PRINCETON — Melissa Poe barely sleeps. She goes through spells when she can’t get out of bed, because at any second, her body and mind tell her another tragedy is bound to happen.
Her dad died when she was nine, and her daughter died at age two. Her fiancé died the next year. Now a single mother with cancer, Poe said her breaking point was the purchase of her Mercer County mobile home community by out-of-state companies.
“I don’t know how to smile because I have nothing positive,” she said.
Several years ago, the companies bought the Mercer County Gardner Estates, Elk View, Country Roads, Delaney and Shadow Wood mobile home parks. Poe couldn’t afford both the payments on her home and rent for the land it stood on. She said the companies hiked her lot rent from about $225 to more than $500.
“It’s very hard because I feel like a failure,” she said. “I’m almost 50 and I had to move back in with my mom.”
New owners and operators include Smith Management, Smith subsidiary Alden Global Capital, an affiliate, Homes of America, and smaller affiliates used to make the purchase. Tenants say their formerly well-kept communities are falling apart. They’ve alleged faulty systems resulting in sewage backup into people’s toilets, sinks and yards, putrid standing water resulting in infestations of flies and mosquitoes, mold underneath homes and potholes, according to an ongoing lawsuit filed about two years ago.
Tenants also allege they were faced with sudden lot rent increases, effectively terminating leases. They also allege company representatives demanded they sign new leases with lower lot rent increases with prohibitions from signing onto lawsuits or face substantial price hikes if they didn’t.
While companies agreed several months later to go back to previous rents, some had already been pressured to sign the higher leases and the company went on to continue coercing people into more expensive leases, according to a court filing this year.
Smith Management, Homes of America and their mobile home operators denied the allegations, stated that any leases were terminated for good cause and said they’d operated in good faith to follow West Virginia law in its response.
Operators also said in a court filing that the companies are committed to providing their tenants with “safe, affordable, and quality living communities.” Bryon Fields Jr., chief operating officer of Homes of America, and lawyers for the companies didn’t respond to calls and emails. Smith Management also did not respond to a request for comment.
At times, instead of feeling overwhelmed by worry about impending doom, Poe feels empty.
“I guess I’ve shut down in a way,” she said. “I don’t show feelings. I don’t laugh anymore. I don’t smile. I don’t let people get close to me. I feel like I am a person on the outside looking in.”
When it’s quiet and she’s alone, she sees images of her dead loved ones. She also pictures the mobile home she and her son loved for 13 years.
“We were happy.”
Fighting back
Valeria Steele is a single mom who provides around-the-clock care for her 21-year-old son, who has a developmental disorder.
She said some residents couldn’t move their homes so empty trailers were left behind in her park, with leftover trash attracting rodents. “He’s a very happy individual, and I strive to keep it that way,” she said. “But it is a stressor, because he realizes all of our neighbors are gone.”
After 15 years paying off the loan on her residence, she’s proud to be a homeowner. She noted that mobile homes have traditionally offered a route to homeownership for low-income people.
With high prevalence of lower-income families, seniors on fixed incomes and people with disabilities who are less likely to be able to work, West Virginia has the nation’s highest rate of homeownership but also one of the highest percentages of mobile homes.
But after the new owners bought Elk View Mobile Home Park in Princeton, where she lives, Steele saw her rent go from $225 to about $525.
“What are you supposed to do?” she said. “Lose everything invested in your home?”
Steele has led the charge by forming a tenant organization and bringing in advisors to educate them on their rights.
In a rare move earlier this year, the companies filed a countersuit against her.
Companies said they’d lost income and tenants, and alleged she made false statements that harmed their reputation.
Steele’s lawyers accused the companies of filing that suit to intimidate her, knowing that their suit was malicious and baseless, in a response to the countersuit.
Steele keeps at it, though, she said, “because it’s wrong.”
‘Victims of their circumstances‘
At a meeting at the local 4-H grounds in October, Steele updated residents on lawsuits against the new owners, and she told them about a website in the works and plans for a community Christmas dinner.
Attendees explained the catch-22 of selling a mobile home they’ve paid for to live in more expensive housing or moving the mobile home at high expense, often more than $10,000 for land and utilities.
Larry Bowman read from a letter he’d written about he and his wife’s experience.
The letter stated that the companies “basically force(d) everyone to sign a release of liability against Homes of America to get a much lower guaranteed rent amount.”
“After two years it will go up very high and we will be forced to move some way,” he wrote. “We will be 73 by then.”
He and his wife Brenda still reside at one of the parks and live off of Social Security.
After the companies purchased the parks, he developed heart problems. They both worry about accidentally breaking a new rule. They’ve been accused of breaking rules before, like when the company alleged they didn’t pay rent they said they’d dropped off.
“She’s been a nervous wreck, worried we’re going to be put out,” he said. “She’s lost 100 pounds in the past year.”
So now, after rent increased from more than $200 to more then $400, he has to pay for a multitude of prescription drugs, and her depression medication hasn’t helped motivate her to get out of the house for activities she once enjoyed.
Alysha Crawford, the coordinator of a program to prevent homelessness and help kids who are already unsheltered in Mercer County schools, said some of the 700 kids she helps were former residents of the parks.
“I want to fix it. I want to pay your rent deposit and get you into a home, but what home?” she said. “Where?”
She called these kids “victims of their circumstances.” They’re reliant on their parents and guardians. And in this case, some in Mercer schools are also at the mercy of investment firms.
“It affects their education,” she said. “It affects their future. The kids have zero choice.”
Poe’s son is one of those kids. He had to transfer to a new school, and the disruption to his routine gave him anxiety attacks.
“He got to the point to where he didn’t want to get out of bed,” she said.
Poe’s mother, Judy Miller, has to assure her daughter she isn’t a burden.
“It has been hard, but I don’t care,” Miller said. “You take care of your people you love.”
Since she only receives income through Social Security, she’s now maxed out all her credit cards and had to skip utility bills and borrow money.
Miller was taking care of her own mother who had dementia before her daughter was diagnosed with cancer. Now her daughter worries about her mom’s increasing anxiety and chest pains.
But to Miller, the companies don’t seem to care about risk of debilitation or even death.
She said she remembers a time when money wasn’t king.
“People cared,” she said. “Now, they’re all out to take you if they got money. They don’t care about the people that are sick having it tough.”