Residents turn to congressman after hedge fund buys this NC mobile home park

Residents of a mobile home park outside Chapel Hill got a visit Tuesday night from a congressman who came to hear their concerns about the future of safe, affordable housing.

José Rojas and his wife, Levi Muñoz, were among those who shared their stories with U.S. Rep David Price at Ridgewood Road Mobile Home Park.

The couple and their three children left the community in July after 14 years, they said, after management denied them a new lease and told them to move their mobile home. They had planned to sell the home to Rojas’s parents, but the management wouldn’t approve a new lot lease, Muñoz said.

They instead sold their mobile home to a man who said he would buy it and move it for $3,000, and they bought a new home in Sanford. Rojas estimated they lost $10,000 on the deal.

They came back Tuesday to bring attention to problems at the park, where their children had to play in the street because sewage from overflowing septic tanks made the yards unsafe. They have a big yard for the children to play in now, they said.

“We are trying to help our neighbors, to come here and support them,” Rojas said.

There are “millions and millions of people in these kinds of developments and problems all over the place,” Price said. The federal government has a role to play in larger issues, just as the local government does when it comes to local issues like water and septic problems, safe housing and zoning, he said.

The 4th District Democrat, along with Orange County Manager Bonnie Hammersley, Commissioners Chair Renee Price and county staff, joined residents in a tour of the mobile home community, which sits in a wooded area surrounded by single-family homes with ample acreage that sell for $300,000 and up.

Ridgewood Road’s mobile homes are older, modest and sit on land sold in April to Ridgewood Road MHP LLC, a subsidiary of hedge fund Alden Global Capital. In June, residents reached out to Price for help.

Mobile home parks across the Triangle and the nation are being sold to big-money investors and developers. Park residents in Orange and Wake counties also have contacted Price through advocacy groups, including Justice United, ONE Wake, Durham CAN and the N.C. Congress of Latino Organizations. Price shared information Tuesday about two federal bills he and others are exploring.

One would fund organizations working to preserve mobile home parks, while the other would protect residents in affordable housing against hazardous conditions, steep rent hikes and predatory actions.

“These are private developments,” Price said. “A lot of them operate very, very well, but there’s enough problems out there, enough threats, particularly as the land in a lot of places becomes more valuable, that it’s tempting to buy these places out and leave these people out in the cold.”

“When you’re facing a situation like that, we probably need to pay more attention at the federal level to basic protections,” he said.

Rising rent, septic, water problems

About 40 families call Ridgewood Road home, and roughly 90% of them speak Spanish as their native language. Until recently, they paid some of the Triangle’s lowest lot lease rates.

Alejandra Rivera, a nail technician who works in Chapel Hill, said the increased rent is especially tough for her and many other residents affected by last year’s COVID-19 shutdown. The pandemic, coupled with her own health problems, eliminated about three-quarters of her business last year, Rivera said in Spanish at a June news conference as her neighbor Maria Vivas translated.

Rivera’s 20-year-old son had to leave school to work full time and help her, she said. The rent increases make it impossible for him to think about returning to school, she added.

“These are such large increases that it is impossible for us to pay, but we have no other place to go either,” Rivera said.

Meanwhile, residents have struggled to get the park’s owners to address health and safety concerns, including tainted water and faulty septic systems, they said. Last year, some had no water for over a week.

Orange County Health Department records show the problems are not new.

Inspectors found Ridgewood Road’s wastewater treatment management program “malfunctioning” in at least nine annual inspections since 2010, including in September 2020. Tree roots and other blockages caused some issues, while others required septic tanks to be replaced to prevent sewage from backing up into a house, collecting just below the ground’s surface, or being discharged above the ground.

The park also has had water problems for at least 15 years, records show, including coliform contamination that made it undrinkable in 2005 and 2006, and water shortage problems that left residents without water for days at a time in 2009, county documents show.

Permits have been issued for new and expanded wells, but previous owners requested more time to do the work. Records don’t show whether that work was completed, but another permit for a new well was issued in December 2020. The new owners have replaced a well pump that appeared to solve the most recent problems but have delayed digging a new well, said Julia Sendor, an organizer with Orange County Justice United.

Some septic problems also have been repaired since the residents held a news conference at Price’s office in June, Sendor said, and the management has verbally agreed to let residents sell their own mobile homes. They are still trying to get that in writing, she said.

Residents, advocates seek solutions

Ridgewood Road MHP LLC paid $2.85 million for the 22-acre mobile home park and, in July, raised the monthly rate for a mobile home lot to $495 — an up to 40% hike for some families. Many own their homes and pay rent for utilities and the land underneath.

Price contacted the park owners last month to express “concern for his constituents’ well-being,” Sendor said. Price said Tuesday he is looking forward to talking with the owners.

He also praised advocates for bringing attention to the mobile home park’s issues and potential solutions.

Jane Gump, a retired widow, has lived in Ridgewood for about 27 years. In May, her septic system overflowed, filling a hole in her yard with sewage water. It was cleaned out, she said, but it stopped working by June.

She also took out a $5,000 loan to repair her roof after a dying tree dropped large limbs onto her home, breaking through the ceiling and causing leaks, Gump said. It’s not the only tree on the property that is dangerous and at risk of falling, she said.

Orange County health officials will visit Ridgewood Road this week to survey septic systems. An arborist also volunteered to survey the trees, some of which are rotted and in danger of falling. The owners were given a list of what he found, Sendor said.

Tax credits, resident owned co-ops

Local governments have few options to help when park owners raise the rent, establish strict rules, or even close the parks, Commissioners Chair Renee Price said in a July interview. The Chapel Hill Town Council faced that reality last year when a developer warned that over 70 mobile home park residents would be displaced if the town did not approve a development plan.

State lawmakers can do more, advocates said, by drafting a law that gives residents the first right to buy a park listed for sale, or providing tax credits, deductions and other incentives to owners who sell their parks to residents.

The state enacted similar tax credit provisions in 2008, but those credits expired in 2015.

Another option that could benefit from a federal grant program is the resident-owned community model, which is just taking off in North Carolina. The model is led by ROC-USA, a network of nonprofit groups working with a community development financial institution to advise residents on how to buy their mobile home parks and to offer low-interest loans.

ROC-USA now has 270 resident-owned communities in 18 states, including in Asheboro, that let neighbors work together to build home equity, reinvest the profits to make their parks better and, over time, choose who becomes a neighbor, he said.

Last year, ROC-USA made an offer on Ridgewood Road but couldn’t outbid the new owner.

The purchase price was “well above market rate,” said Thomas Beckett, executive director of Carolina Common Enterprise, ROC-USA’s North Carolina affiliate.

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