Project Features:
About The Project:
Starting in the fall of 2022, the MHCCV began engaging with and archiving the experiences of Virginians living in manufactured home communities (MHCs) in the City of Richmond and Chesterfield County in central Virginia.
An oral history is a way of collecting and studying historical information by conducting a sound recording of people with personal knowledge of the past. Read more here.
The MHCCV is collecting oral histories to challenge the stigma that surrounds manufactured home communities and their residents, by publishing the experiences of residents in their own words.
This oral history project also aims to elevate residents’ grassroots recommendations for policies while also highlighting the immediate and practical needs of their community. The MHCCV will take these recommendations and concerns expressed by residents in their oral histories, and bring this vital input to the attention of lawmakers and industry personnel who frequently overlook perspectives of manufactured home community residents in their work.
Are you a Virginia MHC resident and want to tell us your story?
If you are interested in participating in the MHCCV’s ongoing Resident Oral History Project, and you have lived in a manufactured home community at some point, please use the form below to contact us about the project.
If you are interested in participating in the Resident Oral History Project but are concerned about your privacy, or about being retaliated against by a third party, please contact us and explain your situation. We give all project participants the choice to participate in the project anonymously and have their identity protected.
Project Disclaimer:
The Manufactured Home Community Resident Oral History Project is both a research project, and an advocacy project.
As researchers, MHCCV is committed to the ethical and uncensored presentation of the perspectives featured in this project. In pursuit of this, we do not edit or remove content from our interviews, unless requested by the participant. Additionally, participants are encouraged to engage in the project anonymously if they wish to preserve their privacy. Residents are recruited to participate in the oral history project, after a period of outreach and trust building in a community by the MHCCV. All residents participating in the project are compensated for their time with a gift card of their choice.
As advocates, MHCCV is committed to the authentic preservation and presentation of the experiences of real Virginians living in manufactured homes. Here in our capacity as advocates, MHCCV is platforming this population that has historically and intentionally been ignored by most of American society due to the mass recognition that it is socially acceptable to stigmatize and dismiss the working class experience. We hope to fight that cultural attitude with this project.
As a platform MHCCV has a responsibility to promote safe and ethical engagement with the project, which we balance with our commitment to preserving the authenticity of our interviews. For that reason we have included content warnings when necessary, to let viewers know if a particular section of a interview may be distressing to certain groups of people. Additionally, the views and opinions stated in the Manufactured Home Community Resident Oral History Project solely belong to the projects participants, are collected as part of this research project, and are not endorsed by MHCCV.