Prof. Anna Lund publishes new research on mass evictions from mobile home parks

Associate Professor Anna Lund of the University of Alberta Faculty of Law has published a new article examining the rules that govern mass evictions from mobile home parks.

“Tenant Protections in Mobile Home Park Closures” appears in UBC Law Review. David Adie, ‘21 JD, provided research and editorial assistance with the article. 

The article provides a timely examination of mass evictions in mobile home parks. A recent study conducted for the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation found mass evictions are becoming more common in Canada.

For mobile home parks, mass evictions most commonly occur when a landlord decides to sell the land for redevelopment or when aging infrastructure is too costly to repair, said Lund.

“Tenants in mobile home parks often find it difficult to move because they own their mobile home but rent the land it sits on,” she said. “When they are evicted, they may find that their home cannot be moved or that there are no places to move it to.”

“Mobile homes are much more prevalent in Alberta and BC, which have about 50% of all the mobile homes in Canada,” said Lund.

Lund conducted a case study on the closure of Midfield Mobile Home Park in Calgary and completed a survey of media to understand the frequency of mobile home park closures. 

She was surprised by her findings. 

“A search of news media between 2007 and 2019 revealed coverage on 45 proposed mobile home park closures across the country, affecting somewhere in the range of 4,500 residents.” 

The article concludes that there needs to be more robust protections for mobile home park residents in most provinces — “both in terms of the compensation they receive when they are forced to move and the amount of notice they are entitled to before the closure occurs,” said Lund.