Relocation Dispute Stresses Elderly

By most accounts, the relocation of the Atlasta Mobile Home Park in Idaho’s capital city should have been a relatively snag-free, smooth process for its mainly elderly residents.

The ingredients were all there: a patient developer willing to postpone construction to move residents and pay some of the costs, a mayor who said he wanted to help and a governor who lent his clout to get the ball rolling.

But nearly a year and $500,000 later, the deal is mired in court. And the elderly residents do not know where they are going to live or whether they will be fortunate enough to be moved as a neighborhood.

“Some of the residents have lived here since the park was brand new,” said Archie Thornton, 65, who has lived there for four years. “A lot of the old-timers give it its flavor and complexion.”

Their misfortune has served to underscore the increasing problem people, often elderly, are facing across Idaho and other rapidly growing states in finding suitable housing.

The state’s Affordable Housing Task Force, set up by former Gov. Phil Batt, has won approval of a number of statutory changes to make moving older mobile homes feasible as development crowds them out of existing parks.

But affordable housing advocates contend that more and more communities are essentially zoning out mobile homes in response to the kind of angry homeowner neighbors who oppose the relocation of the Atlasta residents.

Some have called Atlasta their home for more than two decades. All were told last June that the land their mobile homes were on had been sold by a California company to make way for a strip mall.

“When we got our first eviction notice last summer, it was just unbelievable,” Thornton said. “A lot of the older residents took it the hardest.”

Residents, many in their 80s and 90s, worried about how they would come up with the $2,000 to $3,000 or more to move their mobile homes and bring them up to code if a new site was found.

“A lot of people are just overwhelmed. They don’t know what to do,” said 78-year-old Doris Allison, who has lived in the park for more than 10 years.

The development company that bought the land, Dakota Co., allayed those fears by agreeing to help find a new site and pay the associated costs.

“From the very beginning, we’ve put a real priority on keeping these people together as a community,” said Larry Durkin, who works for Dakota. “Several of the homes couldn’t be moved or upgraded, so we bought those homes from them.”

The company’s cooperation and an offer from the governor to help the residents launched the search for a suitable site. Boise Mayor Brent Coles, officials with the city’s Department of Housing and Community Development, the Boise Neighborhood Housing Services and the Boise City-Ada County Housing Authority got involved.

A 10-acre site was eventually found and purchased, but neighbors quickly went to court to block the new park.

About 75 people voiced frequent and angry objections at one meeting. Most feared that the relocation would depress the value of their homes, some worth more than $100,000.

But Durkin, who checked with assessors, maintained that there is no evidence mobile home parks decrease property values.

“That’s a claim people use to keep another group of people out of a neighborhood,” Durkin said. “There’s lots of different kinds of mobile home parks. These will be fine, well-maintained homes.”

Allison said the legal delaying tactic has put him and his neighbors against the wall.

“Time is of the essence. Our park has been sold,” Allison said. “We’re being stopped by a group of vicious people. To be told you’re undesirable is not pleasant.”

Dakota, which spent the $500,000 so far, had planned to start construction in March. The timetable has slipped to the middle or end of June.

The opposition has prompted some to question how involved the mayor’s office was after coming on the scene last summer. But Coles spokeswoman Suzanne Burton said the city’s involvement has never waned.

“City officials are committed to developing a mobile home park for these people,” Burton said. “They, however, because they are not the developer, must let the process run its course.”

As for the persistent complaints about inadequate affordable housing stocks, Burton admitted no new mobile home parks have been approved in the city for some time.

“I certainly don’t know of the last time we had a new mobile home park in the county,” she said. “And it’s been ages since we’ve had an application for one in the city.”

Still, Burton said, the mayor “thinks mobile-home living is a good form of housing and the city ought to provide means for it.”

But for Thornton, Allison and their neighbors, any effort by the city may not come soon enough.

“They will eventually have to start construction,” Allison said. “At that time, I truly don’t know what we’ll do.”