About 60 families are being evicted from a Manassas mobile home park that was bought by the city government on condition that the land be emptied of people and trailers.
The property manager notified residents Monday that they have until Feb. 28 to vacate.
At a demonstration that night organized by the Latino advocacy group CASA, residents said there are no other mobile home parks in the area that will accept their older-model trailers. They also said they lack the thousands of dollars it would take to move the structures elsewhere.
“How is it okay for the city to force people into bankruptcy?” asked Dawn Kestner, who pays $450 each month to rent her site and has lived at the seven-acre park for 20 years with her husband and stepdaughter. “People here are low-income but hard-working.”
Mayor Harry J. Parrish II (R) and other city officials said in interviews that the city will work with those who are being displaced to help them find new housing. A meeting is scheduled for next week.
“Our interest is not to push people out of the city but to address the health and safety hazard at the mobile home park,” said Patrick Small, the city’s economic development director, who is overseeing the land purchase.
City officials say they have tried for years to work with the park’s owner, a limited liability company represented by local attorney Timothy A. Cope, who did not return several calls for comment Tuesday.
Since 2008, the city has issued nine citations for cracked sewer and water lines that have led to raw sewage spilling onto the ground and storm water runoff leaking into sewage pipes. That runoff increases the city’s use of sewage treatment at the Upper Occoquan sewage authority, and the city is already using more than 90 percent of the volume it purchased — a fact noted by officials when the Manassas City Council approved the purchase of the mobile home park last spring.
After the owner’s representative said it could neither afford to fix the lines nor find a buyer who would, the council voted 4-to-2 in April to buy the park for $1.86 million.
State Sen. Jeremy McPike (D), who represents the area, decried the lack of communication between the city and the park’s residents.
“People have been paying water bills and sewage bills — they’ve been paying into a broken system for years,” McPike said. “And now they’re going to lose their homes.”
The sale will not be completed until the residents and their homes are off the land, city officials said. The city plans to sell the land, tucked behind a used-car lot in the 9000 block of Centreville Road, or use it for an undefined “public purpose.”
Small emphasized that the city is giving people time to find a new place to live before taking over the property. “Either we shut the sewer system off and people have to leave immediately, or the property owner can close the park in an orderly way,” he said.
But CASA spokeswoman Fernanda Durand said it will be difficult for people who live at the park to find a new site for their mobile homes or an affordable apartment in increasingly expensive Prince William County.
“Mobile homes are an inexpensive alternative for people living paycheck to paycheck,” she said. “The little money these people have managed to save will be wiped out in one fell swoop. . . The city really needs to do something to help housing for low-income people.”
Alejandra Tovar, a restaurant worker, said she has sought answers from the city and the property manager, to no avail.
“I’m worried that I’ve invested a lot of money in my home, all my savings,” she said of the mobile home where she has lived for the past two years. “The owners, the city are taking no responsibility.”
She and other residents said they want the city to fix the sewer lines and allow the mobile trailers to remain.
Mike Watson, who has lived at the park for almost 14 years, said he owes $25,000 on his mobile home. He estimated that it would cost him about $20,000 to move the trailer, if he could find a place to put it.
The city should do “the right thing,” Watson said, and “give us fair market value or let us stay.”
