Dickens receives lifetime achievement award
Recipient of the Margaret M. Sevy Affordable Housing Lifetime Achievement Award, Dickens helped establish the Washington Association of Manufactured Home Owners in 2006 and is currently the executive director of the National Manufactured Home Owners Association.
Her activism was sparked in 1987, when she volunteered to collect signatures to prevent the closure of a mobile-home park in North Seattle. She earned a law degree from the University of Washington so she could better assist manufactured-home owners, who rent the land beneath their homes.Â
Dickens’ work resulted in $4 million from the state Housing Trust Fund for manufactured home communities and, in 2006, legislation that created the Manufactured Housing Dispute Resolution Program.
Recent achievements include zoning ordinances in Snohomish County, Marysville, Lynnwood and Tumwater that have benefitted more than 3,000 households. Dickens is working to enact similar measures in Federal Way, Spokane and Bellingham to benefit 3,000 more households.