File spoon-archives/avant-garde.archive/avant-garde_1995/avant-garde_Nov.95, message 36


From: John Young <jya-AT-pipeline.com>
Date: Wed, 15 Nov 1995 12:01:39 -0500
Subject: Les Miserables de MS-Nirvana 


   The Wall Street Journal, November 15, 1995, pp. A1, A13.


   Low-Cost Trailer Parks Are Shutting Down, Stranding Many
   Poor

      As Shops and Strip Malls Move In, Some Tenants Are
      Pushed Into Poverty. The Squatters of Olivia Park

   By Joseph Periera


   Everett, Wash. - Life hasn't been easy for the residents of
   Olivia Mobile Home Park since it was closed last June to
   make room for a planned strip mall.

   Mark Gordon, an unemployed factory worker, lived in a
   modest Lamplighter trailer in space No. 11. Unable to find
   space in another low-cost trailer park nearby, he was
   forced to sell the Lamplighter. Today he lives out of a
   1972 Dodge Tradesman van and washes up with a garden hose.

   Donald and Judy Hall, from space No. 6, found themselves in
   similar straits. Thev sold their trailer for $1,200 and
   spent months living in seedy motels with a knife by their
   bed, fearful of the rough clientele. They have $1 left in
   their savings account.

   Sharmi and Dwayne Daniel abandoned the rickety Airstream in
   space No. 8. They and their six-year-old Steven spent most
   of the summer in a tent. Tara, their 12-year-old, found
   tent life too rough; she left the family to live with her
   father, Ms. Daniel's former husband.

   Olivia Park wasn't much. But when it closed, Ms. Daniel
   says, "I cried and cried and cried."

   Far from the mainstream of an expanding economy, the lot of
   many trailer people is worsening. Many parks where low-
   income residents have lived since World War II are closing.
   New parks are rare, and many that are being built cater to
   seniors and vacationers. Increasingly, too, they accept
   only new manufactured homes -- costing up to $50,000, and
   unaffordable to those towing the poverty line. Those with
   old trailers often find they have to ditch them.

   Estimates of the numbers of trailer dwellers being
   displaced are hard to come by. But anecdotal evidence puts
   it in the tens of thousands. Here in Washington state, 22
   mobile-home parks have closed since 1989; 34 more are
   slated for shutdowns. In Vermont, 18 have shut since 1988;
   51 are up for sale. In Oregon, 43 parks have closed since
   1991. California has lost 49 and Florida, 32 over the same
   period.

   "Mobile homes, especially older ones with cheap rent, are
   an at-risk form of housing," says Jill Milazzo, a Vermont
   housing-program coordinator. In recent years, the Vermont
   State Housing Authority has purchased 11 parks to keep
   residents from going homeless. Other states including
   California, New Hampshire and Washington, have also started
   programs to save low-cost parks or help relocate former
   residents.

   Image Problem

   Never popular with nearby homeowners, often the butt of
   ridicule, trailer parks have nonetheless been important
   enclaves of affordable housing for America's poor and
   elderly. Many trailer dwellers are employed in seasonal
   agricultural work; a majority are blue collar. Unemployment
   is high. Among senior citizens, who make up one third of
   the mobile-home population, almost half earn less than
   $10,000 a year, says an American Association of Retired
   Persons report.

   "Communities don't want mobile homes around and some people
   say they're eyesores," says George Gaverlavage, an analyst
   for AARP's Public Policy Institute. "But at least they
   protect you from the sun, rain and snow."

   Some parks are being closed or condemned as their aging
   sewers, roads and other infrastructures deteriorate and
   owners decline to upgrade them. This summer the city of
   Willmar, Minn., declared Elm Lane Mobile Home Park unsafe
   for habitation; it burned down the trailers left behind by
   residents. Nature has taken its toll on others. Missouri
   authorities recently closed four mobile-home parks weakened
   and damaged by floods.

   Paved Away

   But in many instances, such as Olivia Park, parks are
   selling out to make room for stores and parking lots. The
   sites where many trailer parks are located -- out of sight
   of other houses on the fringes of cities and towns -- are
   the same locales favored by discount retailers.

   In Fairfax County, Va., Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is building
   where 200 trailer-home families once lived. In Niagara
   Falls, N.Y., a Target store will soon go up where the
   Boathouse Mobile Home Park housed 50 mostly low-income
   residents. In Seattle, Home Depot Inc. is taking over where
   the 600-space Trailer Haven Mobile Home Park stood. And the
   former site of Olivia Park will sprout a shopping center
   anchored by Office Max, a discount office-supply chain.

   "For many of these folks, the consequences of a park
   closure is unthinkable," says Ishbel Dickens, a spokeswoman
   for the Coalition of Mobile Home Park Residents, a
   nonprofit Seattle group fighting to keep a number of parks
   from closing down. "This is more than saving a park, it's
   saving a way of life."

