But what about mobile home parks, where one man's castle rests on another man's land? Do landowner rights trump homeowner rights? In development-drunk Utah they do.

Here, the landowner holds all the cards, and as a result, mobile homes in growing urban areas are going the way of the teepee. Rapidly rising real estate values and a dearth of developable land have resulted in a rash of mobile home park closings along the Wasatch Front, as park owners cash in by selling to housing developers.

In the past five years, 13 mobile home parks have closed in Utah, including three in Salt Lake County in 2007. Mobile home owners, many of them elderly and on fixed incomes, were sent packing.

For some owners of manufactured housing, the loss of their lots means the loss of their homes. It costs up to $15,000 to move a mobile home, a prohibitive amount for persons on fixed incomes or those holding mortgages. And some older mobile homes, due to the potential for damage, can't be moved at all.

This is no small issue. According to the 2000 U.S. Census, 84,000 Utahns live in manufactured housing, including 17,000 in Salt Lake County. Many lease a concrete pad in a park for as little as $250 a month. It's one of the few low-cost housing options available in growing urban areas, allowing poor people to live independently. But if they lose their homes, many will require government assistance.

Most states acknowledge this fact, and at least 35 states have statutes to protect residents of mobile home parks, Utah included. But our law is weak, requiring nothing more than a 90-day eviction notice. That has to change.

Since the late 1990s, members of the Utah Mobile Home Owners Action Group have made an annual pilgrimage to Capitol Hill to lobby the Legislature for more protection, to no avail.

They're not asking for much - a one-year notice to prepare for a move, a rent freeze during the transition period and the right of first refusal if they choose to form a property owners association and attempt to purchase their park. The Legislature should grant their request.

It's the least lawmakers can do to assist this vulnerable segment of our population, people who value their mobile homes as much as millionaires value their mansions.