Kevin Riordan: 'Real hardship' ahead at mobile-home park

The letter from the landlord's office felt like "a kick in the pants," Anna Sullivan, 80, recalls.

"They're taking my life away from me," says Martina Haas, 73.

Adds Mindy Grass, who turns 75 in August, "I can't believe they're doing this to older people."

The three women are among 46 low- or moderate-income residents who lease the ground under their manufactured - also known as "mobile" - homes in Mount Laurel's 400-home Tricia Meadows community.

Other residents pay market rates, and in March, Davis Enterprises notified the 46 that their rents would rise to market rates in 2014.

"Mine will increase from $224.50 to $457 a month," says Pat Frasier, 71, whose situation is typical.

"My Social Security benefit, which I live [on], doesn't double," Frasier adds, offering me an iced tea in the living room of the home she shares with an attentive mixed-breed husky named Marcy.

"So this," she says, "would be a real hardship for me."

Tricia Meadows was an early success story under the New Jersey Supreme Court's landmark Mount Laurel affordable-housing rulings. The development was built in 1984 under the terms of a related Superior Court judgment approving Davis' proposal. The terms of that judgment expire Dec. 31.

The township had initially rebuffed the developer, Roger Davis, due to opposition to what were then called trailer parks. Davis promised that the development he named for his daughter, Patricia, would be attractive and well-maintained. And a decade after Davis' death, it still is.

But the entire community is abuzz about the changes.

"It's a shame what they're doing," says Paul Bennett, 74, a retired custodian who is unaffected by the increase but concerned about others in the community. "How do they expect people to pay double their rent?"

The company's "Dear Affordable Housing Resident" notification dated March 14 does include a phone number for state housing assistance. The four-paragraph letters are signed by Davis president Miriam R. Nase; three messages I left with an employee and on voice mail at the firm's Marlton headquarters went unanswered last Thursday and Friday.

Mount Laurel Mayor Linda Bobo says there are "900 [other] affordable housing units" in the township, and there are waiting lists.

"Certainly, we're concerned about displacing residents, especially seniors," Bobo adds. "But under the [1984] agreement, these [rent] controls expire."

Nevertheless, a provision giving Davis Enterprises a 25 percent cut of any profit from the sale of the 46 homes does not expire.

"There are ways that these units could remain affordable," insists Kevin D. Walsh, associate director of the Fair Share Housing Center, an advocacy organization.

The township could, for example, utilize some of the $6 million in Affordable Housing Trust funds it has accumulated in recent years.

But "all of our funds have been allocated," says Bobo. And Walsh's organization is contesting Gov. Christie's attempt to offset a deficit in his proposed 2014 budget by diverting $165 million of those funds from municipalities statewide, including Mount Laurel.

"There's probably not much the town can do while their funds are frozen," Walsh says, adding, "This problem is going to repeat itself all around the state."

Within the next 10 years, he estimates, rent restrictions on 10,000 New Jersey apartments and townhouses will expire.

At Tricia Meadows, that future is almost here. And it looks bleak to folks like Sullivan, Grass, Haas, and Frasier, who love their community, their homes, their gardens.

"I have no options," Grass says.

But maybe Davis Enterprises does?

Pat Frasier wants to save her affordable home in Tricia Meadows. www.inquirer.com/triciaEndText

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