Thread: Eviction looms over trailer residents

http://delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll ... /607240346

By ANDREW TANGEL
The News Journal

07/24/2006
NEW GARDEN TOWNSHIP, Pa. -- In the past 10 years, a trailer park that sprouted behind a mushroom farm in southeastern Pennsylvania has grown into a small neighborhood of immigrant laborers and their families.

At the end of a gravel driveway off Ellicott Road, near Pa. 41, children play outside as adults rest in lawn chairs after a long day of mushroom farming or landscaping. Some residents tend to gardens of tomatoes, strawberries and chilies while chickens roam around 12 trailers rented for $600 a month -- low rent in wealthy Chester County, Pa.

But the estimated 60 tenants who live in the park soon may be forced out. A protracted zoning dispute between landlord Dante DiUbaldo and New Garden Township could end in the Court of Common Pleas in West Chester, where a trial is set for July 31.

Township laws prohibit a trailer park on the roughly 20-acre parcel, which is zoned for limited commercial or industrial use. The Chester County Health Department, after finding raw sewage leaks on the property a few years ago, also pushed the landlords

The township is asking for more than $1 million in fines from DiUbaldo for years of zoning violations.

Lawyers for the landlords and the township are negotiating how much DiUbaldo should pay in fines and whether some rental trailers can remain, said Media, Pa., attorney Eugene A. Bonner, who represents DiUbaldo.

Now, social workers and clergy are trying to help the tenants find new homes, and town officials and Bonner say they won't strong-arm the residents out.

"We can't just throw these people" out, Bonner said. "What are we going to do, have the sheriff or have the constable come drag them off the property?(Oh, so only American citizens should expect that all too common eviction proceedure, huh?) "And then what if they don't have a place to stay, they're going to become homeless?"(Like the ever growing numbers of American veterans, as well as American families that have been forced into foreclosure?)
Meanwhile, priests and social workers have been praying and wondering about the families' futures.

The tenants say they're frustrated about having to move and not knowing whether their children will have to change schools. They've also been getting mixed messages about whether evictions are imminent.

"They don't know," said Leticia Ortiz, 17, a rising senior at Kennett High School in nearby Kennett Square, Pa., whose family lives at the park.

Residents say they'd prefer staying put. They've come to know their neighbors, use the land for gardening and like the trailers' distance from the road, which keeps young children safe from traffic. It's also close to nearby mushroom farms where most of the parents work.

"They have really taken ownership," said the Rev. Patrick Seyler, pastor of United in Faith Episcopal-Lutheran Mission in Kennett Square, which organized a "Mass on solidarity" for the tenants July 16.

Compounding unease about being uprooted is what social workers say is a shortage of affordable housing in Chester County.

More trailers appear

In June 2000, the township slapped DiUbaldo with a notice stating the trailer park was illegal. Also sitting on the commercial- and industrial-zoned property are a mushroom farm, a compost dump and a building with two apartments.

One trailer, which has been on the property since at least 1991 and for which DiUbaldo got a permit, is legal, according to court documents. Two or three mobile homes were present in 1995, and nine more appeared by 2001, the documents show -- all apparently placed without the knowledge of township and county health officials, who would have held the landlord to zoning, health and safety standards.

Those added trailers -- as well as additions and water and sewer service -- were put in place without proper permits.

In court documents, the township said the trailers -- most of which are older, single-wide units -- were in "deplorable condition."

The town was concerned about zoning violations as well as the safety of additions to the trailers, said Don Suckstorf, the township's zoning and code officer. Some additions are substandard and don't meet building codes, he said.

Once the town issued its violation notice, the Chester County Health Department inspected the property and found raw sewage seeping above ground, violating state law and posing health risks, said Ralph DeFazio, environmental health supervisor for the county's health department. DeFazio recalls no reports of illness, however.

The health department also found a well where the water supply wasn't monitored to make sure it was fit for human consumption, DeFazio said. The water "probably wasn't good," he said.

"Nobody knew these mobile homes were there, so of course adequate sewage facilities weren't provided because the units were not placed there" legally, DeFazio said.

The landlords since have linked the park to a public water service and installed septic tanks, which are being pumped regularly, DeFazio said.

Generally, living conditions for immigrant mushroom workers are better than in past decades, he said, when the health and safety conditions in workers' living quarters generally went unmonitored.

DiUbaldo did not return phone calls.

"The sad part of it all is that if he had followed procedure ... everybody would be in a much better condition," Seyler said.

Expensive housing

Antonio Lopez, who works at a mushroom farm in Avondale, has lived in the trailer at the park with his family for three years. The native Mexican can't find a rental nearby for less than $800 a month, he said though a translator.

Not only could higher rent be cost-prohibitive for the family of five, but Lopez, 30, who drives the family's only car, worries a longer commute could make it harder, for example, to get home to take one of his three daughters to a dentist.(Millions of Americans can only WISH they could afford to take their children to a dentist)

The trailer park's residents' difficulty in relocating highlights problems arising from Chester County's growth and development, social workers say.

Monsignor Frank Depman, chaplain of the La Mision Santa Maria, a Roman Catholic Hispanic outreach helping the trailer park's residents find new homes, called the county's lack of affordable housing a "major, major problem."

Once predominantly rural and agricultural, Chester County has become a wealthy bedroom community for Delaware and Philadelphia, with developments of what Woodie Pagan, executive director of the Alliance For Better Housing in New Garden Township, called "McMansions" and "starter castles" sprouting up in recent years.

