Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
‘We’re like sitting ducks’
Trinity Broadcasting evicts hundreds of trailer park tenants
PEMBROKE PARK — Hundreds of Pembroke Park residents, many of them low-income seniors, are facing eviction from their RVs and mobile homes by their landlord, which bills itself as the largest Christian Television Network worldwide.
The residents of Lakeside Park Estates — home of 223 RVs, mobile homes and trailers — were notified in March that they’d all need to find a new place to live. They say the result will be devastating.
“I have no plans,” said Diana Kullender, 65, who bought her 1984 RV last November for $25,000, which was her entire savings. The Canadians she bought it from were moving back home, and the RV had been parked in the same spot for decades. Movers told her it would crack in half if she tried to budge it from its spot.
Now, she has to find a new home with no money to put down as a first and last month deposit on an apartment. The RV is worthless, her investment gone.
“We’re like sitting ducks,” she said.
Pembroke Park Town Manager J.C. Jimenez confirmed the land’s owner, Trinity Broadcasting Network, sent their attorney and a company representative to have an informal meeting with him late last year about turning the land into light industrial space, such as warehouses.
The meeting was “just an FYI and see what we thought and if there were any issues politically,” he said. “They were doing their due diligence.”
Trinity’s South Florida lawyer, Robert Lochrie, did not comment. Trinity spokeswoman, Corrie Hickey, said she would not comment.
Lakeside Park Estates is just the latest mobile home community facing change. In 2020, Sunset
“It’s really sad on your morale,” said Gagnon, as he stood outside by his wellmanicured garden of pink and purple flowers. “I’m out $56,000.”
Raymond Gagnon, mobile home owner
Colony Mobile Home Park in Fort Lauderdale sold and was developed into Riverland Apartments. And Gulfstream Trailer Park in Hallandale Beach was sold in 2016, the mobile homes were removed from the property in 2018 and the site is now an apartment complex called 215 Park.
In 2019, Trinity Broadcasting of Florida, which is a TBN affiliate organization, held $12.9 million worth of land and $40.2 million worth of buildings, according to Warren Smith, spokesman for Wall Watchers, a charity watchdog group.
The televangelism group, which has listed in tax records assets of more than $750 million, is considered the world’s largest Christian television network, with 24-hour programming for evangelicals.
Lakeside residents have urged neighbors to call the TBN prayer line and “ask them not to kick us out of our homes, not very Christian if you ask me, Amen!” according to a paper taped to the bulletin board by the community pool.
Trinity has evicted other Pembroke Park mobile home park residents before.
In 2011, it evicted 123 families at the Aqua Golf Mobile Homes Park, which shared the site with the Aqua Golf Driving Range & Pro Shop, which is still there.
Lakeside residents say they are frantic.
Raymond Gagnon and his wife have lived along the lake in their mobile home for 22 years. They purchased the home for $56,000, but it can’t be moved. They said they were offered $200 for the title by park management. They pay $720 in rent each month for the land. They were told to be gone by May 15, but they have nowhere to go.
“It’s really sad on your morale,” said Gagnon, as he stood outside by his well-manicured garden of pink and purple flowers. “I’m out $56,000.”
Lakeside resident Nancy Sanderson said she’s living on Social Security and had a roommate most of the time she’s lived there. But when sellers dropped the price by more than half for a small trailer to $3,000, she jumped to have her own home. That was March 2021, and now she’s being told to walk away from it.
Now, Sanderson said she worries about finding affordable housing in South Florida, as prices rise and the supply shrinks.