Agencies Successfully Relocating Displaced Mobile Home Residents Following Eviction Notice

Local nonprofit leaders this month announced they are successfully relocating displaced residents after exceeding fundraising goals that brought in $164,000 in assistance funds to support the residents of Spring Creek Mobile Park in Evergreen, who will be evicted from the property in March.

NeighborWorks Montana, an organization that provides resources for tenants of manufactured-home parks, and the Whitefish Community Foundation partnered last spring to form a relocation fund after learning the property’s new owners planned to evict the 26 households, which includes many individuals who are elderly, disabled and live on fixed incomes.

The funds have already helped cover the costs for apartment rental deposits, septic system hookups and costs of relocating out of the state. So far $25,000 has been deployed to eight households.

More than 50 donors contributed to the fund, which included a $45,000 Emergency Response Grant from the Whitefish Community Foundation, a $50,000 donation from Mike and Jamie Goguen, a $7,000 social justice grant from the Montana Community Foundation and a $50,000 contribution from an anonymous Flathead Valley donor.

The emergency relocation effort comes after residents at Spring Creek received a 180-day notice of eviction dated on April 29, four months after former Performance Real Estate owner and local investor Brett Kelly purchased the property.

But Kelly recently extended the eviction deadline, according to Danielle Maiden of NeighborWorks, giving residents until March to move out of the park while he has also agreed to personally dispose of the homes that cannot be relocated.

“That was a big part of the stress,” Maiden said. “They would have to dispose of the homes and pay for it but if they work with the park owner, he can dispose of it without a legal process and not have it be their responsibility.”

Although many families in the park are finding housing solutions, Maiden said the Flathead’s lack of affordable housing has forced at least four families to consider moving out of state to places as far as New Mexico and Alaska. But relocating out of the area is not an option for some tenants who need to stay local to keep their jobs and to prevent a disruption in their children’s education.

Maiden plans to stay connected with residents over the next year to examine the success of the relocation fund as part of a survey process to build a case study. Depending on the results, she hopes the study can be used to establish a statewide relocation fund.

“It’s cool to see everybody come together,” Maiden said. “This isn’t something NeighborWorks does – we’ve never been able to do this before – but the whole community has come together around it, and it’s been a huge relief.”

NeighborWorks and the Whitefish Community Foundation collaborated last May after learning about the eviction and the foundation’s president and CEO Alan Davis chose to waive administration fees and direct all the funding toward the relocation effort.

After new ownership took over the park in December, the landlord began hiking lot fees and tenants worried they would be priced out of the park before receiving eviction notices in April. Two more eviction notices followed through May, which stated the owners were “changing the use of the property from a mobile home park with tenant-owned homes to a mobile home park with landlord-owned homes.”

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