What question did this study set out to answer?

The research aims to explore the impact of resident organizing on housing precarity within the manufactured housing communities in Chapel Hill.

April 28, 20260 citationsOpen Access

The Role of Resident Organizing in the Fight for Permanence: A Study of Chapel Hill’s Parqueaderos

MPManuel Valbuena Peña

Key Points

The research aims to explore the impact of resident organizing on housing precarity within the manufactured housing communities in Chapel Hill.
Conducted eight resident interviews and six practitioner interviews.
Examined issues of precarity across three scales: manufactured, material, and real.
Utilized public documents, news reports, and market analysis to contextualize findings.
Findings indicate that organizing against precarity is influenced more by conditions than by individual abilities.
Highlighting the unique challenges faced by the largely Latine immigrant community.
Demographic focus underscores the importance of cultural and contextual realities in understanding housing insecurity.

Abstract

This paper examines the dynamics of precarious housing tenure for the manufactured housing community (MHC) residents of Chapel Hill. I use the Spanish translation of MHC, parqueadero, throughout the work to highlight the demographic reality my work is grounded in, where the majority (99%) of residents are Latine immigrants. Across eight (8) resident interviews and six (6) practitioner interviews, I examine issues of precarity on three scales: manufactured precarity, as theorized by Durst and Sullivan, material precarity, as contextualized by public documents, news reports, and market analysis, and real precarity, as documented by the folks who allowed me to interview them. I find that organizing in the face of precarity is not a matter of ability, but, rather, a matter of conditions.

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