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Grasping for Roots
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Linder and her neighbors have been working to get ready for that possibility, forming a neighborhood association and holding meetings, even though there's been no indication that the owners of Capitol Mobile Home Park are considering selling.
The owners of the park did not return calls seeking a response to the proposed bill or information on the company's plans for the mobile park.
At a hearing last week before the Howard delegation, an attorney for the county's largest park, Deep Run in Elkridge, said that he supported the concept of giving residents the right to make the first offer on a park but that he was concerned provisions in the bill might complicate or delay a sale. Delegates said they would consider amending the measure at a later time to address such issues but approved the bill, which will continue to move through the legislative process.
If the bill becomes law, it will be the first of its kind for the Washington region. Resident ownership, however, is at work in other places. Out of an estimated 50,000 mobile home parks across the country, roughly 700 have been turned into resident-controlled corporations, similar to condominium associations. They are collectively owned and run by the homeowners, said Paul Bradley, vice president of the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund, which has helped residents in dozens of mobile home parks there acquire and run their communities.
"The loan fund helps low-income homeowners act like deep-pocketed investors," Bradley said. This spring, a new nonprofit, ROC USA, currently housed at the loan fund and led by Bradley, will begin providing technical and financial assistance to mobile home park residents nationwide.
If their 119-lot property goes up for sale, Linder and other community leaders at Capitol Mobile Home Park might have a chance to take advantage of that help. In the meantime, life is changing in small ways for the better. Residents have held a cleanup day and gotten potholes repaired. Their new neighborhood association recently elected officers, including a president, Sherry Cordle.
Cordle said that in the past, some of her neighbors have feared getting involved or speaking up for improvements because they only rent their lots.
But a better community takes commitment, she tells them. "Don't be afraid."
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