In Puyallup, mobile home residents are being displaced. Another city is preventing it
It’s roughly 500 miles from Puyallup to Boise. That’s eight hours by car. I Googled it.
When it comes to their approach to the affordable housing crisis, those cities couldn’t be farther apart.
By now you likely know the tale of Meridian Estates, the mobile home park not far off Puyallup’s main drag near the South Hill Mall. Dozens of families — most of them low-income — are in the slow process of being displaced to make way for a 230-unit apartment building. The private developer behind the project purchased the mobile home park last year. It’s all very familiar.
As I’ve already expressed, the whole saga ticks me off. I feel terrible for the families, many of whom now face the very real prospect of homelessness. The reaction from public and elected officials — many of whom talk constantly about the need for more affordable housing — feels hypocritical at best. The mealy-mouthed rationalizations amount to little more than, “Well, um, this is obviously very sad, but what can we do? Business is business. Units are units.”
What if there is another way, though? What if cities, counties and communities aren’t helpless? What if we weren’t forced to stand by as developers pounce on naturally occurring affordable housing like mobile home parks and turn them into market-rate developments in one of the most obscene rental markets in the nation?
Enter Boise — where they’re doing the exact opposite.
As Ian Max Stevenson of the Idaho Statesman reported, Boise recently plunked down $3.25 million to purchase the Sage Mobile Home Park, a 2-acre site where there are 23 homes and three other spots for manufactured homes. In total, about 26 people live there. While redevelopment at Sage Mobile Home Park wasn’t imminent, city leaders read the writing on the wall. Just like here, mobile home parks in the Boise area are being gobbled up. And just like here, rents have become astronomical. If they stood by and watched, they figured, it was only a matter of time.
In March, Boise Council President Pro Tem Holli Woodings described the purchase of Sage Mobile Home Park as “an immediate affordable housing project.”
“In my estimation, it prevents dozens of people from immediate homelessness should this piece of property fall into private hands,” Woodings said.
Compare this reaction to the one in Puyallup. The difference is stark.
While the city and the developer have offered financial assistance to soon-to-be displaced Meridian Estates residents, it pales in comparison to what they soon stand to lose. Last week City Council member Jim Kastama noted that the city has held resource fairs and hired two bilingual case managers (so thoughtful!), describing these selfless acts of generosity as more than most cities in the area would do.
You know what? Kastama, in this case, is exactly right. And that’s the problem. Meridian Estates might be in Puyallup, but the disregard for existing forms of non-subsidized affordable housing is a countywide condition. Everyone claims to want affordable housing, but the often run-down and overlooked nooks and crannies where real local residents have managed to find a bastion from skyrocketing rents can’t find a champion.
Look, I’m not an affordable housing expert. I’m not suggesting this is an apples-to-apples comparison or that the solution is as simple as cities and counties finding the money to purchase existing cheap housing before it goes away. Now that Boise owns Sage Mobile Home Park it will be faced with difficult questions, like whether to keep the park as is or eventually redevelop the property into something that might allow more low-income residents to be housed. Current residents still have concerns about the future and the high cost of living. All of it promises to be tricky.
But here’s the thing:
At the very least Boise is doing something, and in doing so it is demonstrating local mobile home park residents matter.
That’s a lot more than you can say for what’s happening here.
