The maddening documentary A Decent Home highlights a cross-section of mobile home-owners and the system that aims to ruin them
Urgent as it may be, the affordable housing crisis is a term that can make one’s eyes glaze over. News coverage of how Americans who don’t belong to the 1% are being squeezed out of the housing market tends to lean on data and reports, statistics and graphs. A Decent Home, Sara Terry’s unflinchingly intimate and troubling documentary about the crisis that is roiling the nation, tells this ever-pervasive story on a refreshingly human scale.
Terry spent six years working on her film, which follows bands of residents at a quartet of mobile home parks under threat by developers looking to jack up rents – sometimes by more than 50% – or repurpose the land for more lucrative use. Moving a mobile home can cost up to $5,000, which makes it easier for landlords to get away with inflicting steep rent hikes. “I guarantee you, they’re not going to move if they can avoid it. They’re just going to go down to the local Walmart and get a few more hours of work,” Terry said to the Guardian. “It’s very hard to put a face on greed, but that was my aim.”
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