And she says the problems here go beyond this individual case. Fegan says the company's failure to fix the stormwater system violates the promise it makes in the park's prospectus for residents.
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She was known for fighting a different kind of battle – the harassment and assault cases that became the "Me too" movement.Īmong her clients were victims of Hollywood movie mogul Harvey Weinstein.īut, she took the residents' case and sued ELS in federal court. "They're taking advantage of a group of people that really don't have the resources to fight against it," says Beth Fegan, an attorney representing the residents at the park in Vero Beach.įeeling they were running out of options, residents started looking for a lawyer. Mobile in name only: Once installed mobile homes are hard to move Other claims include aggressive eviction policies and unfair business practices. And critics say some are making hundreds of millions of dollars in profits collecting and raising rents on their typically lower-income residents, without spending enough money on even basic maintenance and upkeep.Īllegations from residents at parks around the country, owned by ELS or other companies, have ranged from persistent sewage backups to drinking water and power outages. Millions of Americans live in mobile home parks – one of the nation's last options for affordable homeownership.īut in recent years, big companies have been buying up mobile home parks. What these residents say they are dealing with may be part of a bigger problem that goes far beyond any one park or landlord.
The group alleges that ELS has ignored their complaints over the years, and failed to fix the broken stormwater drainage system. Residents say there have been other problems beyond the broken drainage system– electrical wiring issues, potholes, and bad lighting that's caused people to trip and get hurt on the park's dark roads at night.Ī group of residents have now organized and filed a lawsuit detailing all these problems against the park's owner, a company called Equity Lifestyle Partners, or ELS. and I hit the pavement with my shoulder." Mobile homes are one of the last options for affordable home ownership "Next thing I know my left foot goes out from underneath me. "The slime never goes away," says Stanley Paxton, a 79-year-old resident who slipped on the street in 2018 and landed in the hospital for shoulder surgery.
To make matters worse, residents say when the water eventually recedes it leaves behind a slimy residue that people slip and fall on. "I know people that couldn't get to their chemotherapy appointments." "The people across the street are in their 90s," says Noel. They say emergency vehicles have refused to respond to calls due to the flooding. They say the water has damaged their homes and is often deep enough that people get trapped in their houses. Residents in the park say the streets have been flooding after normal rainfall for 20 years, due to an antiquated and broken stormwater drainage system. "It was like, holy crap," he remembers, "this is not good! " "But by the tenth time it flooded, I had started reaching my limits," he says, because at times the water was a foot deep, sometimes even two. At first he didn't worry too much about it. When those rains came, Noel found out the streets in the park flooded, for hours or sometimes days. "I'm talking about those typical Florida thunderstorms you get, where you get a 15- to 20-minute downpour."
But the price was affordable and it offered the promise of a new start. His new place wasn't like the large house he owned in Rhode Island, and the floor needed repairs. "I thought I was moving to paradise – you know, beautiful weather and being able to fish 12 months a year." They're up on foundations and have yards and driveways. The homes here look more like conventional houses than what you might think of as a mobile home. Noel used most of his modest retirement savings to buy the house at Heritage Plantation, a mobile home park 20 minutes from the ocean. "I hooked up my boat and headed down here, without having a place to live," he recalls in the living room of his home near Vero Beach, Fla. Five years ago, Mike Noel was newly retired from his manufacturing job in Rhode Island and had just gone through a rough divorce.
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