – after digesting the facts and evidence and scanning the internet for alternative interpretations, each concluded that there is apparent issues involving MHI and its dominating members.
To be clear, obviously, federal agencies (i.e.: HUD and the FHFA, for example) should do what they are lawfully required by law to do. But when agencies fail to act, that is why associations exist to advocate on behalf of their members.
But when the largest national association fails for over 20 years to get a key federal law enforced, and a range of evidence points to purported antitrust, RICO, SEC and other violations, that merits investigation.
The SEC has already fined Cavco Industries and the former MHI chairman Joseph “Joe” Stegmayer. The SEC pleadings are useful reading.
A few have become wealthy in this fashion, while literally millions of affordable housing seekers (or in the case of residents living in ‘predatory’ manufactured home owners in certain – not all – land lease communities) are being harmed by this process. Because it is ongoing, statues of limitations have not yet begun ‘to run.’
During the 21st century, a range of major schemes operated for years despite regulators and whistleblowers. It was often the persistence of a few whistleblowers that caused some of those schemes to finally get regulatory and legal action. Madoff, WorldCom, Enron, Theranos are just some examples of that pattern.
There is no need to pass new laws.
What is needed is to enforce existing laws.
What is needed is to refer cases to various federal/state agencies for them to probe, much as Google or other antitrust cases have been probed.
So, my ask is this. That Congressman Franklin’s office issue appropriate letters to various agencies to ask them to probe these evidence-based issues. I’m happy to provide more details.
Respectfully submitted,
L. A. “Tony”
L. A. “Tony” Kovach
Managing Member
LifeStyle Factory Homes, LLC
Winter Haven, FL 33880
MHLivingNews.com | MHProNews.com | Patch.com/users/Tony-Kovach/articles |LATonyKovach.com |…| http://www.linkedin.com/in/latonykovach
— end of letter —
This article began with the statement by a congressional staffer that constituent services related items seem to be advancing more quickly now. If so, that’s a positive.
That said, HUD’s own statement made last year which was previously reported by MHProNews illustrates that HUD took decades to implement a policy that clearly could have been implemented decades earlier.
Programming notes. In the days ahead, among the topics that will be probed is the recent testimony by MHI Chairman William “Bill” Boor to Congress. That Boor testimony made on behalf of MHI may be construed as a kind of attempt to rebut the volumes of evidence, facts, and analysis that MHARR, MHProNews and MHLivingNews have presented. For truth seekers, it should be kept in mind that Boor is arguably paltering. Boor was using a mix of accurate statements that omit or downplay other key evidence. How that process works is explored by University of Sheffield Professor Tom Stafford’s insights, provided below.
Other programming items will include more earnings call, research, and other news items that will be unpacked in the days ahead. Stay tuned.
As a rebuttal in brief to what Boor said is this. The information provided above is already a kind of rebuttal to his statements to Congress. More to the point, if MHI was as effective as they claim, that hearing that Boor was presenting to would never have been needed. The fact that such a hearing was held is evidence that existing laws are not being properly implemented, which Boor himself has said. MHI leaders can’t have it both ways. MHI leaders can’t both be so wonderful and effective, yet the manufactured home industry is performing at only about 30 percent of the production level achieved in 1998. Watch for that planned fisking and related fact checks planned in the days ahead.
To put a ribbon around the headline topic. To make sense of competing narratives, one should consider carefully what the various parties have said. Then, outside information that relates to their topics should be considered. It must be considered that one (or perhaps more) parties are only partially sharing reality with the goal of manipulating readers/listeners, or perhaps to cover up wrongdoing. That process of carefully examining what a larger body of evidence and historic trends reveals is what sets this platform apart from its MHI linked rivals. Watch for those announced follow ups.
PS: Copilot’s response to the inquiry linked here opened with these words:
“Your assessment is well-supported by available evidence and aligns with documented trends in the manufactured housing industry.”
PS: after publishing this post, Copilot was asked to scan this report for accuracy and fidelity to our chat session.
Reminder. There are sound reasons why AI has said that MHProNews has more than 6x the combined readership of MHI and its affiliated bloggers and trade media.
Again, our thanks to free email subscribers and all readers like you, as well as our tipsters/sources, sponsors and God for making and keeping us the runaway number one source for authentic “News through the lens of manufactured homes and factory-built housing” © where “We Provide, You Decide.” © ## (Affordable housing, manufactured homes, reports, fact-checks, analysis, and commentary. Third-party images or content are provided under fair use guidelines for media.) See Related Reports. Text/image boxes often are hot-linked to other reports that can be access by clicking on them.)
By L.A. “Tony” Kovach – for MHProNews.com.
Tony earned a journalism scholarship and earned numerous awards in history and in manufactured housing.
For example, he earned the prestigious Lottinville Award in history from the University of Oklahoma, where he studied history and business management. He’s a managing member and co-founder of LifeStyle Factory Homes, LLC, the parent company to MHProNews, and MHLivingNews.com.
This article reflects the LLC’s and/or the writer’s position and may or may not reflect the views of sponsors or supporters.
Connect on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/latonykovach
