CHICAGO -- The following report aired at 10 p.m. on Wednesday, July 20. It is presented here verbatim.

Anchor: A Unit 5 follow up tonight on a battle that is being played not only in Chicago but also across the country in so-called mobile home parks."

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Carol Marin reports residents are being forced to pay rent increases that can reach as high as 60 percent.

Marin: Allison and Don, over 300,000 people in Illinois live in manufactured home parks. They own their homes, but pay rent to the people who own the parks. And many of those homeowners are fighting mad about the rising rents they are forced to pay. And are hoping that Illinois lawmakers are listening to their stories.

Hope Voss: "I think that they have a hold on us that’s griping, especially someone like me. I’m a widow now."

Hope Voss, like the others in this group, believed she and her late husband had purchased their final home.

Voss: "Figured this is where we were going to stay. We went out and bought the gravesites. This was it."

Marin: "This was the last stop?"

Voss: "Yea, we had it all planned out."

Maple Brook Estates in south suburban Matteson is a manufactured home park and people love living here, with one exception.

Marin: "What’s your rent now?"

Mrs. Ruzzto: "$579 and it will go to $615."

Marge and Frank Paton moved here in 1999 and signed a lease.

Frank Paton: "The way the lease read is that for the first three years we should expect 6 percent rent increase. We will give you 60 days notice in the fourth year of any increase, if any."

Marin: "What happened?"

Marge Paton: "They came in with that great big raise, 60 percent for everybody."

A few miles away, in Monee, is Golf Vista Park.

Marin: "Most people think of these as mobile homes, but there is nothing mobile about them. They're attached to foundations. As you can plainly see, they're not designed to go anywhere."

When Neola Schnurlein moved in, this is what she says the manager told her.

Schnurlein: "When I moved in to Golf Vista, Ferrari told me $250 a month and it would never, never go up. So, I am so broke that I have to go on public aid and food stamps so I can eat."

Marin: "Who owns your manufactured home park?"

Pat Fogerty: "Sam Zell."

Sam Zell is a Chicago billionaire and is reputed to be the largest single property owner in America. His holdings include manufactured home parks in 26 states, including Golf Vista, where Syd Dresback lives.

Dresback: "Right now, we are at the rate of the year 2008 with the increases that we've had."

Because they can’t move their homes, residents say they are trapped and forced into paying higher and higher rents.

Marge Paton: "I still feel this is a bait and switch operation ... they made it look affordable, they said it was affordable, but it's not affordable for everybody."

An attorney for the owners of Maple Brook, who declined to go on camera, said their park was losing money when rents were raised.

The Illinois Attorney General’s office filed suit, and the owners agreed to spread the 60 percent increase in rent over the course of three years and to cap future increases.

Attorney General Lisa Madigan: "If they didn’t increase the rent, that group was going to go bankrupt. If they went bankrupt and it was sold, there would be extraordinary rent increases ... It’s a horrible situation. ... people have to think very seriously before they enter into one a lease for a manufactured home."

At the next session of the Illinois Legislature, the attorney general says she will push for legislation developed by AARP to give manufactured homeowners some protection from skyrocketing increases.

Mrs. Voss: "It’s a lovely place; the people -- look at us, we’re nice, we all get along ... but they're killing us little by little, they are just nipping at us and I don’t know where it’s going to end, or where I'm going to end."

Sam Zell and his company, Equity Lifestyle Partners, declined our request for an interview, but said in a written statement regarding past reports that we've done, that the company tries to balance the needs of its shareholders with that of its residents, and that the company decides rents based on what the market dictates.