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    Residents of a Mobile Home Park Join Forces to Buy Their Community

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    The residents are the first in the state of Maine to successfully utilize a new law making it easier for them to compete with investors and gain ownership of the land their homes sit on.Manufactured houses, widely known as mobile homes, are one of the most affordable options for homeownership in the United States, but they typically come with a big risk: You own the house; you don’t own the lot it sits on.That has made mobile home parks ripe targets for investors, who buy communities and then increase the lot rents to boost profits. It’s a massive industry: manufactured homes account for approximately one in 10 new single-family homes in the United States, according to a 2023 report by the Manufactured Housing Institute trade organization.To curb investor involvement, the state of Maine ushered in a new law last year that requires mobile home park owners to give advance notice to residents if they intend to sell, giving the community members a chance to buy it themselves.Linnhaven Mobile Home Center is a community of nearly 300 occupied homes in Brunswick.Tristan Spinski for The New York TimesNow, it’s the largest resident-owned community in Maine.Tristan Spinski for The New York TimesOn Oct. 10, the residents of Linnhaven Mobile Home Center, a community of nearly 300 occupied homes in Brunswick, became the first to succeed in utilizing the new law. They paid $26.3 million to buy the property from their landlord by cobbling together loans and grants from several sources, including the state and the town of Brunswick.Now, it’s the largest resident-owned community in Maine, giving hope to other owners of manufactured homes. Several other states also have similar laws in place, including Connecticut and New York.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      How the Bead Artist Liza Lou ‘Messes With Your Mind’

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      A gun, a bottle of Jack Daniels, a splatter, a million beads. With these details, the California artist Liza Lou tells you stories. And just a minuscule bead, she explains, is like an underlined word: it can focus your attention, and slow you down.“Beads highlight what is ordinary and make you look at it,” said Lou, known for her life-size beaded sculptural installations, including “Kitchen” (1991-96), in the collection of the Whitney Museum, and “Back Yard,” acquired in 2002 by the Fondation Cartier. She was speaking recently in front of “Trailer,” another massive construction, originally made 25 years ago and filled with tens of millions of Czech glass beads. It just arrived at the Brooklyn Museum of Art.Lou, 55, has reached a turning point in her career, as she transitions from the objects that put her on the map — the Museum of Modern Art recently acquired a beaded teacup and saucer — into more abstract work, all created with her favorite material, which she called “tiny messengers of pigment, dot size expressions of joy.”Carmen Hermo, a curator who worked on the “Trailer” installation, said, “There is a tenderness to the attention that Liza pays” to every detail and bead placement. The meticulousness of works like “Trailer,” she added, “just kind of messes with your mind. There’s something so everyday but also very uncanny about it.”The artist inside “Trailer” when it was first exhibited at Deitch Projects, New York, in 2002. Furnishings are covered with beads, from walls and floors to a typewriter and bottle of Jack Daniels. Mick HaggertyThe artist’s beaded “Trailer” at the Brooklyn Museum, in which Lou asks whose labor is valued, and how. It rewards close observation, from its décor to its smokes and weapons.Tony Cenicola/The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More