   Trailer homes first boomed during World War II, when the
   government halted all construction not linked to the war
   effort, creating a housing shortage for workers flocking to
   big cities for defense-related jobs. Trailers didn't
   qualify as new building and were exempted from the ban. In
   the post-war housing boom that followed, trailer sales
   boomed, too.

   Early trailers were narrow, uncomfortable and cheaply
   built. They quickly took on a negative image. In 1976, the
   U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
   established construction codes for protection against
   tornadoes and hurricanes. HUD and manufacturers later
   embarked on a campaign to get people to say "manufactured
   home" instead of "trailer," and "community" instead of
   "park," to remove the social stigma.

   But whatever they are called, many people still don't want
   them around. "Society thinks trailer parks are where
   misfits and transients live," says Deborah Chapman,
   president of the National Foundation of Manufactured Home
   Owners. Conventional home owners often blame trailers for
   depressing property values. Many banks won't finance their
   purchase. Timothy McVeigh, who lived in a trailer before
   his arrest in the Oklahoma City bombing, hasn't helped the
   trailer image.

   Ironically, this displacement of the trailer-park poor is
   happening at a time when the manufactured-housing industry
   with sales of $11.3 billion this year, is playing an
   ever-important role in housing the nation. Consider that
   about 15 million Americans were living in manufactured
   homes as of 1990, according the latest data available from
   the U.S. Census. That number has grown since then.

   But a profile of those 15 million tells a different story.
   About five million inhabited trailer parks -- and most were
   trailer owners who paid monthly costs, including space
   rental fees and utilities, of between $200 and $500.

   Now, with such low-cost parks closing by the droves, and
   many new parks excluding older trailers, such residents are
   caught in a double squeeze because the values of their
   trailers are also being driven down. For example, a trailer
   costing $12,000 in 1972 may fetch as little as $2,000
   today, providing its owner little capital to invest in new
   housing should he get evicted and be forced to sell.

   The events at Olivia Park are instructive. Five years ago,
   Mark Gordon bought a 14-by-46-foot Lamplighter built in
   1973 for $3,000. "It was tan with brown imitation
   shutters," he says proudly. "It had new carpeting and a new
   water heater." He recalls his family saying, "We don't have
   to worry about Mark now."

   But "the sweet life of homeownership," as Mr. Gordon puts
   it, came to an end this spring. Olivia Park tenants were
   told they had to vacate by June 1. Once a picture of
   tranquility, with big elms, maples and pines, the 5.5-acre
   park quickly turned into a dump. Tenants left in a hurry,
   abandoning heaps of clothing, old furniture and appliances,
   some tossed into overgrown elephant grass and berry vines.

   A handful found space in other parks. Mr. Gordon wasn't
   among them. He sold his trailer two months ago for a loss
   and bought a van for $600. With nowhere to go, he squatted
   for a while on the site where his trailer once stood.

   Unemployed for six months, Mr. Gordon last worked as a
   quality-control inspector at a metal-plating plant in
   Everett but was fired after arguing for more medical
   benefits. Because prospective employers have no place to
   reach him, he has been unable to find a new job. "I have no
   address. I have no phone. I just keep filling out
   applications, an exercise some might find futile," Mr.
   Gordon says.

   Sipping coffee one morning near his van, his weather-beaten
   face makes him looker older than his 33 years. Behind the
   van, under a clear plastic covering propped up by
   two-by-fours, is his "living room." An oil-stained
   tarpaulin hangs on one side to keep out the wind. A
   blanket, tossed over what used to be his trailer's front
   steps, functions as a table. He brushes his teeth with
   water from a hose connected to the trailer of another
   squatter. He uses a toilet in an abandoned trailer 50 yards
   away. "Welcome to the other side of midnight," he says.

   Too Old to Move

   Movers told Sharmi Daniel that her 1972 Greatland, three
   spaces down from Mr. Gordon, would fall apart if they tried
   to lift it. So she left it behind when Olivia Park closed.
   Junk or not, it was home -- and affordable. Ms. Daniel, 30,
   is on welfare, and gets $546 a month. Her husband Dwayne
   injured his back while laying carpet and can't work. With
   two children, they had a hard time finding an apartment she
   could afford. Before moving to Olivia Park, they paid rent
   on an apartment that was $78 more than her welfare income.

   After eviction from Olivia Park, the Daniels decided to
   move to a campground 10 minutes away by canoe, in an
   undeveloped island on the Snohomish River. Tara, their
   daughter, left to live with her father in another part of
   the state. "It's really embarrassing for any 12-year-old
   girl to have to live like Robinson Crusoe," says Ms.
   Daniel, paddling on the Snohomish.

   Ms. Daniel, her son, Steven, and Mr. Daniel lived on the
   island through most of the summer, crossing by canoe to run
   errands. Once, the canoe capsized and Mr. Daniel's glasses
   fell in the river. There is no money for a new pair. "He
   borrows mine, but they do him no good," Ms. Daniel says.

