Five months after a mobile home fire took the life of a 9-year-old girl in Lorain, her community is pushing for changes to make manufactured homes safer.
Nadeysha Rodriquez was killed when flames engulfed the mobile home she was sleeping on Dec. 23. It happened in the 3900 block of Reid Avenue in the Twin Wells Mobile Allotment.
Property manager Delia Rodriguez said the entire community is still dealing with the tragic loss.
“It took a while for everyone to get life together,” Rodriguez said. "And we’re never going to forget but we have to try to keep going.”
The girl’s death is one of 58 mobile home fires in the state of Ohio between the years 2012 and 2016.
“I’ve seen it more often than I like to,” said Asst. Fire Chief Jeff Fenn of the Lorain Fire Department.
Fenn said the majority of mobile homes in the city of Lorain are more than 30 years old and the materials are easily flammable.
Fenn also said fire hydrants are not spaced as regularly on private property as they are on city streets.
“That’s a huge challenge for us,” he said, explaining that they often need to bring in water to fight fire in mobile home parks.
Rodriguez and Fenn both agreed that additional inspections would be helpful to avoid fire hazards, but they don’t have the authority to enter a resident’s private property.
Gov. John Kasich addressed the concerns in his Fiscal Year 2017-2018 proposal, saying the issue resides with the organization in charge of licensing mobile home park operators, training manufactured home installers and inspecting new installations.
Kasich’s budget proposed merging “the functions and duties of the Manufactured Homes Commission (MHC) into the Department of Commerce.”
Fenn agreed with first responders across the state that some changes needed to be made at the state level.
“It’s about time. Somebody needs to,” he said.
In a statement to News 5, an OMHC spokesperson adamantly denied claims that safety issues are connected to poor oversight.
“This appears to be more about the Administration’s ego than the safety of our manufactured home residents. The manufactured homeowners and residents we serve strongly oppose the Kasich proposal,” a statement said in part.
The proposal was not included in a version of the budget bill that passed in the Ohio House last week. That bill is now before the Ohio Senate.
Kasich’s original proposal gave a Jan. 21, 2018, deadline for the merger to take effect.
OMHC’s released the following statement to News 5:
“Governor Kasich is entitled to his own opinion but not his own set of facts. Administration officials have demonstrated a casual relationship with the facts regarding the lifestyle, quality and safety of manufactured homes.
This appears to be more about the Administration’s ego than the safety of our manufactured home residents. The manufactured homeowners and residents we serve strongly oppose the Kasich proposal. Apparently the Governor doesn’t understand the manufactured home residents and tenant rights association (AMHRO – Association of Manufactured Home Residents of Ohio) representing 900,000 Ohioans strongly supports the Manufactured Homes Commission.
Under the Commission 100% of new and used home installations receive three safety inspections by certified inspectors. For example, working smoke alarms as well as properly grounded electrical outlets are inspected as well as many other safety components. The result has been a virtual elimination of improper home installations from more than 500 a year prior to the Commission to less than ten complaints in the last three years.
Ohioans of modest means are able to realize their dream of homeownership because manufactured homes are the most affordable “fire safe” homes of any kind today. That’s a fact backed by the 2013 National Fire Protection Association study indicating manufactured homes have stricter fire safety codes and less fires than site built homes.
The State Fire Marshall as a former legislator co-sponsored legislation creating the Ohio Manufactured Homes Commission and undoubtedly would have raised any fire safety concerns at the time. Its unfortunate fire officials don’t have the facts. They need to do more research on the superior fire safety of today’s manufactured homes which are built to a federal pre-emptive building and fire safety code administered by U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) .The homes are also 100% inspected by HUD certified inspectors in the factory to ensure compliance with the stringent fire safety and building code.
Fortunately the Ohio House of Representatives realized the Kasich Administration proposal was “All Smoke and No Fire””. The House voted last week (In Sub HB 49 -State Budget Bill) to reject the Governor’s costly merger and voted to restore the Manufactured Homes Commission as in present law.
Had the Governor’s original proposal (in the As Introduced version of HB 49) been adopted 100% manufactured home safety inspections would be cut, homeowner fees would escalate and residents’ complaints would once again be largely unanswered.”
