(hoe crunching) KEYRIS MANZANARES: On Sundays, 46-year-old Gabino Felipe likes to work in his yard, tidying up and trimming the brush that grows wild around his home.

He lives at Six-O-Five Village Mobile Home Park in Mineral, about an hour northwest of Richmond.

Felipe, who works fixing machinery at a nearby factory, shares this trailer with his sister and niece, and for the last six years, he's called this place home.

(Keyris speaking Spanish language) (Gabino speaking Spanish language) (speaking in Spanish continues) KEYRIS MANZANARES: But for Felipe and dozens of others, the cost of living here has spiked.

In December, Homes of America LLC, a private investment group that now owns Six-O-Five Village Mobile Home Park tried to raise the rent by more than 40%.

Overnight, the monthly cost of Felipe's lot went from $445 to $625.

(Gabino speaking Spanish language) (Speaking Spanish language) KEYRIS MANZANARES: Felipe says there have been no obvious infrastructure changes, such as repaving the main road or improving the park's drainage system, that would justify the rent hike.

(Gabino speaking Spanish language) (Gabino speaking Spanish language) (Family members speaking Spanish language) KEYRIS MANZANARES: But even more worrying is finding a new place to live.

Affordable housing is in extremely short supply throughout the state.

In Louisa County, the rent for an apartment the size of Felipe's trailer would cost more than twice as much as he currently pays.

Felipe owns his trailer, but he does not own the land it sits on, and despite the popular term mobile home, his house, like most trailers in these parks, can't be moved.

Gustavo Espinosa from Legal Aid Justice Center has been working with Felipe and the residents of the park.

GUSTAVO ESPINOSA: Living in one of these communities is a very precarious position to be in because you've, and especially if you're a homeowner, you've invested or you're investing, like, thousands and thousands of dollars.

You bought a trailer, but you don't own the land underneath it, so the landlord can just not renew your lease, or they can offer you a lease that's something that would be impossible for you to pay, and you have to leave, and because the trailers are more or less stuck, you would lose that investment unless you could sell it.

(Gabino speaking Spanish language) (speaking in Spanish continues) KEYRIS MANZANARES: Mobile home parks, one of the last and most affordable housing options, are experiencing rapid acquisition by large investment firms.

According to the Manufactured Home Community Coalition of Virginia, 84% of mobile home parks that sold in the last five years went to out-of-state buyers.

While there are no official numbers, the nonprofit believes that these investment groups, like the one that bought Six-O-Five Village, are driving the sales.

This follows a nationwide trend of private investors aggressively acquiring a portfolio of wide-ranging businesses from hospitals to daycares to newspapers and squeezing deep profits out of them.

SEN. GHAZALA HASHMI: So a lot of those challenges and struggles really center around that these parks may be sold, sold to outside corporations, corporations that are not even Virginia-based, and that they will have new landlords who will raise rent exponentially, and that they will not be able to remain where they have been living for many, many years.

KEYRIS MANZANARES: Senator Ghazala Hashmi has proposed legislation that would incentivize mobile home park owners to sell to nonprofit groups rather than to private corporations.

That bill has not yet passed.

(Gabino speaking Spanish language) (speaking in Spanish continues) KEYRIS MANZANARES: Felipe says residents at the park are harassed each week with rent reminders like these, and others, like his neighbor Georgina Gonzalez Gomez, says new owners are trying to buy her family out.

(Georgina speaking Spanish language) KEYRIS MANZANARES: Felipe says he's already seen some neighbors move out, leaving behind empty or abandoned trailers.

KEYRIS MANZANARES: Last spring, left with few options, Felipe formed a residents organization with his neighbors to fight the new owners.

RESIDENT: Thank you for the air conditioner.

GABINO FELIPE: All right.

RESIDENT: You are a blessing to us.

Thank you.

GABINO FELIPE: All right, you're welcome.

(Gabino speaking Spanish language) VICTORIA HORROCK: So what, essentially, the park has done is they increased the rent in December 2022 by 40%.

They did that without any notice.

That's the heart of the legal case.

KEYRIS MANZANARES: Victoria Horrock is representing Felipe and 14 other residents of the community in lawsuits filed against the new owners of Six-O-Five Village Mobile Home Park.

VICTORIA HORROCK: The Manufactured Home Lot Rental Act requires that a park gives 60 days notice before a rent increase goes into effect.

Many of these people were mid-lease when this rent increase happened.

KEYRIS MANZANARES: The Louisa General District Court will consider the lawsuits later this month.

A lawyer representing Homes of America in the lawsuits did not answer questions VPM sent for the park owners during production of this story.

For now, Felipe continues to pay the rent listed on his current lease while waiting for the case to go to trial.

(Gabino speaking Spanish language)