Residents of a Florida City park have lived there for decades. They have until Wednesday to leave

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

About 70 residents of a low-income trailer neighborhood in Florida City could be homeless by Wednesday because they are being evicted by the city.

Florida City has owned the 15-acre lot at Krome Avenue and Northwest Seventh Street for decades and is working to close a $6.8 million sale with developers the Treo Group, according to the city’s mayor.

The last stipulation of the contract, Mayor Otis Wallace said, is to make the land void of its occupants as well as their trailers, campers and recreational vehicles.

“The deal can’t close until the campsite is empty,” said Wallace, who’s been mayor of Florida City since 1984.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/residents-florida-city-owned-trailer-213000375.html

That's the downside of living in a trailer park. You don't own the property your trailer's on. The only protection you have is state or local rental laws governing the amount of time a notice has to be given if the landlord wants to terminate the lease.

[captain queeg]

1. I wonder how many people are living this way?

Not exactly homeless, but living on the edge. Around here I see hundreds of campers and RVs parked on side streets and public land. That’s not even counting the thousands in tents or whatever sort of shelter they can scrape together. It’s one thing for a healthy adult to live that way, but when they are old or infirmed or have kids it’s really tragic. I have no answers, I doubt anyone does, but how has it come to this?

[Celerity]

9. 'but how has it come to this?'

Because a truly huge number of Americans call:

a well regulated BUT still highly vibrant (more vibrant on most measures per capita than the US's) form of capitalism,

plus a world class level of wealth equality,

and a vast, expansive, but efficient social welfare net (welfare as in the overall welfare of the citizens, not the American concept of welfare as being on the dole)

either socialism or, even more idiotically, communism.

America is still an extraordinarily reactionary country, with many citizens still fighting the Cold War even to this day, much like the proverbial Japanese soldiers lost long ago on scattered South Pacific islands, still thinking WWII was going on, decades after it ended.

In reality that system I laid out above is simple, bog standard social democracy (like we have here in the Nordics). A vibrant, very robust, AND highly regulated form of capitalism, buttressed and enhanced synergistically by a equally robust social welfare state.

Then, for the coup de grâce, you have an ever-growing sector of American politicians who are, in reality, simply social democrats, insisting, stupidly, and with full hubris in effect, on falsely labelling themselves as democratic socialists, when they are not (zero elected Dems at Federal level are).

That false self-labelling (the socialist part of democratic socialist) then closes the negative feedback loop and both allows and encourages the reactionary forces to further fight against the falsely-labelled social democratic system, the very system that if put into place, would save the nation from the auto-cannibalism of the current American paradigm.

[NBachers]

2. I had a little mobile home in a place called Everglades Trailer Park not far from there.

It was kind of a throwback to an earlier time in Florida’s history. I enjoyed my little pad on the edge of the gator canals. Nice neighbors, and out of the way from too much scrutiny. I could open the door and let the dog run free. It worked out great, except for the time she found some disgusting dead animal to roll around in.

[tavernier]

3. Guaranteed many of those vehicles don't run.

It’s sad for those families. They have have probably paid every bit of the minimum wage they make at low end jobs to pay for lot rental over the years.

[pstokely]

8. it might cost more to more some those trailers than they're worth

never buy a house on leased land

[XanaDUer2]

4. Stories like this break my heart

we're thinking about retiring to a 55-plus mobile home park, and stories like this give me pause

[flotsam]

7. I live in a mobile home and do not have this worry

My community is a co-op park and the home owners collectively own the land. All management decisions are made by a park board of residents elected in a yearly meeting. In twenty years my lot fees have only increased from $250 to $300. Taxes on my doublewide run a little over $1k per year and the house is paid off...

[captain queeg]

10. That sounds like a good arrangement.

I read awhile ago there is a big business trend to buy out the little mom and pop traler parks. Most of the people there are captives, so they can crank up their fees.

[Deuxcents]

5. Here in Lee County

I’m helping a disabled woman move after 37 years in her condo. She cannot afford the HOA n flood insurance. She’s looking in a mobile home park but with land ownerships. Personally, I’m sick about this for her. These developers come over here n the older ones are priced out b/c of their grand plans. “They call it paradise..kiss it goodbye”

[csziggy]

6. Even if you have a nice mobile home, it can cost more than it's worth to move it

A single wide mobile home can cost over $5000 to move, double wide twice as much. Here there are parks which have been in place for over fifty years with some of the original mobile homes in them. While the homes may have been patched up, they are not worth moving - especially when a new - or even used - mobile home often includes the cost of delivery and set up.

When I was in college, I was about to buy a piece of land and paid for a used mobile home. The land deal fell through so I moved that trailer onto a lot in a mobile home park and lived there until after I graduated college. Then I sold the trailer for $200 less than I paid for it and the company that I bought from and sold to moved it both times as part of the deals.

When we bought our farm, the quickest way to get moved out here was to buy a mobile home. Six weeks from ordering we had a house set up and ready to move into. We lived in that house for almost thirty years, but when we built our house and checked out selling it, we found that it would almost impossible. Our solution - we gave that double wide to a family who had lost their house to a fire. Three generations were living in an RV on their house lot. They paid about $6000 to move both sides (it was all arranged through a local church) and now two generations are living in the house, and one in the RV. We drive by sometimes and they are taking great care of it.