And the county's households earn large incomes: U.S. Census figures indicate the county had the highest median household income -- $67,939 -- in Pennsylvania in 2003.

Soaring housing costs and zoning laws requiring low-density development in many parts of the county have made affordable housing not only difficult to find but also less profitable for investors, social workers say.

"These folks are being priced out of the market, and there doesn't seem to be any substitute," Pagan said.(Boo freaking hoo. Maybe it's time to go home, eh?)

The average rent for a two-bedroom apartment is about $800, Pagan said.

Many farm workers are moving to Delaware and commuting north on Del. 41, but not all workers can find transportation, he said. (Yeah, no kidding...I live right off Del. 41, on the DE side of the state line. ARRRGGGHHHH!)

Increasingly, mushroom farm owners are realizing the shortage and making strides to find or build places for their employees to live, he said.

Farmers have "become much more enlightened over the last few years," he said. "They realize that the (CHEAP) labor force is the lifeblood of their business."

And it's not just Hispanic mushroom farm workers -- middle-class, single-parent families, service-industry workers and the elderly also are struggling to find affordable housing in Chester County, said Cheryl McConnell, executive director of the Oxford Area Neighborhood Services Center in Oxford, Pa. (But only the plight of the "Hispanic mushroom farm workers" is worthy of front page headlines?)

The county's "really going through growing pains," she said.

"Not a whole lot" has been done to solve the affordable-housing crunch, she said, but social services leaders are beginning to discuss the problem more.

'He's very upset'

Bonner, DiUbaldo's lawyer, said he's preparing to settle the case out of court. He was hoping the town might allow some of the trailers to remain on the property. Last week, he was calling around to see how easily tenants could relocate and whether he could find a tow company to remove the trailers.

As for his client, Bonner said, "He's very upset."

As of Friday afternoon, almost half of the park's tenants had found other living arrangements, Seyler said.

Three families are moving into a house in Kennett Square, he said, and three other families have found places. That leaves about 30 tenants with nowhere to go, he said.

Other families are applying for apartment leases or looking for houses in Kennett Square, Avondale or West Grove, Pa., and any chickens could make it difficult for them to find a place. (Ya think?) Ortiz's family, for example, has about 100 chickens her family uses for eggs or meat.

The size of the families could also pose problems, Ortiz said.

"I think it's hard for them to find a place probably, because they have too many kids," she said. For "others, it's the economics."

"Now, social workers and clergy are trying to help the tenants find new homes, and town officials and Bonner say they won't strong-arm the residents out."

Now where were these people when the mobile home park that we lived in for 6 years (and had been there for over 30 YEARS) was sikd and we were forced to move?

We got NO help financially or otherwise. We had to go into debt to move our home. No one gave a rip about the elderly that had paid off their homes and had lived there for 25 and 30 years and were on fixed incomes. No one cared about our kids having to change schools or how much further we would have to drive to work!

It was a nice park for the most part until all the illegals started moving in. This is total BS! They will just have to do the best they can like the rest of us!

This is happening all over the country and you don't see anyone helping the AMERICAN CITIZENS relocate! To hell with them!

We got NO help financially or otherwise. We had to go into debt to move our home. No one gave a rip about the elderly that had paid off their homes and had lived there for 25 and 30 years and were on fixed incomes. No one cared about our kids having to change schools or how much further we would have to drive to work!

EXACTLY! Elderly residents of legal, long establish trailer parks are being evicted daily, especially in Florida, as developers buy up the land beneath them. No one gives a hoot that THESE folks have no place to go, or that many of their older trailers cannot reloctated. Where are the clergy, social workers, and front page headlines (the above articlel was dead center, front page news) when these American citizens are placed in such dire straits?

"They have really taken ownership,"

So what's new? After all, they're entitled to it, right?

Couldn't ICE relocate many of these people back to Mexico, wouldn't that solve the problem?

As for the mushroom growers - perhaps paying a living wage is all that would be necessary to get U.S. citizen workers! Furthermore, I'll bet there are plenty of teenagers in the area that would like to make some money during the harvesting season. I've got a couple kids that will be attended college this fall, but unfortunately they will have to take on a lot of debt because they couldn't find summer jobs.

WavTek,

Beat me to it! Ditto!

And this is part of their plan, IMO,' squatter's rights'.

"We can't just throw these people" out, Bonner said. "What are we going to do, have the sheriff or have the constable come drag them off the property?(Oh, so only American citizens should expect that all too common eviction proceedure, huh?) "

Could be worse! On the CATO Institute site there is an article and a map of locations in this country where 40,000 incidents of breakins by PARAMILITARY troops ocured. I believe in a one year period of time but don't quote me on that time line.

During these activities, innocent people, observers, bystanders and children were injured or killed. Many of these raids were mistaken addresses can you believe that! The article states the highest level of offense by a citizen when one did happen to have one was a misdemeanor.

I'll get that article later today and post it either in this thread or the main discussion.

Like the ever growing numbers of American veterans, as well as American families that have been forced into foreclosure?)
Meanwhile, priests and social workers have been praying and wondering about the families' futures.

Again its off the top of my head but somewhere I read that last year the rate of bankruptcies in the U.S. was comparable with those during the depression. I doubt the priests and social workers voiced concern for those families.

"And then what if they don't have a place to stay, they're going to become homeless?"

No, they can go back to where they came from. That is their home.

Call Jerry Springer he loves shows about trailer trash