Grand Canyon University isn't the villain in Phoenix mobile home flap

Low-income housing is a complicated and serious issue in our community, as was pointed out in an op-ed by Phoenix Vice Mayor Yassamin Ansari and City Council members Betty Guardado, Laura Pastor and Carlos Garcia.

It’s also an issue that requires a full understanding of the problem and facts that the op-ed did not provide.

The op-ed excluded two significant aspects in singling out Grand Canyon University and proposing an embargo on any redevelopment of a GCU-owned mobile home park.

GCU met every initial relocation request

First, contrary to the characterization of GCU as being “incapable” of privately handling relocation efforts involving the Periwinkle Mobile Home Park, it’s worth noting that:

• GCU stated publicly when it acquired the property in 2016 that it would be used for future campus expansion and waited as long as it could to expand into the location. It also did not raise the rent during those seven years to help ease the transition.

• After GCU informed the tenants that Periwinkle would be closing, the university met every one of the tenants’ initial relocation requests, providing more than half a million dollars in financial assistance and extending the move-out deadline far beyond what is legally required.

• Six years ago, the Phoenix City Council unanimously approved GCU’s request to incorporate the Periwinkle property that it owns into the university’s existing campus Planned Unit Development zoning.

• Although we tried to meet with each tenant to address their specific needs, the tenants asked for a third party. So GCU funded a third-party housing expert, Trellis, to work with each family individually.

Phoenix is helping 2 other parks, not ours

Trellis is experienced at finding public and private low-income funding sources and is helping every Periwinkle family that has been willing to meet find alternate housing.

Yet, roughly a third of the Periwinkle tenants have declined to meet with Trellis and are refusing any help.

The op-ed highlighted one tenant whom it characterized as someone who would soon be living on the streets. In reality, Trellis has already identified a federal housing voucher that it’s confident the tenant will qualify for and would pay 70% of his rent for the rest of his life.

He just has to be willing to meet with Trellis to receive it.

A second – and more egregious – fact was left out of the op-ed.

More time, resources:Mobile home park residents will get extra help

The city of Phoenix and its affiliated nonprofit entities, such as the Industrial Development Authority, are providing hundreds of thousands of dollars in relocation assistance to tenants at two other Phoenix mobile home parks that are closing.

But they have not extended that same assistance to Periwinkle tenants. Why?

Council members' solution is more costly

Because, unlike GCU, the out-of-state owners of those other parks are not offering any assistance, and the city can stretch its limited funding resources further to others, given that GCU is already stepping up to help Periwinkle tenants.

Rather than provide equitable financial assistance to tenants at all mobile home parks, these elected officials have instead disparaged Grand Canyon University and its efforts.

All the while they’re proposing zoning overlays that, because they strip the property rights of owners, would end up costing the city hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation to GCU and other landowners.

That’s a waste of taxpayer dollars and, frankly, not something the university wants.

GCU has worked hard to be a good neighbor

As GCU has expanded its campus in the last 10 years, it has taken great care to ensure that people at the properties it acquires are in as good or better situations than they have left.

That campus expansion has also provided the university with the funding and manpower to assist disadvantaged populations in our Maryvale neighborhood:

• raising $7.6 million to provide 650 full-tuition scholarships to low-income students in our community in the past eight years;

• offering free tutoring to more than 5,500 K-12 students;

• renovating 469 homes and four schools in the surrounding community through a partnership with Habitat for Humanity;

• partnering with Phoenix police on a $2.2 million safety initiative to reduce crime in the neighborhood;

• providing more than $5 million in household goods from our on-campus CityServe warehouse to 9,500 families in need in just the first 18 months; and

• creating job opportunities for area residents on both our campus and at eight additional GCU business enterprises.

We are confident that if the Periwinkle tenants are open to receiving help from Trellis and GCU, and the City Council treats them equitably, safe and appropriate solutions will be found for each tenant – just as GCU has successfully done throughout its history.

Bob Romantic is executive director of communications of Grand Canyon University. Reach him at bob.romantic@gcu.edu.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Grand Canyon University is not the villiain in mobile home park flap