Mobile Home Listings & News

Rule eyed for mobile home parks


Wednesday, May 23, 2007
BY MICHAEL ANDERSEN, Columbian staff writer

Clark County is weighing a new rule that might require mobile home parks preparing for redevelopment to report their tenants' demographic information to the county.

The code requirement would let the county help cushion the blow for tenants who may have nowhere else to live, said Mike Piper, the county's community services director.

The discussion comes as one especially crime-ridden mobile park on Highway 99 awaits a July 12 hearing over redevelopment planned for the site.

Owners of Callaham's Mobile Court, at 10804 N.E. Highway 99, want to replace the site with 126 townhomes, a three-story mixed-use complex and an office building.

"This is just one of many situations like this," Piper said. "There are many other mobile home parks which are sitting there, really waiting to be turned over to higher and better use. And many more people are likely to be displaced."

Planners see the Callaham's project as a keystone in an effort to reinvent the highway as the spine of a dense urban neighborhood.

"We figure that this would kind of be a catalyst for development along Highway 99," said Dick Durland, president of the Sherwood Hills Neighborhood Association. "If I was a businessman and I wanted to invest in property along there, I certainly wouldn't want to go along with that slum joint."

George Callaham, who owns the site with his family, said plans for financing the project aren't yet firm.

"We may not do this thing for five years," said Callaham. "Could be a long time, could be a short time."


Making a change

LaVon Holden, a director of the Vancouver Housing Authority, said many people in such low-end parks live there because other landlords refuse to take a chance on them.

"A tenant who does not have a good history and does not have a good income has very few choices," she said.

Holden said the waiting list for federally subsidized housing in Clark County is "several years" long.

Increasing the number of subsidized homes would help, she said. So would wider recognition of a local class that seeks to put people on track to tenancy despite flaws in their rental, debt or criminal histories.

The "Ready to Rent" class is organized by local nonprofit YW Housing, an offshoot of the YWCA. Two hours a week for six weeks, students hear from graduates who have successfully escaped rental troubles and from landlords or bankers who will accept a certificate from the class as proof of a tenant or borrower's commitment to regular payments.

Students also complete a 192-page packet on how to be a good tenant.

The next class starts July 16. A county grant pays most of the program's bills. Coordinator Victoria Clevenger says she also asks students for a $5 donation.

"Little by little, there are more landlords that are willing to consider it," Clevenger said.



Michael Andersen covers Clark County government. Reach him at 360-759-8052 or

michael.andersen@columbian.com