Is displacing mobile home owners immoral? Maybe not

Some mixed news for a number of families living in a mobile home in Kirkland.

The 3.4-acre Firwood Lane Mobile Home Park was sold to an out-of-state land developer, PSW Real Estate, for $3.2 million.

The plan is to build 19 high-end homes on the land in place of the mobile homes. These properties will start at about $850,000.

If that price seems steep, understand that the property is just a five minute walk to Juanita Beach, and it’s in a good school district.

This will displace 32 families, many on fixed incomes.

One of the families is Lynn and Bill Leonard who found out last month that this would be happening. They bought their double wide for about $55,000 about 10 years ago according to The Seattle Times. They live on their social security and Bill’s part-time security guard gig. Obviously, they’re heart broken about this.

The eviction notice is forcing tenants to consider some pretty dire possibilities.

Kylin Parks with the National Manufactured Housing Association says this problem isn’t specific to Kirkland. Lots of people are attracted to the benefits of the community, but sometimes it backfires.

Is there anything that could be done? If not, is this fair?

Kirkland tried to stop this from happening. The city apparently tried to buy the property presumably to maintain it for this purpose, but were unsuccessful because they weren’t willing to pay enough for it. The land was at $1.5 million, which seems insanely low to me &#8212 and it was. It fetched $3.2 million.

The folks who live there need to find another mobile park home to live. Now, they do have about a year; it’s not like they’re being forced out by the end of the month &#8212 but maybe even a year isn’t good enough. Apparently there’s not a huge supply of land for mobile homes.

At least one of the resident’s own a double wide and it turns out they can’t afford the move.

So it doesn’t seem like anything can be done for these folks.

This begs the question: is this fair? And even though I asked it, it’s an unfair question. It’s irrelevant. It’s making a moral judgment on a business decision, it doesn’t matter if it’s fair. Fair in this case is subjective.

And if you take morality out of it, it is fair. You’ve got land that was legitimately purchased for something that one could argue is better for the city than a mobile park home. Economically, it delivers more benefits than a mobile park home.

You have the construction of the homes, which provides jobs. They’re building a house that will fetch the city and state hefty and consistent tax revenue. The financial benefit far outweighs that coming from the mobile home.

I know we’re not supposed to have the conversation because it’s not politically correct, but a mobile park doesn’t add value to the city &#8212 not the way apartments and new homes would.

There’s a reason why we don’t have many mobile park homes anymore. They’re incredibly inefficient uses of space and tend not to be the prettiest to look at.

There are better opportunities for affordable housing that wouldn’t take up so much land.

I can hearing housing activists gasp at that &#8212 just a collective gasp. “WHO ARE YOU TO SAY HOW THESE PEOPLE SHOULD LIVE?”

Fair point. But at the same time, who are they to determine whether or not we can find a better use of the land?

Now, should PSW Real Estate help the residents who live there with their moving expenses? I’d argue yes. I think that would make them a better business; they’d surely make the money back by adding it to the cost of the house to the next homeowner.

This isn’t an easy conversation, but change isn’t easy and you have no right to land you don’t own. That’s a risk with owning a mobile home &#8212 it’s mobile.