President: Lois Parris
Lois has been a board member for six years and resides in a resident-owned community located in Belmont, New Hampshire. She has lived in her community for 25 years and served on their board of directors for the past 8 years. Lois has served on the state home owner’s association board of New Hampshire (MOTA) for 11 years and is presently president of the board. She has worked toward many accomplishments in her state that include improving state laws adding protections for home owners regarding community closures and sales, unfair lease rules. She is a wonderful source of information and support for those living in manufactured home communities. Lois also serves on the board of directors for the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund and ROC USA. On a personal note, she has worked for the same law firm for 25 years and enjoys spending time with her many grandchildren.
Executive Director: Ishbel Dickens
Ishbel comes to MHOAA with more than 20 years of experience in manufactured housing issues. She began her illustrious career collecting signatures to prevent a 100 space mobile home park in N. Seattle from being sold and developed into a big box store. While that attempt was unsuccessful Ishbel has gone on to win many victories for manufactured homeowners. She has written grants to support her work, first as a community organizer with the Tenants Union in Seattle and more recently as a staff attorney at Columbia Legal Services. Indeed, Ishbel specifically went to law school to become an even stronger advocate for people who own their homes but not the land under them.
Ishbel has traveled extensively throughout Washington meeting with manufactured home owners, educating them about their rights under the Manufactured/mobile Home Landlord Tenant Act (RCW 59.20) and helping them form home owners’ associations with a view to preserving their manufactured housing communities. She has helped homeowners’ associations purchase their communities as resident-owned co-operatives. She is also involved in policy changes at the local and state levels that will help manufactured home owners preserve their lifestyle choice. As Executive Director of MHOAA she will now also be involved in policy initiatives at the national level.
Ishbel has spoken at numerous conferences around the country on issues facing manufactured home owners and offered a range of possible solutions. She had an article published in the April 2007 issue of the Clearinghouse Review. In 2007 she was awarded a WSHFC “Friend of Housing” Award and in 2009 she received the first ever “Housing Hero of the Decade” award at the 2009 Housing and Homelessness Advocacy Day. Earlier in 2010, she completed the “Achieving Excellence Program” at Harvard’s Kennedy School through which she worked to expand manufactured housing community preservation and policy efforts in Washington.
All of this experience sets Ishbel in good stead as she prepares to take the helm at MHOAA as our first-ever Executive Director. Ishbel’s passion and commitment to manufactured housing issues is obvious to all who know and work with her. We are indeed fortunate to have Ishbel as our ED and we all look forward to working with her to help build MHOAA into a movement that represents manufactured home owners across this country and gives them a voice at the national, state and local levels.
First Vice President: Jesse Martinez
I am 61. My wife, Betty, and I have been married 31 years and have resided in North Adams, Massachusetts since 1983. I have been a resident of Wheel Estate Mobile Home Park in North Adams, MA since 1987. I’ve helped organize and establish our tenants association back in the 80’s. I was President of the Wheel Estate Tenants Association for 15 years and currently serve as their Vice President. I’ve helped establish re-zoning for affordable housing to protect Manufactured Home Communities in North Adams, MA. I have been successful with our rent control board in preventing rent increases for the last 10 years. I served 3 years as a board member of the Manufactured Home Federation of Massachusetts before becoming President. I have retired from the Prudential Insurance Co. and attended Springfield College to become a Certified Financial Planner and Berkshire Community College for computer assistant designing and trigonometry.
Secretary: Pam Bournival
Pam has experienc on both sides of the fence, having spent 6 years working with her parents developing a manufactured home community in Citrus County, Florida in the 80′s and 90′s. With that familiarity, when it came time to “retire” to Sarasota, she and her husband knew they wanted to live in a community in Sarasota. They knew it would be close knit. Being a member of the Residents Committee led to helping merge the Civic Association and the HOA into one stronger organization and she was the second president. She led the HOA through rent negotiations and two mediations. It was during that time she saw how a big corporate owner handled manufactured housing communities and knew she had to step up to the plate and take on ELS. Her ongoing stance is that it is OK to make money but there is a right way and a wrong way to treat people; corporate community owners do not treat their home owner/ land renters with respect.
