He emptied his 401(k) to buy a mobile home. It’s being razed to build affordable housing
Four months ago, Hamilton Dos Santos liquidated his life savings, including his 401(k), to purchase a home — a four-bedroom, two-bathroom trailer in Sweetwater’s Li’l Abner Mobile Home Park, for which he paid $160,000.
He found a notice in his mailbox last Tuesday. His home, in effect, was no longer his.
Last week, the park’s owner, CREI Holdings, notified Dos Santos, along with the other 900-plus mobile homeowners, that the park will permanently close on May 19. Residents have until then to vacate the premises, with or without their houses.
According to The Urban Group, a development management company that’s overseeing the property’s transition, the mobile home park will be converted to “affordable and workforce housing.” That is, housing that’s affordable for families who earn between 60% to 140% of Miami-Dade’s median income — $42,600 to $99,400, respectively, for a four-person family.
Nearby plots owned by CREI have been put to similar use. Looming over Li’l Abner is the skeleton of a to-be residential building, Li’l Abner III. A harbinger of what’s to become of the trailer park, Li’l Abner III is slated to open in 2026 and will provide affordable senior and workforce housing.
While the announcement of more affordable housing might come as good news to many in Miami-Dade, where a shortage of affordable housing squeezes residents, it’s of little comfort to the largely low-income mobile home owners of Li’l Abner. The park is for many of them one of the few remaining places they could afford to buy in Miami-Dade.
Overnight, many of those owners saw their wealth erased — their principal assets rendered worthless.
“It’s a completely lost investment,” Dos Santos,48, said Thursday, grimacing at the house that cost him almost all of his savings and that he’ll have lived in for no more than six months before leaving.
The Urban Group did confirm that tenants of the park will have priority access to apartments in Li’l Abner III, the adjacent building that’s currently under construction, as well as any future affordable housing built on the park, “including the first month free,” the company added.
Li’l Abner’s closure comes as mobile home parks throughout Miami-Dade are being shuttered. They generally occupy large pieces of land and are relatively cheap to buy out, making them sought-after targets for developers looking to build denser, multi-family units or commercial projects.
While mobile homeowners own the physical structure of their homes, they typically rent the land beneath.
“Think of mobile homes as being closer to a car than to a home,” said James Glover, a senior attorney at Legal Services of Greater Miami, which provides free legal services to low-income people in Miami-Dade and Monroe counties.
In the case of Li’l Abner, that dynamic poses a critical problem.
Despite their name, the mobile homes are conspicuously immobile. Many are cemented into the ground, making their relocation either structurally impossible or prohibitively costly. Dos Santos says it could cost upward of $10,000 to move his trailer.
CREI Holdings, Li’l Abner’s owner, is required under Florida law to offset relocation costs by offering $3,000 and $6,000 for single- and double-wide homes, respectively.
But with mobile home parks closing throughout Florida, Dos Santos doubts he’d have anywhere to take his home.
Clemencia Araoz, who has lived at Li’l Abner for 30 years, is in a similar position. Her home isher primary asset.
“I clearly can’t move it,” she said, pointing to its anchored foundation, “and who will buy it now?”
Although neither knows where they’ll go, both intend to leave by the end of January. The land owner has offered a $14,000 incentive for those who move out by Jan. 31.
“I need the money to cover the costs of renting an apartment,” said Dos Santos.
Those who leave by April can get $7,000 in compensation, while those who stay until May will get $3,000. CREI was not mandated to pay those amounts, which it is offering in addition to the legally required moving stipends. Even so, those figures are an order of magnitude below what most owners paid for their homes.
“It’s a huge destruction of wealth,” said Glover.
But tenants have little legal footing to stand on in combating that destruction. “Florida is a very landlord-friendly state,” he said.
Sweetwater Mayor Jose “Pepe” Diaz said what’s happening to the mobile homeowners “breaks my heart.”
“But,” he added, “this is private property, and the owner of the trailer park is within his rights to do what he’s doing.”
The role of local government so far has been mostly to mediate, according to Diaz and County Commissioner Juan Carlos “JC” Bermudez, who represents Li’l Abner’s district in the Miami-Dade County Commission.
“We’re working with the developer and the city of Sweetwater,” said Bermudez, who hopes to “try to figure out if there’s a way to make this more palatable to those residents.”
In a press release, Diaz’s office said it was working with the county to “find funding and resources” to help the roughly 2,000 to 3,000 people that the mayor estimates are being displaced from the 900-plus mobile homes.
Beyond that, no concrete plans have been presented yet.
For Dos Santos, Araoz and the rest of Li’l Abner’s residents, waiting likely isn’t an option.
“We’re trying to figure out the most affordable place to move to,” said Araoz, who speculated that that might be in Broward.
Pausing as she reflected on what’s to come, the 68-year-old wiped tears from her eyes.
“I’m thinking of the memories,” she said, gesturing to the street in front of her house. “This is where my son learned to ride a bike.”
This story was produced with financial support from supporters including The Green Family Foundation Trust and Ken O’Keefe, in partnership with Journalism Funding Partners. The Miami Herald maintains full editorial control of this work.
This story was originally published November 19, 2024 at 3:09 PM.
