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Story of the Week: Matt Chapman (Waukee, IA)

My name is Matt Chapman from Waukee, IA. I’ve lived in Midwest Country Estates since 2015. This used to be my grandmother’s home, but when she had to go into a facility and I couldn’t sell it, I paid it off and it became my first home. Everything was amazing at first. I built a big shed and a flower garden.

Everything was good until Havenpark came in in 2019 trying to raise our rent 66% (with an illegal notice that didn’t follow IA code). As soon as they came in, I made a Facebook page and started educating my neighbors on who we were dealing with. We reached out to the press and made them look so bad, they flew in to apologize.

In spite of the rent increases, they don’t put any money into infrastructure. It’s impossible to report issues because you can’t get through to anyone. There’s constant turnover – they went through about 5 managers. They neglect it all. We had a pothole sit there for over a year. Where does our rent go?

There are a lot of elderly people here. A lot of vets too. Havenpark created an atmosphere of fear. Some people had to cut their pills in half and go to food pantries. They refused one woman’s rent and she was forced to sell her home to another community.

We had new owners (family-run business) come in at the end of 2024 and now things are much better. Still, we’re probably 1% of the MHCs here in Iowa. Things aren’t going to change unless we get our elected officials to start taking steps to protect us. We formed the Iowa Manufactured Home Residents’ network to lobby our representatives to rein in the corporations and private equity companies extracting wealth from vulnerable Iowans. We’re continuing to fight for rent/eviction protections and corporate accountability!