A month away from homelessness
Formerly home to dozens of families, the Forest Creek and Wiley’s Court Mobile Home Parks are now largely vacant, with trailers boarded up and lots overgrown with brush.
By Samantha Lyles, Staff Writer, slyles@newsandpress.net
The letter dated July 13, 2016, arrived in mailboxes at a mobile home park in Darlington; an ersatz eviction notice, the body of the message from Hodge Real Estate and Property Management reads in full:
“We regret to inform you that you have 30 days to vacate the property. Please move all your property off the property within 30 days.”
With that terse notification, each resident learned their rental residency at the Forest Creek Mobile Home Park (located on Woodchuck Drive just off East McIver Road) was ending.
Some renters quickly gathered their things and moved in with family or friends, and some home owners arranged for their homes to be moved away to new lots at other parks. Several residents still remain, biding their time and sorting through what to do next.
One couple say that, if they had their choice, they would stay on for a while longer, even though the park has felt less and less like home in recent years.
Some mobile home owners who could afford the moving costs have already relocated their homes
“When we first moved here twelve years ago, the park was fuller and it was really nice. But about three years ago the landlord stopped doing anything to the property,” said one resident.
Signs of neglect abound in the park, with empty lots grown over with brush, weeds, and fallen trees, wide potholes in narrow paved roads, and boarded up abandoned trailers. Recently a partial electrical failure cut power to half of the a home and no one came to service the problem for a month. Just over a month ago, the park’s street lights suddenly went dark, leaving residents to navigate “in the pitch black.”
Two residents add that their rental agreement was altered a while back, exchanging a rent reduction of $70 for their signature on a document holding them solely responsible for maintenance and upkeep to their rented trailer and lot. They say they’ve talked about leaving the park since owners ceased maintaining the property, but lean family finances and ill health have hindered their quest for a new home.
The situation is, unfortunately, not unique. Not in America, in South Carolina, or even in Darlington County.
When landowner Barbara Stanley passed away in February, 2015, her family inherited a parcel of land located just off the Hwy 52 Bypass near Darlington. This land, known as the Juleswood Drive Mobile Home Park, was home to eight families. Some residents had lived there for over 30 years, paying Ms. Stanley $75 a month to lease their lots.
But business along that South Darlington corridor has picked up recently, with a new Walmart and Taco Bell bringing the possibility of further commercial development. When Stanley’s heirs decided to make different use of the park land, residents received hand-delivered letters from an attorney on April 19, 2016, notifying them they had 30 days to remove their homes from the premises.
Many Juleswood residents are elderly or disabled and survive on modest fixed incomes. Since they own their mobile homes but only lease the lots, they had a difficult choice to make: come up with thousands of dollars to relocate their homes, or abandon them and find a new place to live.
Traumatized residents reached out for help, and community development consultant Marilee Jackson and Rev. Roger Gore of the Family Engagement Program took up their cause. However, when they investigated ways to challenge the eviction, they found that mobile home owners have precious little legal protection and few ways to challenge the eviction process.
“If I’m a homeowner, it’s unfair not to allow me time to move rather than just saying ‘in 30 days, you’ve got to move.’ It can cost over $2,000 to get a mobile home moved from place to place. So for me to come up with $2,000 might be impossible,” says Gore.
An estimated 20 million Americans live in mobile homes, and in poorer regions like the southeast, manufactured homes represent almost a quarter of total housing. Nearly half of mobile home dwellers own their home but rent the ground beneath, which leaves them at the mercy of landlords. Nationally, laws to safeguard their rights range from non-existent to inadequate.
A reading of South Carolina state law on the subject reveals mostly bare-bones protections: landlords must provide mobile home park tenants with a written rental agreement specifying rent amount and due date, place of payment, services and facilities provided by landlord, park regulations and causes for eviction, statement of service fees and charges, and notice required to terminate tenancy.
If a landowner wants to evict mobile home owners from their property, there is no legal provision guaranteeing residents time to arrange and finance a move. South Carolina law requires that landlords give 30 days notice for tenants to vacate, but other states like Louisiana provide as little as ten days notice.
For those who decide to relocate their homes, the process can be costly, difficult, even dangerous. US Housing and Urban Development didn’t impose construction standards for manufactured homes prior to 1976, so many homes built before then have unsafe wiring and substandard structural quality. This makes older homes not only hazardous to live in, but incredibly challenging to move.
“David Gregg (a Juleswood resident for 38 years) is on a fixed income, he’s a disabled senior citizen. He can’t afford to move his mobile home, and we’re not even sure it would survive the moving process because it’s so old,” says Gore.
When you consider this, the term “mobile home” seems misleading, since they aren’t especially mobile and the cost of relocating one can represent a sizable piece of the home’s total value. Allowing that “mobile” is somewhat inaccurate, many homeowners prefer to say “manufactured home” instead. Neither of these designations should be confused with “modular homes” which are assembled at the building site and conform to state and local residential building codes.
It’s no surprise that people disagree on what to call these homes. States can’t even agree on how to classify mobile homes as property, with some treating them as real property (like a site-built home) and others as mere personal property, which only protects someone’s home as if it were a car or TV set.
The National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Law drafted a Manufactured Housing Act in 2012 that would provide clear and universal standards for state laws, home sellers, buyers, tenants, and landlords, but no state has yet chosen to fully adopt these suggestions.
In South Carolina, manufactured homes can be treated as real property if the home is permanently affixed to land (by removing wheels, axle, and towing hitch) that the homeowner either owns or can prove at least a 35 year leasehold on, and the homeowner must file an affidavit for retirement of title with the clerk of court. Classification as real property provides better resale and financing options, access to homestead exemptions, and stronger protection for heirs when the homeowner passes away.
Regardless of their property classification, municipal ordinances still govern where manufactured homes can locate. Zoning ordinances like those adopted by the City of Darlington restrict mobile homes from locating in single-family residential districts. Darlington County has no zoning policy, so mobile homes can locate freely in unincorporated areas… like Juleswood Drive.
Jackson and Gore recently appeared before Darlington County Council and asked for their help in building a consensus among local and state officials that mobile home owners need and deserve better treatment.
“In my research, I’ve found that South Carolina has the most mobile homes of anywhere in the country. Why are we not looking at this issue? They say we have to avoid homelessness and we need more affordable housing, but to not have laws to protect people who run such a high risk of being homeless is kind of crazy,” says Jackson.
Perhaps South Carolina could adopt the aforementioned Manufactured Housing Act, or follow the example of neighboring North Carolina, which has passed laws encouraging tenant ownership of mobile home parks. Until some action is taken, manufactured home owners in South Carolina will maintain their current precarious status, as homeowners who could – with just one month’s notice – become homeless. Mobile users, please click link for more photos: A Month Åway From Homelessness