Tenants at the Congress Mobile Home Park have won a temporary restraining order to postpone their evictions, a significant win for those residents at the South Austin property who have not yet secured new housing.
The longstanding and tight-knit community was upended earlier this year when new owner Reza Paydar and his entity Congress Corner LLC informed tenants – some of whom had been living at the park for decades – that their leases were not being renewed; they had 60 days to move out. The tenants association filed suit, through Texas RioGrande Legal Aid and the Austin Community Law Center, alleging that state law requires Paydar to provide 180 days' notice to tenants facing eviction – because it intends to change the property's use by converting it from an affordable housing option to a more expensive RV facility serving travelers. A Travis County district judge granted the TRO on Sept. 1, with an extension granted Sept. 12. A final ruling on the suit itself will be made in the coming days, but granting a TRO normally signals that the judge thinks the plaintiffs have a high chance of success.
The vast majority of residents who were living at Congress Mobile Home Park at the start of 2022 have already moved out – some within their South Austin neighborhood, others out of Travis County entirely. But a handful of families remain in the park, struggling to navigate the myriad challenges of the housing market and particularly the mobile home end of that market. "The stakes are high," Noelia Mann, a tenant organizer with Building and Strengthening Tenant Action (BASTA), said. "People really don't have other options."
A number of the homes are manufactured and cannot be moved. Carolina Velardie, a former tenant who grew up at the park and moved out earlier this summer, said that many other tenants cannot afford the cost of moving their homes, or have to wait until their homes are approved for utility services that were provided at Congress Mobile Home Park. People who left their homes at the park after moving into apartments now face losing them entirely or being forced to sell them at a significant financial loss, as they are pushed from home ownership back into the rental market.
"It's so wrong," Mann said, "not only the negligence and lack of concern, but in fact the desire to see those people pushed out. I think it represents the kind of Austin that some people want to see, which I think is a gentrified Austin, which is a white Austin, a wealthy Austin – and that is at the direct expense of people's lives, a roof over people's heads and food on the table."
Velardie said that since moving, she and her sister have stopped going out to eat and try to keep their lights off at all hours to save money on their electricity bill. In addition to the higher utility costs, their rent has increased by $1,000 per month at their new apartment. Velardie said that she hopes the lawsuit sends a message to other potential investors.
"Now when I go to the park, I find myself sighing a lot," Velardie said. "I hate to see how my neighborhood was and what it became, and how basically ugly it got in the sense that Reza Paydar didn't make this transition a lot better … This is the new reality. You leave with this frustration that we were treated this way, like disposable people."
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Congress Mobile Home Park, Eviction, Housing, Mobile Home Park
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