Donate to the Go Fund Me page in this article
The 47 families who face eviction and could become homeless once they have to leave the Wellington Mobile Home Park could use the help of their Wake Forest neighbors.
ONE Wake is partnering with the NC Congress of Latino Organizations to set up a Go Fund Me page with the website listed below. The page was created five days ago and had $3,350 donated as of Wednesday at noon with a goal of $40,000. The Gazette editor expects to see much more than that because Wake Foresters are generous people and recognize need when they see it.
The families have been served with eviction notices with a January deadline because the land owner, former mayor George Mackie Jr., has a contract with Middleburg Communities to sell the land for 260 rental units – single-family houses and townhouses – with rents well over $1,000 per month. The 47 families are paying $300 a month for their lots. (Several of the families have already moved.)
Mackie has refused to speak or hear about a solution that would allow the residents to remain in their current homes. ROC-USA Resident-Owned Communities) has offered to pay Mackie the same amount of money he would be paid by Middleburg Communities if the requested rezoning is approved. If Mackie agreed to ROC-USA’s offer, the residents could stay and become part of a community that would jointly own the trailer park.
After Middleburg employees negotiating with Mackie learned he did not intend to help the mobile home park residents find new housing – he had said he was going to develop another mobile home park on property he owns where they could move – the firm has offered to pay $250,000 for the resettlement. The affected families have been negotiating with Middleburg and have agreed not to fight the needed rezoning.
But there is a major problem for those who can move their mobile homes – some are too old to be moved – in that there is no space available in Wake or Franklin counties. Middleburg has found mobile home parks in Burlington and Rocky Mount that will accept the mobile homes or some of them. In Rocky Mount the mobile home park owner has also offered some relocation financial assistance and a five-year guarantee not to raise the rent.
Several Wellington residents work in Wake Forest or nearby; there are children in Wake Forest schools; and many of the affected families have family in Wake Forest or nearby. For the elderly residents who mostly own older, unmovable mobile homes, there are few options. One man said when interviewed for a survey, “I will die.”
Some of the relocation problems can be solved or ameliorated with money. Please give generously to help your neighbors at:
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