Senior Citizens Victimized Again

With reference to Chad's post below regarding an issue that troubles me deeply:

It seems mobile home parks are being bought up around the county, and the residents are simply evicted. I urge you to read Chad’s blog before continuing.

At root in this issue is a cultural imperative that declares profit to be more important than people. It is all about the right of the owner to make as much profit as possible, with the fewest possible restrictions. Such restrictions as do apply are generally intended to protect society at large, with little or no regard to how individual citizens are affected.

You see this imperative at work when thousands and thousands of jobs are outsourced to foreign job markets where labor costs are lower. This is done in the name of “remaining competitive,” and the families that are devastated by the loss of income and benefits simply don’t matter.

You see it when the huge WalMart store comes to town, especially in smaller communities, and the mom and pop stores have to close up shop because they simply can’t compete. Never mind the WalMart policy of utilizing part time employees for the majority of their positions so they can pay minimum wage and avoid paying benefits. It’s called “externalizing costs.”

In the case of Mariner Village, the prioritization of profit over people is glaring! A “group of investors” looked at the profit potential of the park in question, without regard to the human cost, which would simply be “externalized.” They purchased it at a whopping $1.3 million (if memory serves) and set about surveying and consulting with the planning department. The pesky little matter of 158 residential households was a minor inconvenience, easily disposed of under current law.

The articles I have read on this subject couch it mostly in terms of the rights of owners. That was the point of the Supreme Court ruling cited in Jerry Cornfield’s article. While the plight of the residents is vividly described, there is little or no mention of their rights. This is because, for all practical purposes, they don’t have any.

Let me go on record here and now as declaring this to be much more that an ownership issue. This is about HUMAN RIGHTS and SOCIAL JUSTICE!

Let’s take a look at the people involved. I have only spoken with two of the residents of Mariner Village, but am prepared to make a few generalizations that I would expect to hold up under close scrutiny. This being a Seniors Only park, most of the residents are retired and living on fixed incomes. There are probably more widows than widowers, and a large proportion of couples who have been together for 30, 40 and even 50 years. These people have worked all their lives and paid their dues. Some will have owned businesses. Most will have owned their own homes at one time or another. Upon retiring, they were forced by economic reality to “downscale” their lives in various ways, one of which was to buy an affordable manufactured home and park it in a clean, well-maintained park where the space rental was something their fixed incomes could support.

Now they face eviction. They are responsible for moving their homes or paying to have them demolished and carted away. The “group of investors” bears no part of this responsibility. Costs externalized. With nine other mobile home parks in Snohomish County facing the same problem, there are no spaces available. Can they buy a lot to put it on? Not likely with property values being what they are. They can put their homes up for sale, but who will buy under these circumstances? And what would they be willing to pay?

Finally, consider the previous owners of this mobile home park. With spaces renting for $500 and up, they probably had a monthly income in the neighborhood of $80K or so. Property taxes and maintenance costs were passed through to the renters, so it is safe to assume a comfortable monthly income in the $30-$50K range, if not more. And they had the pleasure of knowing they were providing a valuable service to 158 households.

Ultimately, this is about who we are as Americans, Washingtonians and citizens of Snohomish County. This is about the cultural imperative that we create. These people are us, folks. We are them. They are being downscaled right out of their homes and the communities they love, even as those same communities - you and I - are upscaling our waterfronts, riverfronts and downtown cores.

Who are we, really?

“The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much, it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.” – Franklin Delano Roosevelt.