Once seen as a symbol of independence and affordability, mobile home communities now face deadly heat, predatory management, inflated utility costs and few protections.

But over the last several years, a wave of organizing has risen that aims to address these issues and fill gaps in accountability. The goal: help make manufactured home communities in Pima County the thriving and affordable communities they could be.

Now a four-part documentary collaboration between Arizona Public Media and Arizona Luminaria, building on over a year of Luminaria’s coverage of heat and displacement in manufactured homes, investigates the hidden crises inside Southern Arizona’s mobile home parks. 

Part one of the series premiers Sunday, Nov. 2 on Arizona Illustrated on PBS 6 at 6:30 p.m. 

Through intimate stories of residents, data-driven reporting, and firsthand access inside the parks, the series reveals how policy failures and corporate neglect have pushed Arizona’s last form of affordable housing to the brink and how residents are fighting back to reclaim stability.

Watch the series to meet residents at Redwood mobile home who finally spoke up about their hours of power outages amid deadly heat; organizers with Poder Casas Moviles who use theater to teach residents about their rights in eviction court; and the state official who has led the way in standing up for manufactured home residents.

Read more of Arizona Luminaria’s coverage of the issue:

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