Manufactured housing: an assessment of community attitudes

This study examined the opinions of 552 residents of rural Virginia regarding acceptance of manufactured homes, formerly known as mobile homes, and their occupants. The purpose of this study was to determine to what extent respondents' demographic and socioeconomic characteristics, innovativeness, and perceptions of manufactured home characteristics, its occupants and neighborhood characteristics, predicted the acceptance of manufactured homes.

Data were obtained from two mail surveys distributed among eight rural counties. One survey covered single-section manufactured homes (N = 274) and another covered double-section manufactured homes (N = 278). A proposed theoretical model was adapted from M. J. Dear and S. M. Taylor's (1982) model for community attitudes toward mental health care facilities. Hypotheses were tested through multiple regression analyses.

The statistical model for the full sample included 13 independent variables. Six variables (perceived manufactured home occupant behavior, proportion of manufactured homes in the county, perceived manufactured home condition, manufactured home type, respondents’ gender, and manufactured home knowledge) emerged as significant predictors of manufactured home acceptance (R² = .3541).

Separate regression models for the single- and double-section manufactured home subsamples were evaluated. In the single-section manufactured home subsample, perceived manufactured home occupants’ behavior, proportion of manufactured homes in the county, and perceived manufactured home condition were significant predictors of single-section manufactured home acceptance (R² = .2522). In the double-section manufactured home subsample, perceived manufactured home occupants’ behavior, perceived manufactured home condition, respondent's manufactured home knowledge, and neighborhood physical homogeneity were significant predictors of double-section manufactured home acceptance (R² = .3574).

Results suggested respondents' socioeconomic and demographic characteristics were not important in predicting manufactured home acceptance. Instead, acceptance was mostly the result of perceptions about occupants’ behavior, a finding consistent with Dear and Taylor's (1982) study about acceptance of mental health facilities. In general, double-section models were more accepted than single-section models.