“It’s an indication of the crisis we have in regards to finding affordable housing in Miami-Dade County,” said Marlon Hill, an attorney and candidate for the Miami-Dade County Commission District 9, which includes the park. “They know that a lot of these people have no place to go.” The bad part of it is: they know that,” McCoy said of the new owners. “It would leave me out with no place to go. Closing the park would put her “under a bridge,” she said. She has lived in the park for 19 years, and has lived in the Homestead area since 1952. “A lot of folks here are feeling helpless.” “There’s major stress and anxiety and depression already being triggered, and a lot of folks don’t have support, or are not physically able to figure out their next step,” said Calvo. Residents say that would hardly help with related relocation costs, much less having to pay higher rents in the market outside the park. If the single-wide home is able to be relocated, they could be eligible for $3,000. If no new agreement is reached, Florida law provides that single-wide mobile homeowners should receive $1,375 from a state fund set up to help displaced mobile home residents. Residents banded together on Tuesday to vote on creating a new homeowners’ association, and appointed attorney Calvo to represent them as a group.Ĭalvo said she is hopeful the collective will be able to negotiate with the new owners to provide for more money and more time for homeowners as they start to close the park. Some residents fear their homes might be total losses, or that they won’t be able to foot bills that can run in the thousands if their homes can be picked up and moved. Many mobile homes are only mobile in name, and cannot be picked up and moved.
WLRN Pine Isle Mobile Home Park after a rain. “There’s been a lot of wrongdoing in this park and I would like to see justice,” said Julie Mallock, who has lived here for 15 years and expected to live here for the rest of her life. Planes from the Homestead Air Force Base shriek overhead while peacocks call on the ground below. The area is lightly wooded, with old oaks and royal palm trees jutting up in between fruit trees and shrubs. Not all of the lots have homes on them, and many residents have already picked up and left. The 43.7 acre site has 317 mobile home lots that are restricted to residents ages 55 and above. “Some of these people here moved in the last year, and I would really feel cheated - that the place would be sold out from under them.” “It’s kind of shocking to have this place close up, although there’s been rumors for years about somebody buying the park,” said Chuck Baldwin, a retired Miami-Dade Public Schools teacher who has lived in the park since 1998. The notice would put them out of their homes by October 31. The park was sold in November for nearly $13 million, according to county property records, but residents received a six month notice of eviction from the new owners in mid-March.
The planned closure of Pine Isle Mobile Home Community would impact around 40 households that live in the park, according to attorney Nejla Calvo. The loss of trailer park lots, which rent for $400 a month per home, comes at a time when studies have found South Florida to be the most unaffordable metro area in the nation, especially for the elderly. A Homestead trailer park for people who are 55 and older has been sold and residents warned that they will have to leave the premises within six months.
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