10 minute read
COVER FEATURE
MOVING OUT
A judge ordered Northern Housing Community closed; now residents of the park are scrambling to find a place to live
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Gloria called on a Monday, sick with
worry.
She’d only days before learned that she’d soon have to leave the home in which she’d lived for five years. Gloria, along with at least a couple of dozen households in the Northern Housing Community Mobile Home park on Grand Avenue, would have 60 days to move. By court order, the Grand Avenue mobile home park on the north end of Schofield would need to be vacated in that time, giving folks in the park exactly two months to find a new place to live.
Moving is never fun, but for residents in the park, it’s the latest chapter of an ongoing saga in which many residents for years wondered for how long they would be able to stay in their homes. The current owners, Sustainable Resources, took over the troubled park after its previous owners agreed to sell it.
It was in rough condition under that previous owner, with residents attending Schofield city council meetings to try and glean a sense of whether or not the park would be shut down. Health Department officials came to city meetings armed with numerous documents detailing the many health concerns they had at the park.
The city on April 9, 2018 revoked the owner’s license to operate the mobile home park, which marked the first time resident of the park thought they’d need to move. Many left the park around that time, leaving today’s population at about half of what it was.
But those owners ultimately sold to Sustainable Resources, and an onsite manager was hired. That manager promised at city meetings to work with city and health officials to help clean the park to city standards. She met with residents at the meeting, and people seemed relieved that a new owner seemed to be poised to make sure those who remained at Northern Housing Community could stay where they are.
That didn’t happen, at least according to court documents filed by the city. Attorneys for the city of Schofield say there was some effort early on to address the issues with the park, but eventually those efforts disappeared. Moreover, attorneys for the city allege, the park’s owners never paid to renew the license, and owed back taxes as well. The park also never paid utility bills, and it never paid what it owed the city for razing vacant homes, the complaint alleges.
Sustainable Resources disagreed and filed a countersuit, saying they were never made aware they needed to renew their license.
That defense didn’t fly with the judge. Michael Moran on Sept. 7 ruled the company could no longer operate the land as a mobile home park. No residents could be left on the property after the 60 day period expires in November.
And that leaves people like Gloria wondering exactly where to go next. Right now she pays about $600 in rent at the park. As City Pages illustrated in its feature on affordable housing, or the lack thereof, finding similar rent will be a challenge, especially with so many suddenly looking at once.
At least one mobile home park offered a deal to move resident-owned trailers
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5551 9 to their park, with an incentive for some months of free rent. But that doesn’t help people such as Gloria, who rent their trailers. They will need to find a new place to live, and fast.
The park’s purpose
Mobile home living might not seem ideal for many people. But for some, it’s the perfect solution to owning their own home or living in a separate unit on a budget. My own grandfather sold his house and lived in a mobile home in the Milwaukee area that primarily catered to seniors, and enjoyed it.
And it’s perfect for people such as Gloria. She and her fiance are both on disability. Gloria has numerous health problems, possibly stemming from her time as a cleaner (though she doesn’t make that claim).
That was a different time for her. She’d pull all-nighters on cleaning jobs, sleep an hour, then go back to another job. No one could accuse her of not being a hard worker. She worked “24/7,” she told me.
But health intervened. The 56-year-old has fibromyalgia, which comes with a lot of pain. And, she told City Pages, she has three lung conditions. Her fiance no longer works and receives social security.
“I don’t know what we’re going to do if I need to live in my vehicle,” Gloria tells me. She tears up at times during the call. “We’re good people, but this is something that happened through no fault of our own. It
feels like we’re being penalized.”
It’s hard to argue against it. Gloria says her home is maintained, she’s paid her rent as expected and is doing her best to live within the means provided through disability. It wasn’t the tenants who chose not to pay for license renewal and taxes, and it wasn’t they who chose not to address the health hazards at the park, she says. Sustainable Resources will move on to other projects, and the city will make new plans for the park, but meanwhile, Gloria says, residents there need to try to fi nd a new place to live on a limited budget, in a short amount of time.
She tells me she’s worried about the reputation of the park. Because the park’s condition has been publicized in numerous stories for years, she is certain residents of the park will have a bad reputation through no fault of their own.
Gloria is further incensed when she sees reports that agencies have been reaching out — she says she hasn’t heard from anyone.
Help is on the way
I reached out to Diane Sennholz of North Central Community Action Program. Th e agency provides rental assistance and is working with CARES Act dollars to help address those in housing need.
Th at demand is starting to increase following the end of the eviction moratorium. Th ough people could have sought the funds while the moratorium was still in place, many waited until it ended to seek the rental assistance NCCAP helps connect residents to.
Th at funding is available to Northern Housing Community residents as well.
Connecting with residents has been a challenge, she says. One of the employees assigned to Northern Housing Community after the eviction order has been making trips to the park. He received a map from the city but ended up getting a better one from one of the residents there. But it isn’t always easy connecting with the remaining residents there, as the situation that’s been ongoing at the park has made them leery of offi cials. “Th ere’s a lot of distrust, even with people going there to provide assistance,” Sennholz says.
Th e last time the park appeared on the verge of closing, NCCAP held a resource fair to help provide residents with info about how they could get assistance. Th ey even provided free food and drink. But attendance was pretty slim, Sennholz says. So this time they choose a more direct approach.
NCCAP has been keeping an eye on the situation because they knew if the order came down to vacate, they’d want to be in a place to help. Th ere is money set aside specifi cally for rental assistance for folks at the park. Once that happened, NCCAP was ready to help.
“We wish people had a little more time but they don’t,” Sennholz says.
Conditions
Th ough there was some improvement in the early days of the new ownership, there are still some health hazardous conditions at the park, says Marathon County Environmental Health and Safety Director Dale Grosskurth says. Many of the issues just never got addressed.
Gloria tells me the new owner had set up a meeting to meet with all the residents of the park following Sustainable Resources’ take over. He never showed. In retrospect, that wasn’t a good sign, Gloria tells City Pages.
Th ings such as metal skirting around the bottoms of mobile homes not being replaced, animal feces and debris, broken appliances and bicycles lay strewn in parts of the park, Grosskurth. A hole from an excavated mobile home was never fi lled. A mobile home with a collapsed roof was left to rot, possibly harboring rodents.
Gloria tells me she and other residents tried to keep their homes up as best as possible. Her fi ance even mowed lawns of vacant lots so the grass wouldn’t get out of control.
Th e last inspection was in May, Grosskurth says. Th ey’ve been going more often since the problems at the park have been known.
How to help (and how to get help)
Are you a resident of Northern Housing Community? Contact the NorthCentral Community Acti on Program at 715-424-2581 if you need assistance moving. You might (and probably likely) qualify for rental assistance. And anyone who would like to donate to help out residents can call NCCAP at the same number.
Help for Gloria
I told Sennholz about Gloria when we spoke on the phone. She was eager to have her contact information in order to reach out.
Getting in touch with residents at the park has been challenging. Not everyone answers their door for a stranger these days, especially one who looks like they’re visiting in some offi cial capacity. Trust at the park is a bit low these days, perhaps understandably.
I email Gloria’s contact information after I get off the phone with Sennholz. In less than 16 minutes I get a message back from Sennholz. Sounds like the call went well.
It turns out, Gloria had all the required documents and would be getting Sennholz the documents over the weekend, and the same for her fi ance by this week. Sennholz seemed pretty confi dent they would be able to get rental assistance based on being on a fi xed income.
Hopefully, it works out that well for the other residents.
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