VANCOUVER, Wash — Over 200 residents of the Vista Del Rio Mobile Home Park, located in East Vancouver off SR-14, are trying to buy the land where they live. The current third-generation owners announced they will be selling the land in a letter to residents back in May.
“I was shocked and angry,” said Wendy Cassidy, who has lived in Vista Del Rio since January. “And you know I can’t sell it because of the pending sale. We are part of the middle class now, the retired middle class — that we can’t afford to rent anywhere.”
Cassidy tells KGW this is the second time she has been in this situation, where the mobile home park she lives on is getting sold. She shares that she spent thousands of dollars remodeling what she thought was her forever home she just bought last October.
"It took me 5 months of remodeling it in order to move in here," said Cassidy.
Many residents, like Cassidy, are over 55-years-old and low-income — and are now left with unknown answers of what’s next.
“There’s just no place to go,” she said. “This was kind of one of the last safe havens.”
Nonprofit ROC Northwest was also notified of the sale in May. The agency says on its website its program been helping community form cooperative businesses, secure financing and purchase the community in which they live in across Washington and Idaho.
“We’ve been doing this program since 2008,” said Victoria O’Banion with the ROC Northwest. “We support them in forming a limited equity cooperative, and that limited equity cooperative purchases their manufactured housing community.”
O’Banion says federal grant money is needed to move forward with the $41 million land purchase — something she is unsure they will secure by Nov. 1. If the land does get sold there are several possible outcomes for residents.
“History has shown that when an investor purchases a manufactured housing community there is economic eviction because the residents are not going to be able to afford the lot rent that the investor charges,” said O’Banion.
An investor could also purchase the land and do with what they please.
And while this may seem unattainable to some, it’s not for 10-year resident Tom Kent.
“I think we just have to just keep trying and be flexible and be optimistic,” said Kent. “And talk to a lot of people and see what kind of options they might suggest. But we haven't given up is the short answer."
Kent is part of the Vista Del Rio Community Committee and says they plan on talking with the ROC Northwest, Vancouver city officials and residents about next steps by the end of the month.