WHERE THE HEART IS

Families fight eviction as mobile home parks decline

MANASSAS, VA. >> Nightfall at East End Mobile Home Park means dinner cooking in renovated kitchens, children staring at homework or television, parents returning from hourly-wage jobs.

Outside, crumbling underground pipes leak sewage in some spots and swallow up groundwater in others, costing the city of Manassas tens of thousands of dollars a year at the wastewater treatment plant and jeopardizing the existence of this affordable oasis, one of a decreasing number of mobile home parks across the country.

Nearly a year ago, city officials agreed to purchase the land and shut down the trailer park, having concluded there was no feasible way to fix the privatelyowned sewer system.

But the mostly Latino residents are fighting to remain. They say they can’t move their trailers elsewhere or afford traditional homes with comparable space in the pricey Washington region, where according to 2015 census data about one in every five renter households spends at least half its income on rent.

On the advice of a pro-bono attorney, and cheered on by a hotel cook-turned-activist who has embraced their cause, the 49 families of East End have withheld about $150,000 in monthly lot fees, part of a court case scheduled to be heard in June that could determine whether the owner of the park can be compelled to make repairs.

Their eviction date, originally scheduled for February, has been delayed until after that hearing, creating a window for a nonprofit housing group that is searching for financing to buy the property. It is the latest glimmer of hope in a journey that has been full of false starts, but has also won the trailer owners support from at least some city officials.

“How could you not be touched and moved by the very impassioned pleas of people who are saying: ‘This is my home. This is where I raise my family, and now

“How could you not be touched and moved by the very impassioned pleas of people who are saying: ‘This is my home. This is where I raise my family, and now the rug has been pulled out from under me’?”

the rug has been pulled out from under me’?” said Manassas Vice Mayor Marc Aveni.

“We’re smart people,” Aveni said. “You can’t tell me there’s not a solution out there.”

*** Mobile homes are vanishing even as the cost of living in major metropolitan areas creeps steadily upward. In the early 2000s, there were 8 million manufactured homes in the country. Today, there are about 6.3 million, according to census estimates. The disappearances come in clusters.

In Richmond, 24 families were forced out after a 2014 housing code-violation sweep, prompting a federal discrimination lawsuit that resulted in new policies geared toward protecting mobile-home communities. In Palo Alto, California, nearly 400 mobile home residents are fighting to keep the city from shutting down their park to make way for new condominiums and apartments.

“We see these cases every week,” said Rick Robinson, general counsel of the Manufactured Housing Institute, which has launched a task force to combat what it believes are local government efforts to regulate trailer parks out of existence. Many East End families saved

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MICHAEL ROBINSON CHAVEZ — THE WASHINGTON POST Helen Zurita, an aspiring local activist, stands in the East End Mobile Home Park in Manassas, Va. Zurita is one of a handful of local residents and activists who stepped in to help the East End residents keep their homes.

MICHAEL ROBINSON CHAVEZ — THE WASHINGTON POST The Zevala family, including, from left, Brandon Soto, 6, Evelin Zevala, Lucia Zevala and Katherinne Gonzalez Zevala, 13, spend the afternoon in their home at the East End Mobile Home Park in Manassas, Va.