The Mobile Home Council: Vecinos Unidos no Serán Vencidos
Saturday December 06, 2008 | Miami
The Mobile Home Council won the extension of the redevelopment moratorium they won in October of 2007 and organized a resident caravan that visited five parks ending with a celebration at Curtis Park in Miami.
Mobile home residents made sure elected officials extended the redevelopment moratorium, currently the only protection for residents, another four months. Due to this consistent resident effort County Commissioners included the mobile home issue on the prioirty list the Miami Dade county delegation will discuss in Tallahassee.
As they have done over half a dozen times Mobile Home Council leaders addressed the County Commission on October 21 to let them know that Planning and Zoning recomendations are of no help to mobile home park residents. And residents told them they are developing their own solutions. In other words residents are no longer asking for help but demanding and offering solutions.
The Mobile Home Council defied developers by securing the moratorium, organizing their home owner associations. Now they have also started developing resident owned cooperatives that will allow mobile home owners to buy the land where their homes are located. One such project is already under way.
On the heels of all this work mobile home council leaders organized on November 1 a caravan that led them through five parks where they spoke to residents about the need to organize home owners associations. The party at the end of the caravan was to be held at River Park Mobile Home Park but the park owner threatened participants with trespassing charges.
The event was finally held at Curtis Park where at least 50 residents listened to home owner associations officers from different parks as well as State Representative Julio Robaina, who once again committed to introducing legislation in Tallahassee that would defend the property rights of mobile home owners and not only rich developers and park owners.