“When those wheels get stuck, that walker’s going to go down and that gentleman is going to go with it. She said these ruts were dangerous for residents like an elderly man she knows who walks each day as part of his physical therapy. Lorie Giddix, a resident at the Cedar Springs Mobile Home Community in Southington, which was bought by Sun Communities, held up a photograph of ruts in the roads at the park. “At least if they are going to increase the price - show something for it!” she said. Meanwhile, Dana said, maintenance at the park remained the same. Some can go live with family, others don’t have that option,” said Dana. “I know people are frightened to death because they don’t know where they are going to live. Dana said that about three-quarters of the park residents were on Social Security. Residents of the three parks – all now owned by large corporations – shared complaints about rising rents and unresolved maintenance issues.Ĭolleen Dana, who has lived at River’s Edge Mobile Home Community in Beacon Falls since 1997, said the monthly rent has increased $125 since Athena Real Estate took over the park three years ago. Richard Blumenthal speaks to a gathering of mobile home park residents in Southington. Larson also spoke in favor of doing “whatever it takes” to address the problem of “unseemly corporations coming in and gobbling up what were mom and pop operations.” Sen. “I tend to be a fighter, and we’re not going to take no for an answer from this federal agency,” Blumenthal said at the Saturday press conference in Southington. The response from the agency, Blumenthal said, was “extremely disappointing.” In early August, Blumenthal and 16 other federal legislators asked the Federal Housing and Finance Agency for these and other policy changes, include requiring public disclosure of which companies were using public financing to purchase parks, strengthening penalties for corporations that violated tenant protections, requiring stronger eviction protections and giving tenants the right to buy their mobile home park before an outside corporation. “All I’m saying is, as a condition of that support, ought to require basic standards of decency, fair play, fair treatment,” said Blumenthal. John Larson, and Rebecca Martinez, who is running for state representative in the 22nd district, which includes Southington, is the chair of Plainville’s Democratic Town Committee.īlumenthal said that large corporations shouldn’t be able to buy up mobile home parks, cut costs and raise rents, and then turn to the government for low-interest loans from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to pay for it. Richard Blumenthal vowed to push for legislation in Congress that would strengthen protections for tenants of mobile home parks.īlumenthal told a gathering of residents from three different trailer parks - Cedar Springs in Southington, River’s Edge in Beacon Falls and Evergreen Springs in Clinton - that tenants deserved a “bill of rights” that would include protections from unfair rent increases, the failure to maintain the property, and a “right of first refusal” that would allow residents to purchase a mobile home park themselves before it is sold to a new owner.īlumenthal was joined at the event by Rep.
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