   Ms. Daniel has been a traffic flagger, a teacher's
   assistant and a dancer in a club. She says it wouldn't pay
   to take a job offering less than $10 an hour because child
   care would eat up most of it. Her husband, Dwayne, spends
   most of the day at school studying to be a veterinary
   assistant.

   Ms. Daniel caught pneumonia in the camp after it rained for
   a week. The family bathed in the icy river. Slender, with
   wavy auburn hair, Ms. Daniel says the things she missed
   most were a mirror and cooking in an oven. "It's all part
   of your identity," she says. "Looking decent and being in
   the kitchen."

   Again desperate, the Daniels recently managed to rent a
   room in a three-bedroom apartment in Everett for $300 a
   month. Steven will be able to go to school with an address,
   and "I guess I'll be making a lot of friends at the soup
   kitchen," Ms. Daniel says.

   It is hard to determine how many go homeless after a
   trailer park closes. With no phones or addresses, people
   simply disappear. But shelter workers say they see a fair
   number of ex-trailer dwellers passing through.

   Donald and Judy Hall also have been on the move. They lived
   in cheap motels until the $1,200 they received from the
   sale of their trailer ran out. The move from Olivia Park
   nearly broke up their marriage, they say. But recently they
   ran into a bit of luck. Some friends agreed to lend them a
   mobile home 22 miles away on an Indian reservation outside
   Marysville.

   It leaves much to be desired. The tap water is brown and
   foul; drinking it, even after boiling, makes them sick.
   After showering the first day, the Halls broke out in
   rashes. So Mr. Hall, 52, says he "spends a lot of time with
   a five-gallon container" looking for good water.

   One evening, the Halls are found revisiting Olivia Park,
   where the landlord has temporarily left on the water
   spigot. Mrs. Hall, 50, looks weary after four months of
   transient living. "In 50 years I have never experienced
   such depression," she says. Working in Seattle as an
   assistant to a locksmith gives her some satisfaction. It
   pays $60 a day. "There's hot water there," she says,
   laughing.

   Mr. Hall is unemployed. He says he was fired as an
   auto-shop supervisor at about the time Olivia closed.
   Stress has aggravated a skin condition, making it hard for
   him to work with cars again. Hunching slightly in his
   cowboy boots, he shows off hands that are sandpapery and
   heavily chapped. Exposure to petroleum products creates
   blistering, Mr. Hall explains. "I don't know what else to
   do, I've been a mechanic for 27 years," he says.

   Each day that Mr. Hall is unemployed, Mrs. Hall grows more
   impatient. After a recent argument with her husband, she
   spent a night alone at a motel. "I thought I could just
   forget everything for one night," she says. "I come from
   Kansas. I grew up on farmland. When you went to buy a cow
   you shook hands and that was as good as a signature on a
   deed. Growing up as a child I never heard a cross word. My
   parents loved each other. My father went to work every day
   and I always believed that in America a decent home was
   within reach of everyone."

   Painful Notice

   The Cannon family at Olivia Park initially ignored the June
   closing date; Margaret Cannon, suffering from breast cancer
   that had metastasized, was too ill to move. Lloyd Cannon,
   62, her husband, and Rick, 33, her son, tended to her, but
   didn't often mention the park's closure. "We just knew it
   was a sore subject, it was too painful," Rick says. But in
   July, they were served an eviction notice.

   Life wasn't ideal at Olivia, the Cannons say. One of the
   tenants sold drugs in the far corner of the park. But that
   seemed to add to the solidarity among other residents.
   Rick, Mr. Gordon and the Daniels sometimes gathered in a
   makeshift steam room -- fired by wood stove -- that tenants
   helped build for Michael Weaver, a neighbor recuperating
   from a work-related back injury. "We looked out for each
   other," Rick Cannon says.

   Late in the afternoon of Aug. 26, Margaret Cannon slipped
   into a coma. She was rushed to the hospital and died a few
   hours later. The next day the Cannons say they received a
   second eviction notice. "What heart," Rick Cannon says.

   Wallace Barnett, the park's owner, says the park had become
   run-down; maintenance and taxes made it unprofitable to
   operate. Still, he says he felt bad for the tenants
   especially the Cannons. Many, he acknowledges, "had a real
   hard time finding a place to live." As a humane act, Mr.
   Barnett says he left the park's water on until the Cannons
   left the site last month.

   The Cannons purchased a used travel trailer and now move
   from campsite to campsite. Rick, who once ran a janitorial
   service, quit to take care of his father; he would like to
   resume working but says his father, in a deep depression,
   needs him. "Some folks have it good, some don't," Rick
   Cannon says, packing up his stuff one recent evening.
   "Trailer folk fall in the latter category."

   [End]










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