3 Phoenix mobile home parks soon face displacement, eviction

Residents of three mobile home parks in Phoenix are just weeks or months away from being evicted, and many residents still don't know where they're going to go.

Aid money from the state is insufficient and can be hard to access. Efforts by one housing services nonprofit to help move residents of Periwinkle mobile home park, which is owned by Grand Canyon University, have been met with resistance. While Phoenix has provided impacted residents some immediate assistance, it hasn’t yet found a long-term fix to keep other mobile home parks from encountering the same fate.

A Phoenix City Council committee plans to meet at 6 p.m. Monday, March 6 to discuss what more the city can do to prevent soon-to-be displaced mobile home residents from becoming homeless.

In the meantime, with each passing day, the people who live in the parks move a step closer to losing their homes.

Residents of Weldon Court, a mobile home park near 16th Street and Osborn Road, must move out by April 1.

Residents of Las Casitas mobile home park, now called Beacon, at 19th Avenue and Buckeye Road, have until May 1.

Periwinkle residents, at 27th Avenue and Colter Street, must leave by May 28.

While residents own their mobile homes, they don’t own the land the homes sit on. With the Valley’s hot real estate market, mobile home park landowners are rapidly selling the land for redevelopment, forcing residents to leave.

Many residents are calling on the city for more help.

“It's very frustrating and confusing that people can just sit down and watch us head towards homelessness,” said Alondra Ruiz, a Periwinkle resident, at a Feb. 1 City Council committee meeting.

State funds are insufficient, difficult to use

There is a state fund available to help assist mobile home residents, but the money isn’t nearly enough, residents and housing advocates said.

Under Arizona law, mobile home park residents who are displaced because of redevelopment are eligible to receive either $7,500 or $12,500 to move their mobile home, depending on its size.

But many of the mobile homes are so old, they cannot be moved to another park. Residents who have to abandon their mobile homes are only eligible to receive $1,875 or $3,125 from the fund.

A bill that would increase the amount of money available to mobile home residents to either relocate or abandon their homes was introduced in the Legislature in January by Rep. Matt Gress, R-Phoenix. The bill, House Bill 2381, passed the House in February and is now in the Senate.

Though there is more than $7.7 million in the state’s mobile home relocation fund, only a small fraction of it — just $16,750 — was used in 2022, according to the Arizona Department of Housing.

So far, only a handful of residents from Periwinkle, Las Casitas and Weldon Court have applied to receive payment for abandoning their mobile homes, according to the department. No residents have applied to relocate their homes.

The Housing Department keeps information on how to apply for the mobile home relocation fund on its website.

The way state law is written has also made the money difficult to access. For example, the state can cover the moving costs of a trailer, but it only pays the transportation company several weeks after the job is done, which many companies won’t agree to.

To get around that, the housing services nonprofit Trellis, which was hired by Grand Canyon University to help residents relocate, offered to pay the moving costs upfront and be reimbursed by the state. But the statute requires that the money be paid directly to the transportation company.

“The statute is just riddled with obstacles,” said Mike Trailor, CEO of Trellis.

Assistance for Periwinkle residents met with resistance

While Trellis has already successfully relocated some people, about 40% of the residents have not yet accepted the organization’s offer to help.

Some residents are not willing to work with Trellis because of its partnership with the university, which they feel is a conflict of interest.

“The bottom line is, GCU is paying Trellis to kick us out,” Ruiz said.

Trailor said the organization’s only interest is to help residents relocate.

Grand Canyon University, a private Christian university, is offering each household $5,000 to move and a bonus payment of $400 for each month that they move out before May. The university is also offering free tutoring services for children who live in Periwinkle, free rent for five months, $5,000 in household goods and more, according to university spokesperson Bob Romantic.

But that doesn’t cover all of the moving costs.

“The minimum cost to relocate somebody successfully, without any frills or thrills, is about $25,000,” Trailor said.

To close the gap, Trellis has started asking for donations to help people move. So far, it has received $100,000 from the Arizona Community Foundation and is hoping to raise $150,000 more, Trailor said. Donations can be made directly to Trellis, he said.

While Trellis continues trying to solicit donations, some residents and advocates wonder why the university won’t cover those costs.

“They’re asking other people to foot the bill,” said Sylvia Herrera, a community organizer who is advocating for mobile home park residents facing displacement.

In response, Romantic said the assistance the university is already offering residents is valued at more than $500,000.

The mobile home park, which sits adjacent to Grand Canyon University’s campus, is set to become student housing.

The university told Periwinkle residents it was going to redevelop the land when it purchased the park in 2016 and has not raised residents’ rents since then, Romantic said. It also initially asked residents to move out by October 2022 but has extended that deadline twice to accommodate them.

Because it takes a minimum of 60 days to relocate a household, if Periwinkle residents don’t accept help from Trellis by April 1, it will be too late to provide them assistance, Trailor said.

If residents do not leave by May 28, he said, they will be evicted.

What Phoenix has done to help so far

Phoenix has provided some immediate assistance to the households facing displacement but has yet to come up with a long-term solution to keep people in other mobile home parks from ending up in similar situations.

In December, some residents received emergency housing vouchers from the city, which can be used at rental housing to cover most of the cost of rent.

The vouchers were one of several suggestions made by the city manager’s office in a November draft research report on how the city could help mobile home residents facing displacement and keep similar situations from arising in the future.

The Phoenix Industrial Development Authority also allocated $300,000 for the nonprofit Helping Families in Need to assist residents of Weldon Court and Las Casitas with navigating housing and other services.

In addition, the city in January approved a $300,000 contract with Community Legal Services, a nonprofit law firm, to provide legal aid to residents.

The firm is working to make sure residents have time to move and can afford it, and that the landlords are abiding by the law, said Pamela Bridge, director of litigation and advocacy at Community Legal Services.

“We hope that we can resolve things,” Bridge said. “Otherwise, we will need to litigate.”

Advocates, residents urge Phoenix to do more

Advocates for the mobile home parks are calling on Phoenix to take action to prevent future mobile home park residents from being displaced.

One big chance they’re requesting: a new zoning law.

Several cities, including Austin, Texas, and Portland, Oregon, have already passed ordinances that specifically zone existing mobile home parks as such. That means if the landowner wanted to redevelop the land for a different purpose, they would first need city approval.

But the Phoenix city manager’s office does not recommend taking that step, according to an updated version of its research report. If the city rezones land in a way that diminishes the value of the property, it is responsible for paying landowners the difference, according to the report.

Instead, the report recommended several solutions its research group found more viable, including partnering with nonprofits to purchase mobile home parks and providing eligible residents with financial assistance to buy a home.

“Mobile home park residents are being caught in the difficult convergence of rising property values, raising rents and rising homeless in our city. We need to put every tool at our disposal on the table to ensure these residents are protected," said City Councilmember Betty Guardado, whose district includes Periwinkle, in an email statement. "We cannot have mobile home park residents pushed onto the street."

Bridge, of Community Legal Services, said she is encouraged by the city’s unprecedented concern so far, but that the city also needs to figure out long-term solutions.

“We can’t keep landlords from doing this,” Bridge said. “So how can we make it fair for these families?”

Juliette Rihl covers housing insecurity and homelessness for The Arizona Republic. She can be reached at jrihl@arizonarepublic.com or on Twitter @julietterihl.

A grant from the Arizona Community Foundation supports coverage of housing insecurity on azcentral.com and in The Arizona Republic.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Phoenix mobile home parks will soon be displaced, residents evicted