Mobile savages

Puyallup mobile home community threatened by developer.
by Joe Malik
Mar 05, 2008

Pattie Donery has no idea how she is going to survive the next year. Last week she underwent major heart surgery to repair damage from two heart attacks. As she recovers at home in Puyallup’s Country Aire Manor mobile home park, she and her doctors are trying to figure out how she can stop taking blood thinners long enough to survive surgery to treat a cancerous tumor in her brain. Donery’s husband, Doug, 60, isn’t in much better shape, she says. His list of ailments includes peripheral neuropathy, kidney failure, chronic bronchitis, asthma, and emphysema. The Donery’s live with their sons, who asked not to be named. Both of the Donery’s sons are undergoing treatment for cancer — one has a brain tumor, the other testicular cancer.

Last month, the Donery family was told they have a year to move from their home of seven years so local developer Verus Puyallup LLC can build a Kohl’s department store and a Home Depot on the land currently occupied by their home. Donery is among more than 150 residents at Country Aire who received legal notice that they have a year to move their home or find another one to live in. Considering her family’s health and circumstances, neither of those options is possible, says Donery.

“I may not survive this,” says Donery. “Doug and I have been married for 44 years, and we have been through an awful lot. I’ve gone without food so we can pay for Doug’s medication. We are in such bad shape now. I’ve always taken care of how we live and where. I don’t have what it takes, physically, to do it anymore. And they want us to move? I’m not a negative person, but I don’t think we will get out of this.”

Before you stop to consider the Donery’s tragedy, Country Aire Manor resident Stephanie Thornton would remind you that theirs is one of dozens of similar stories. Most of Country Aire’s residents are challenged by age, disability or meager incomes, she says. A spectrum of assistance offered by the developers, Pierce County and various state agencies will do little to ease transitions for most of the people being forced to move. The $12,000 in mobile-home relocation assistance offered by the state Department of Community Trade and Economic Development (CTED) is about $4,000 short of what Thornton says she’ll need to move her home and her family. Not that the difference matters, she says. Because of a flood of similar mass displacements throughout Washington, state assistance funds have dried up. More than 50 mobile home parks have closed or been converted since 2006, affecting nearly 2,000 households in Washington. Those trends are expected to continue.

If there is good news, it’s that Verus has offered to back the state’s promise with equivalent loans that would be recouped from the state when it refills its coffers. But that won’t help dozens of residents who don’t qualify for the assistance, or whose homes can’t be moved, or those who, like the Donerys, simply can’t move.

Country Aire resident Tanya Deutsche says that she simply can’t fathom moving from her home, regardless of how much assistance is offered. Deutsche is developmentally disabled, and lives on state assistance with her 13-year-old daughter who is also developmentally disabled. She moved to Country Aire in late 2006 to get a new start after losing her husband of just two and a half years to cancer.

“I love my home here,” she says. “It’s safe here, and the bus service is great. My daughter can walk to Fred Meyer. My home is paid for. If they make us leave, I have no place to go. There’s nowhere to go.”

LINK: KIRO TV picks up the story.

User comments

submitted 09:01 on Mar 6, 2008 by Racheal N

Its hard for me to understand how a store or any business can be more important to build then the lives and families in the park. I feel for my friends that live there and hope and pray that this can be stopped. Racheal Neves

submitted 04:14 on Mar 7, 2008 by Deb

I live in Country Aire Manor and our family is devastated by this closure. It appears we may lose our home and have to find a new home for our children's dog since so far we can not find a rental that will accept a 50# mutt full of love. This is just such a moral crime!

submitted 01:17 on Mar 22, 2008 by lisa

After a stupid corporate response from Home Depot on this, I sold my stock in protest ( though I don't live nor know anyone at Country Aire) Up south, a few counties have put a hold on any sales/ building of lands that are mobile home parks... we need to have our Council/ County do the same. Local gov. decries the loss of affordable housing but has permitted this to continue. It's time we pushed for it to stop.

submitted 04:18 on May 1, 2008 by Beverly

I can only hope and pray for the families in the park and the days ahead. Perhaps they will be comforted knowing I'll be shopping for lumber at a Home Depot without traveling the extra 5 miles down Meridian?

submitted 08:11 on May 17, 2008 by sheila walshe

We have the same threat here near Kelowna BC, in Green Bay MHP. The developer, Mr. Theodor Wenner, has not even met with us, just wants us all gone ! Wide-spread dis-ease of the times. We all need help !

submitted 12:05 on May 18, 2008 by Jenny Mohr

All of these homes when sold met the required standards. Now, in Canada at least, only those newer than 5 years are considered moveable without upgrade ... so, basically what this tells me is that a person would be further from the street if they purchased and lived in a luxury vehicle. When the wind (or landlord) shifts, you can put her into gear and drive away, and your rent is not used to pay for the purchase of the park. From the buy-sell ads I have come across posted by Ted Wenner, principle of our Landlord, Green Bay Landing Inc., he is expecting to sell his used vehicles for more than what his actions to date suggest to me, is expected to be paid to us for the loss of our homes. It would seem that somehow, it has become okay for our society to view us as disposable. The rot is quite evidently working its way up, and this usually means somewhere along the line there will need to be a cleanse; I wonder what form it will take this time. The parks and streets can hold only so much misery, and the jails are pretty much full ... positive remedies must be found, or something has got to give.

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