Treasurer: Steve Anderson
Steve serves currently as the president of the Utah Manufactured Homeowners Action Group. A native of the central valley of California, Steve was educated in the Sacramento area and attended college at American River College and California State University where he majored in communication studies. His professional background began in the banking and finance industry. He served as head of the appraisal and construction lending departments of a Utah based savings and loan operation. He left the private sector and served several years as an administrator for the city of Sacramento before retiring from that organization in 2004. He went back to work as a commercial appraiser for the Salt Lake County Assessor’s office – which he still does today. Steve is a veteran of ten years service in the US Army where he served as both an infantryman and public affairs specialist. He and his wife, Nancy, are devoted to each other and are the parents of four daughters and the doting grandparents of eleven grandchildren.
Northeast Area Vice President: Dorothy Sliney
Dot has resided in a manufactured home for over 27 yrs. She has served as president for the Federation of Rhode Island Mobile Home Owners Association for the past 21 yrs. and past president of the New England Council. She was appointed by the former governor to serve on the mobile home commission and served as a board member of the Tri Town Community Action Committee to assist clients with heating assistance and food distribution. This committee has worked on approximately 34 bills in legislation which are now law. She states “Rhode Island has a statewide rent law that has had positive affects on our chosen lifestyle. There are 11 resident-owned communities in our state and our hope is to have all communities resident-owned. Our goal for our state organization is to continue to improve the quality of life for all Rhode Island Citizens and work with the National Group to help them achieve their goals for a safe, secure lifestyle.”
MidWest Area Vice President: Terry Nelson
Terry started her avenue towards manufactured home owner issues in 1994 as president of her community local home owners association. In 1995 she was elected for the position of treasurer of the Illinois state home owners association (MHOAI). In 2001 she was elected and still serves as president of the Illinois state homeowners association. In 2001 she was elected to the MHOAA board and continues to serve on the board. In 2005 she was offered the opportunity to be a voice for home owners/consumers on the HUD Census Committee, and took the offer. Terry has represented homeowners of Illinois on past and present state committees and senate task forces. She has lived in her manufactured community for 34 years and is a proud mother of a 22 year old daughter. Terry would like to express her deepest thanks to everyone who supports home owner efforts that will bring a fair balance between manufacturers, landlords and home owners.
Western Area Vice President: Myra Close
South Region Vice President: Carla Joy Burr
I was born in Sarasota, FL and lived there until the age of two. I am the eldest of four, two brothers and one sister.
I have worked in commercial real estate for over thirty years, performing every aspect of the industry at one time or another. I started in the accounting department and worked my way up to Lease Administration and Acquisitions Specialist. My experience in this business has served me well in all areas of volunteering and paid contractual assignments. I attended the University of Maryland, graduating with an Associates Degree in Music History and Literature. I have traveled the world singing at Royal Albert Hall in London, Carnegie Hall NY, Kennedy Center and Constitution Hall in D.C.
In 2004 I became disabled and required three surgeries on my back to help keep my spine from collapsing and stabilize my physical structure. At the time, I was living in a two story condominium which had fifteen stairs to my front door and fifteen additional steps inside. In order to function and get around, I sold my condo in Manassas, Virginia because of needed accessibility. I felt that living in a manufactured home on one floor was a wonderful solution, and I could ultimately retire there. I moved to Meadows of Chantilly in late February 2006. I started volunteering in the community as soon as I healed from my surgeries. It took about a year for me to become mobile. I began using my skills to research everything from Real Estate Taxes, comparisons of area Lot Rentals across three states and multiple counties, evaluating historical CPI increases to determine reasonable increases and where we stood as a community, as well as writing letters to management and the Land owners regarding their neglect of the infrastructure in our community. During my research, I found out about NMHOA and attended their annual convention in Silver Spring, MD in 2011 and returned to the convention in Crystal City, VA in November 2012. During the course of 2012, I was asked to become a Board Member V.P. for the Southeast Region, which I gladly accepted.
Even with the enormous issues and abuses by our Land Owner, I feel it’s very important for me to invest in my neighbors and our community overall. I was taught to center my personal values on my Christian faith, and to live my life as an example to God. I think ELS as a company can learn quite a bit from those values
Member at Large: Tim Sheahan
Tim was born and raised near Spokane, Washington and in 1995 moved into a manufactured housing community in San Marcos, California near San Diego. In 1996 he became involved in home owner advocacy; initially as vice president of his community homeowners association and subsequently, as a leader with several advocacy groups. Tim currently serves as first vice president of MHOAA, president of Golden State Manufactured-home Owners League (GSMOL) in California, Vice President of a San Marcos MHO Coalition. He is a board member of a San Diego County MHO Coalition, as well as recently being named to the HUD Consensus Committee for Manufactured Housing.
