The Roanoke Times tells MHProNews that residents of Blacksburg Estates Mobile Home Park in Blacksburg, Virginia, are facing this dilemma now. This manufactured home community has been around for at least 50 years. One resident, Rick Cumbee, 54, said this has been his home for 30 years. His yard is full of flowers and gardens his mother planted long ago, and he built a large deck on the front with his own hands. He worked at the University of Virginia for 20 years and now lives on disability payments.
Uncertainty is the worst part of on-again, off-again plans to redevelop the Blacksburg Estates Mobile Home Park, resident Ed Williams said. “I don’t know where I stand. It’s worrying me to death,” said Williams, whose home is one of about 20 that are to be moved to the other side of the park to make way for the proposed Fieldstone development of low-income and senior housing.
Williams, 59, said that he had not seen anything in writing yet. A former explosives technician and maintenance worker, he now lives on disability payments after a sports injury and a series of operations on his spine and leg. He supports himself and his 10-year-old granddaughter with the disability payments he receives.
His situation is complicated, Williams said, because he is still paying a bank for his home. The bank will not allow relocations without approving the new lot and arrangements for moving the home.
At last week’s meeting, Blacksburg city council members said that the park’s owners should firm up relocation arrangements with residents. Lawyer Jim Cowan, who represents the owners, said Friday that the park’s management had talked to someone from all but five or six of the affected households. Proposed relocation agreements should have reached residents’ mailboxes Friday, said Cowan and Shelly Fortier of Habitat for Humanity, who has been working to ease the moves.
According to copies provided to The Roanoke Times, the proposals include the owners’ promise to pay for a licensed, insured home mover to transport the manufactured homes, to pay for utility connections and new skirting, and to build new porches. The agreements promise to freeze the relocated residents’ rents for a year, and to limit annual increases in rent to 5 percent per year for three years.
Williams said that he and other residents have received a notice from management to move by July 15. His bank requires 90 days’ notice before a move. He said that he worries that at some point, if nothing is resolved, he will be kicked out and lose the money he put into his home.
Adjusting to change is always difficult, but even more so for those who are older and disabled. Williams said that if he does move across the park, “What’s to keep the same thing from happening again in a year or two? This was supposed to be the home I would live and die in.” ##
(Photo Credit: Roanoke Times)
Article submitted by Sandra Lane to – Daily Business News – MHProNews.
