Welcome to The Newsfeed.

I'm Paris Jackson.

For the first time in Washington's history, a new rent stabilization law is in effect.

Part of it includes a 5% annual limit on rent increases for manufactured home owners.

For decades, people have been advocating and organizing for rent caps as large property management companies have raised rents year after year.

To help us understand the unprecedented law.

Cascade PBS investigative reporter Farah Eltohamy joins me to explain.

You've done a lot of investigative reporting on the challenges that manufactured homeowners and renters have faced.

The governor signed a new rent stabilization bill.

What does it mean for them?

So rent stabilization finally passing for mobile home owners feels like a collective sigh of relief.

This is something that tenants have been fighting for for quite some time now.

This is a result of organizing and really pushing for the last couple of years to finally see some change on a statewide level.

So for some context, rents are now capped at 5% a year for mobile home owners, which in comparison to the situation in the past, there were no rent caps at all, meaning that tenants could face up to double their rent being increased in a year as every year went on, pushing many of them to economic eviction and being at risk of homelessness.

So obviously this is a celebration.

This is a win.

Before this bill became law, there was a lot of pushback from housing developers and landlords.

What was their stance?

So there was pushback.

And their argument was that by limiting the ability to make up for costs or to see a return on investment, it would undermine the ability to fund more housing.

So their argument was, we're not going to get enough money to build more housing.

While rent stabilization will provide relief for many, some seniors on fixed incomes still faced a lot of hardship before it went into law.

So one of our sources, her name is Elva.

In my conversation with her for this piece, she had told me that although she's obviously happy to see rent stabilization pass, she still won't be able to afford her rent as it is.

So now she's looking to sell her home and try to move into a more affordable community.

Other tenants have told me that their landlords have tried to raise their rent on them right before rent stabilization passing, and now they're in the state of almost confusion, not knowing if they should pay that current rate or if they should pay, you know, at the 5% and see what happens.

So there's some issues with that.

Another thing that I do want to bring up is...

There was a compromise that manufactured homeowners had to make, in order for this bill to pass.

When someone sells their home or transfers their lease to somebody else, at that time, a landlord can increase the rent for more than 5%.

But that's something that the landlord has to notify the new homeowner about.

And that's something that, you know, at least one of my sources has told me, she hopes isn't something that's going to be a common issue, because mobile home owners tend to stay in their homes for a very long time.

What's next?

Right now, we're just waiting to see how this bill will play out over the next year.

We could possibly see like legal pushback from landlords, see them, you know, take this issue to court.

And just seeing if the bill as it stands or the law as it stands will require any amendments.

So that's something we're going to keep an eye out for.

We're about a week away from the 36th annual Seafair Indian Days Powwow.

The three day event runs July 18th to the 20th at the Daybreak Star Cultural Center in Seattle.

Organizers say all are welcome to proudly share in their culture.

The celebration will include a series of competitions, from drumming and singing to powwow dance.

For more event information, head to UnitedIndians.org.

I'm Paris Jackson.

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Go to CascadePBS.org for more great local coverage.