Member at Large: Ron Feinstein
Ron lived his early formative years in West Hartford, CT and left there when he joined the U.S. Navy in February of 1960. After 10 years of proudly serving our Country, he was honorably discharged in January of 1970 and settled in Springfield, MA. Ron worked in the Trucking Industry for the next 32 years until his retirement in June of 2002. During that period of time, he worked as a trailer truck driver (local & over-the-road hauling single and double trailers), as a dispatcher for a coast-to-coast freight company, as union steward for fellow employees at different companies and as an Organizer for the Teamsters Union. He has been involved in many successful contract negotiations with multiple employers, on behalf of the employees he represented as Teamster Organizer and as an employee steward. Since retiring, Ron has lived in the age-restricted manufactured home community of Pine Shadows, which is located in Cottonwood, AZ. He has served as Vice-President of the residents association for 1 year and as President for 3 years and currently serves as a Director & Assistant AAMHO Representative on its Executive Board.
Ron became involved in the Arizona state-wide association, Arizona Association of Manufactured Home & R.V. Owners (AAMHO) in early 2003. He has served as its District 5 Associate Director, District 5 Director, Legislative Director and was AAMHO’s longest serving President, 5+ years, from October 2005, until November of 2010. Ron was recently elected again as AAMHO’s District 5 Director on March 14, 2010 and also serves on AAMHO’s Education Committee and is an education workshop instructor held for members and Park Managers/Owners, about the Arizona Laws that apply to them. In addition, he was just reappointed to serve on AAMHO’s By-law committee.
Ron was elected as a Member-at-Large to the MHOAA board at the annual convention held in Salt Lake City, UT and also serves on its Legislative Committee.
Honorary Director: Kevin Borden
Kevin got his start as a community organizer in August of 1995 as a member of the Jesuit Volunteer Corps while placed with Montana People’s Action (MPA). As the Missoula District Organizer with MPA, Kevin was responsible for working with leadership teams from local manufactured home communities on issues that ranged from the development of a state housing trust fund to the adoption of fair and reasonable local regulations in land-lease communities. After his year of service was completed, Kevin went on to become the Lead Organizer of Idaho Community Action Network and was responsible for running issue based campaigns that successfully led to the adoption and expansion of Idaho’s Children’s Health Insurance Program and the state’s first local charity care program for uninsured and underinsured individuals in Ada County. From there, Kevin went on to run regional issue campaigns on variety of topics with the Northwest Federation of Community Organizations before vaulting into national issue work as a Field Organizer’s with the National Campaign for Jobs and Income Support, a special project of the Center for Community Change in 2001. Kevin is currently employed as a Senior Organizer with the Center for Community Change. Kevin is excited to bring his breadth of community organizing experiences and relationships to MHOAA as an Advisory Board Member to assist in the organization’s growth, development and continued success. Kevin currently lives in New Paltz, NY with his partner of seven years, Teresa Horgan, and their two sons, Finnbar and Cormac.
Lauren Williams: Honorary Director
Lauren Williams is a Program Manager for the Affordable Housing and Entrepreneurship teams at CFED. As a member of the Affordable Housing team, she works primarily with the Innovations in Manufactured Homes (I’M HOME) initiative to promote the use of high-quality manufactured housing as a key source of affordable homeownership and as an asset building opportunity for families. She also works on other affordable housing and asset-building initiatives to encourage the use of affordable housing as a scale platform for other wealth-building strategies. As a member of the Entrepreneurship team, she spends most of her time on the Self-Employment Tax Initiative (SETI), CFED’s strategic program designed to demonstrate how community-based organizations can leverage the tax moment to support low- and moderate-income entrepreneurs. Ms. Williams works on the development and implementation of these initiatives, providing research, writing, program coordination, policy advocacy and capacity-building support for the field.
Prior to joining CFED, she interned with the Danville Regional Foundation where she worked on the foundation’s initiatives in economic and community development and published a white paper based on her study of the entrepreneurial capacity, structure and culture of the Dan River region. She also worked with the UNC School of Government’s Community-Campus Partnership program, where she helped research and design the program’s evaluation framework. Ms. Williams is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where she majored in economics and international studies, minored in music, and graduated with honors.
Revised 30 July 2012