Authors
Katie R. Clifford (CIRES,Western Water Assessment), Skye Niles (CIRES,Western Water Assessment), Colleen E. Reid (Department of Geography), Valentina Serrano Salomon (Department of Sociology), Matthew Woodland (Department of Geography)

Abstract

Climate change impacts are a growing risk to human health and community resilience. Mobile home park (MHP) communities have historically been overlooked by researchers and in many cases rendered invisible, but understanding their unique climate and community health risk is critical. MHPs represent the largest subset of unsubsidized, low-income housing in the United States. Multiple, intersecting forms of structural forces, policy and zoning exclusions, and social stigma produce vulnerability and marginalization of MHP residents (Sullivan 2014), and this exposes them to elevated risk from climate hazards (Hamshaw and Baker 2024). Researchers have shown that MHPs are significantly impacted by extreme heat (Kear et al 2023, Phillips et al 2021), and in the Western U.S., this is coupled with increasing air quality threats from prolonged wildfire smoke seasons. In many cases, residents are grappling with compound hazards of extreme heat and wildfire smoke. We share preliminary findings from an ongoing, community-engaged, mixed-methods research project funded by the CIRES IRP. We partnered with trusted community-based organizations and MHP residents to understand this emerging compound hazard by 1) conducting semi-structured interviews with Boulder County and Pueblo mobile home residents as to their lived experience and impacts from wildfire smoke and heat, and 2) deploying low-cost air quality and temperature monitors inside and outside mobile homes. Our initial findings indicate many residents experience dangerously high heat and air pollution exposures within their homes, and that existing public assistance programs for low-income residents are insufficient to meet growing climate hazard preparedness and mitigation needs.