Councilwoman Debbie Johnson wants to help the owner of a Selma mobile home park, and that’s her prerogative. But David Jones’ predicament is as much his responsibility as the town’s.

In mobile home parks, Selma allows four dwellings per acre. Mr. Jones has 17 homes on two acres, so we must assume his park was in place before Selma adopted its current rules on mobile home parks. Therefore, his park is “grandfathered,” meaning the town cannot force him to remove nine mobile homes. In other words, a bank should not worry that Mr. Jones will be unable to repay a loan because of a sudden drop in income.

But it’s true that 17 could become 16, 15 or any lower number through attrition, and that might give a lender pause. Selma law says a park owner cannot replace homes that have been destroyed or fallen into extreme disrepair. Now, no one should hold a park owner responsible for destruction caused by, say, fire or natural disaster. That tells us Selma leaders wrote that rule simply because they wanted to reduce the number of mobile homes in town. That might be a worthy goal, but the rule faults tenants and park owners for doing nothing wrong, and that part of the law should be stricken from the books.

But Mr. Jones does have a say in disrepair, whether he owns the homes in his park or just the ground beneath them. If he owns the homes, he can certainly keep them in good shape if he wants to. If he doesn’t, then he can certainly demand upkeep as a condition of leasing lots in his park.

Like many towns, Selma at one point found itself with too many mobile home parks, because it allowed too many. Now the town is looking to reduce that number over time. That’s fine, but its rules shouldn’t penalize park owners for acts of nature, nor should the rules cut them any maintenance slack.

The rules would do neither if town leaders put their focus on the people who live in mobile homes, not on the folks who own the parks.