Vermont Affordable Housing Coalition: News » Mobile Home Parks

New Mobile Home Facts from DHCA

reganw — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 17:32:19 +0000

2011 Mobile Home Park Information:

Number of parks is 248
Number of total lots is 7,194
Number of vacant lots statewide is 310 or 4.3%
State median lot rent is $302

Mobile homes razed; officials laud a first step in resolving post-Irene, low-income housing issues

reganw — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 14:20:07 +0000

December 29, 2011 – Andrew Nemethy – www.vtdigger.org

MONTPELIER – A statewide effort to clean up widespread devastation at Vermont’s mobile home parks after tropical storm Irene was lauded Thursday for its remarkable partnerships, volunteers and accomplishments.

Lt. Gov. Phil Scott said the cleanup effort disposed of 68 badly damaged mobile homes in six parks around the state through a unique partnership of state, private and nonprofit organizations and a host of people who pitched in with time, money and equipment.

“I think that’s what I’m most proud of,” said Scott.

Vermonters from all walks of life just started “solving” the problems, as he put it, that cropped in the effort to remove mobile homes swamped by Irene.

More than $300,000 was raised to assist the project through donations big and small, and in a race against the onset of winter, 68 units were demolished and removed in six weeks at an approximate cost of $2,500 per unit, according to Scott.

Scott spearheaded the cleanup when it became apparent many mobile home owners did not have the $3,500 to $4,500 in funds to dispose of their homes – which meant recovery after the Aug. 28 disaster would be delayed since new units could not replace damaged ones, hard-hit mobile park owners would be left without rental income for their lots, and valuable low-income housing sites would be removed from the state.

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Irene-damage mobile homes razed in Berlin

santinal — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 16:30:55 +0000

ERLIN — Pete Ainsworth snapped photos Monday of the excavator chomping through the roof of his neighbor’s trailer. Ainsworth’s mobile home, which had also been flooded by Tropical Storm Irene, was next on the chopping block.

“We tried to save what we could, some of the stuff that was hanging on the walls,” Ainsworth, 35, said. “But pretty much everything was no good.”

Lt. Gov. Phil Scott, standing in front of the wreckage at Weston’s Mobile Home Park in Berlin, implored Vermonters to continue to help the people who lost their homes in the storm two months ago. A task force, organized by Scott and Secretary of Commerce and Community Development Lawrence Miller, has raised more than $150,000 to demolish uninhabitable mobile homes for their owners across the state. However, the group says it still needs another $150,000 to carry out its campaign.

Article Taken From burlingtonfreepress.com

PDF: Irene-damage mobile homes razed in Berlin

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Flood Diaries: Patterson Park Residents Face an Uncertain Future

erhardm — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 14:27:19 +0000

The smoke is the first thing I see. As I come down Main Street in Duxbury, I see the fire. The half-century old Patterson’s Mobile Home Park is burning.

Inside the park, I find about a dozen people working feverishly under a light rain on this early October day. An excavator with a claw prowls the grounds like a predatory animal, tearing off large pieces of a mobile home. It is as if the machine is feeding on the forsaken structures. Entire walls give way with a loud crack, the final submission in a month-long, losing battle to survive.

Joe Preus, 40, is tending a brilliant orange bonfire that roars in the middle of what looks like a battlefield. Friends and relatives move purposefully around him, sorting the debris. Preus, wearing a rain-soaked New England Patriots hoody, feeds the fire by adding broken pieces of lumber. His face is streaked with rain and soot …

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Mobile home owners to lawmakers, state officials: ‘We are definitely not OK’

santinal — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 17:22:19 +0000

Their frustration was palpable, their stories heart-wrenching, and their concerns numerous.

But the hardest thing facing mobile home owners flooded out by Tropical Storm Irene, judging from a meeting at the Old Labor Hall in Barre Wednesday evening, is that they feel “abandoned” while the rest of the state moves on with recovery.

“We have a right to housing and dignified lives like everyone else,” declared Sandy Gaffney, one of over 70 residents of Weston Mobile Home park in Berlin who were dislocated by the Aug. 28 storm.

Around 40 flooded-out mobile home residents gathered with advocates, legislators and local and state officials Wednesday to detail their dire housing and financial situation and urge help for those Vermonters “least able to deal with the disaster,” as Gaffney put it. Many wore T-shirts that said: “We are survivors of Irene 2011.”

Article Taken From vtdigger.org

PDF: Mobile home owners to lawmakers, state officials

URL: http://vtdigger.org/2011/10/20/mobile-home-owners-to-lawmakers-state-officials-we-are-definitely-not-ok/