Is your trailer worth a million dollars? What about your motor home? How would you like your trailer to be worth a million dollars?
According to a CNN report (print version), residents of a trailer park in Florida are preparing to sell their trailers and trailer lots to a developer for more than a million dollars each:
Residents of this trailer-park town sitting on beach front property have voted overwhelmingly to sell their community to a developer for more than $510 million, which could make most of them millionaires.
Some residents bought their homes for as little as $35,000.
The contract isn’t official — and residents don’t get any money — until 2009. If the sale goes through, nearly every owner will get more than $1 million.
A large majority of the residents voted in favor of the sale, though many are sad at leaving their long time homes and neighbors. Still, it’s a pretty nice chunk of change.
It’s also a big change. While these people will be getting a bit more than a million, which may be much less once the government takes their chunk, they won’t be able to afford to live in the area as it has completely out-priced them.
The area will be torn down and room made for development of more high-priced condos, hotels, and a marina along the Florida coast line. These people, unless they slipped in arrangements for housing, will not be able to afford to live there. They will have to find somewhere else as their instant million doesn’t compare with the multi-millionaires which now populate an area once known more for mosquitoes, alligators, and hurricanes than luxury homes.
Still, it’s a great return on their original investment. A good nest egg.
We’ve been back in Mobile, Alabama, for less than three days and I’m still struggling to find words. The stupid thing is that the damage here is totally insignificant. Yet, it isn’t the damage to the surrounding area and homes and lives that ties my fingers up in knots. It’s the look on the face and body language of the campers here who leave predawn every morning and head out into Mississippi that strangles my creative expression.
Campers, motor homes, trailers, and pop-ups are crammed in back to back in what are normally huge pull through spots. RVs are tucked in between and around mobile homes, wherever they can comfortably fit, and some uncomfortably. They have had to turn away many because there just is no more room left. So they work overtime to get these broken lots fixed up to accommodate all who need a place to call home for a while.
In my family, when we drive by a cemetery, it’s traditional for someone to ask “How many dead people are buried there?” The appropriate answer is “All of them.” I have started doing the night shift for Charlie and Diane, allowing them to finally get some dinner and decent sleep. Talking to a group of bankers, they asked me how many insurance adjusters and FEMA representatives were here. I said, “All of them.”
The newbies arrive with energy to spare, eager to get out there, their eyes clear and bright and their backs straight. Most of them have never lived in a trailer or RV and they are totally clueless about these FEMA or company supplied RVs. They grin and say they are fast learners and we help figure out all the details and differences. Living in an RV might be like taking your home on the road, but it is a totally different way of life and the smallest things you take for granted are different. Still, they laugh at their clumsiness and eagerly await their first assignments, which may happen immediately or within the next few days – as they wait, watch TV, wonder, and anticipate.
Other old timers know what to expect, and they expect to be in the thick of things. They are traveling in the battered and old trailers and campers. Generators, blocks of red plastic gas cans, propane tanks, and huge water cans are strapped and locked onto their RVs with chains, bike cables, and huge locks. They know that their arrival in a disaster area will be an invitation to anyone who thinks you have something worth taking. Many don’t wait for the giving to arrive.
“I’ve been watching it on television for over a week. Not even close. Not even close.”
Every night the men and women come back with stories. All day long, people are talking to them, telling them of their woes and suffering, asking for help, demanding money, pleading for things to be fixed immediately, and even threatening them. They hold hands and give hugs or just stand there when people break down, crying and sobbing, relieved to tell their story. When they come back to the campground, they want to do the talking. They want someone to listen to THEM for a change. Or they just don’t want to hear any voices. No talking. No chatting. No story telling. Just quiet and the numbness of whatever is on television.
As sad as it is, the reality on the ground is that the most accessible areas get the help first. As Mississippi is healed from the outer edges of its wound towards the middle, the campers here will slowly move closer in. The campground won’t be empty, though. Contractors will begin to use this as a staging areas, helping to direct the flow of repair crews, construction, and rebuilders towards the area. Over time, they will thin out and be replaced by people who have decided that they want to be “close” to home, even if they can’t get to home. 
Not long after our arrival here in Mobile, Alabama, we ran into Rita and Bob, a couple not much older than Brent and I who gave up their “American Lifestyle” to hit the road full-time about a year ago. Rita and I crawled into the truck for an all day excursion to the Fairhope Arts and Crafts Festival on the other side of Mobile Bay.
Friday arrived with a note from a friend wishing me a good holiday weekend and telling me all about what he would be doing on his three day vacation. He wanted to know what I was going to do this Memorial Weekend. All of a sudden that question struck me as really funny.