NEWS & LETTERS, September-October 2010
Land grab ruins poor homeowners
Marysville, Washington--People in manufactured home parks around the country have been losing their homes--and not because they haven't been paying the mortgage and/or lot rent. Developers have been buying up the parks from owners eager to cash in, not caring about the lives they may be ruining.
Owners who pay thousands of dollars for their manufactured homes, do not own the land they sit on. When the park is sold, they are given a year to get out. Not only are they not getting any money for their homes, they are required to pay a large sum of money to have their homes demolished when they move out!
Sara is a woman who lives in a park for those over 55 years of age. These park residents are the hardest hit because of their age and the fact that some of them are disabled. She bought her manufactured home for $20,000 a little over a year ago. The owners stated emphatically that they were not interested in selling the park.
Now, they may be changing their tune. If the park is sold, Sara will lose her $20,000, her life savings, and be required to come up with what could be thousands of dollars to have her home destroyed. "I can't afford to pay that," said Sara, "I'll just have to walk away, leave in the middle of the night if I have to. And even if I could afford it, I wouldn't pay to see my home destroyed." Her feelings are echoed by other park residents who say that they, too, will just walk away rather than destroy their homes. Some of the people in Sara's park have been there for a long time and have no other place to go. Moving would be a hardship and many fear they will become homeless.
Manufactured-home parks provide an alternative to owning a brick and mortar home and to expensive apartment living. They fill a need for lower-income housing. After buying her home outright, Sara pays only $530 per month for lot rent. "Where am I going to find an apartment for that kind of money?" she asks. "I can't believe these owners and developers expect us to walk away with nothing."
In Sara's city, a rezoning drive is under way to keep all this from happening. Her park is currently zoned as a "single family dwelling." It needs to be rezoned to "manufactured/mobile home community only." Presently the park is in danger of being rezoned as "multifamily dwellings." This would open the park up to being sold. Several other parks in the area have already been closed. People have the option of moving their homes to other parks, but there are very few spaces left and moving their homes is expensive and can damage them.
The county has passed an 18-month moratorium on the selling of these parks to allow them to research the situation. They are holding public meetings. But residents are up against a planning commission and staff who are not supportive of the new zoning.
Affordable, safe and attractive housing should be a human right and not something that can be taken away by those wanting to make money off the land that housing sits on.
--Suzanne Rose
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