ST. GEORGE — For months, a cloud of uncertainty has hung over residents of two mobile home parks that are set to be sold — either to an unknown company, or the residents themselves.
Since they learned during the summer that their parks are up for sale by their longtime owner, residents of both the St. George Villa and Sunset Villa in Hinesburg have been working to come up with enough money to buy their parks. They’ve also formed cooperatives to manage the sale process and, perhaps one day, the parks.
“Right after that happened, I think I had 21 or 22 voicemails from people inside the park,” said Jessica Brumsted, a state representative whose district includes the St. George park.
A state law allows mobile home residents time make an offer on the parks, Brumsted said, but they need at least 51 percent of the mobile home owners in the park to agree.
Brumsted and a park resident went door to door, she said, explaining to residents what is happening to their park and urging them to come to a meeting where the residents were to start work on forming a cooperative.
Nearly every owner in the park came to the initial meeting, said Jonathan Bond, director of the mobile home program at the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity
“I have never seen more people come to the first meeting about their park sale,” Bond said.
After months of work organizing and finding financing from housing organizations like the Cooperative Development Institute and Resident Owned Communities, the residents came up with the $6 million to offer the owner, Mark Kaufman.
Kaufman is weighing the residents’ offer, he said, and another from an out-of-state mobile home management company that is offering nearly $1 million more. Kaufman declined to identify the company when asked by VTDigger, but he did give a rough timeline for a decision.
“Don’t hold me to this, but approximately within the next 30 days,” Kaufman said last Friday.
Kaufman’s late father, Mortimer, had owned and managed the parks for decades. Kaufman said he is not in a position to manage the parks after his father died last year.
Bond said with the higher offer on the table, the mood is low in the park.
“It looks like they fell short,” Bond said. “There’s nothing preventing the owner from selling to the highest bidder. I mean, the law is not trying to take away the rights of the owner, it just makes sure the residents get a fair shake.”
There are over 241 mobile home parks in Vermont, and 11 of them are cooperatively owned, according to the most recent state report.
CVOEO’s mobile home program has been working for 30 years, Bond said. Its main role is supporting the residents’ organizing and keeping them apprised of their rights under Vermont law.
They also help stop the flow of misinformation, Bond said.
When residents at the two Chittenden County parks first heard of their parks being put up for sale, a rumor spread that the parks were going to close. State housing officials, park leaders and others tried to make it clear that people were not going to be kicked out of their homes, Bond said.
“Under state law it’s clear that a park can close, but it’s a process,” Bond said. It will take up to 18 months for a park to close, Bond said. Kaufman also said the parks will not close.
“They should not have concerns that they will have to relocate,” Kaufman said.
But anxiety is rampant, according to residents, and rumors spread quickly in the tight-knit communities where word-of-mouth may be some residents’ main source of information.
“It’s like being in high school,” said Sandra Jarvis, 54, a resident of the St. George park and secretary of that park’s cooperative.
Many who live in the park are worried about any increase to their expenses, said Jarvis and her sister Lisa Hodgkins, 50, a longtime resident in the St. George park and cooperative’s treasurer. Most people who live in the park own their homes, but rent the land, they said.
This year lot rents were $385 per month in both parks, but next year the rents increase to $400 per month. State law gives residents certain rights to challenge a rent increase should it be raised 1 percent or more over the U.S. Consumer Price Index for urban consumers, according to a CVOEO guide for mobile home owners.
There are 56 homes in the Hinesburg park, and 120 in the St. George park. Some homes have five or more people living in them, Hodgkins said.
“There are a lot of residents here who are on fixed incomes, who are retired, widowed, widowers, disability,” Hodgkins said. “Because everything is up in the air, it’s not quite the same holiday feeling this year.”
A cooperative is a chance to form a more democratic community, Hodgkins said, adding that residents would be able to address problems with their neighbors instead of a far-away company. They could change the park rules, if the residents wanted.
“Nobody knows better than the residents what needs to be addressed,” Hodgkins said.
But for many, the worst part of the sale process is the fear of the unknown, Hodgkins and Jarvis said.
“It’s like you’re hanging. Like you’re treading water,” Hodgkins said.
