Occupancy to begin later this year; 20 to 25 former residents expected to return
By Tony Bloom for the Rogue Valley Times
A Talent manufactured home park that was mostly destroyed by the 2020 Almeda Fire will reemerge as a facility owned and managed by tenants. Occupancy could begin as early as this fall in 87 new homes.
A groundbreaking was held Saturday, though about half of the work has been completed and there are already 28 manufactured homes at the Arnos Street site where Talent Mobile Estates stood.
“This has been … too long coming, but sometimes good things take a long time,” Peter Hainley, executive director of Community and Shelter Assistance Corporation (CASA) of Oregon, said at the ceremony. The organization is the project developer and has worked with local nonprofit Coalición Fortaleza and others to create the park.
CASA of Oregon has helped create 27 tenant-owned parks over 15 years in the state. Talent Mobile Estates is the first being built from the ground up because of a fire.
Many locals had lived in manufactured home parks for over 20 years and had developed communities when the Almeda Fire took those away, said Erica Ledesma, Coalición Fortazela’s co-founder and executive director.
“It was important to restore the sense of community,” Ledesma said. The coalition formed after the fire when community members banded together to see what could be done to recover and help fire survivors.
“We are most grateful that (CASA of Oregon) came down here to support our community. Manufactured home parks are having the hardest time to recover,” she continued. “We have kind of been the middle connection and facilitator to the people seeking help and support through the process.”
About 20 to 25 former park residents are expected to return. Others have found new housing or moved out of the area, said Rose Ojeda, CASA of Oregon’s manufactured housing and cooperative development director. Fire survivors from other locations will live in the other homes.
“We hope to have construction completed by early September,” Ojeda said. Adroit Construction of Ashland is the contractor.
Skyline Homes is creating the units under a contract. The units are manufactured both in McMinnville and Woodland, California. Most are single-wides, but there will be about 12 double-wides.
Oregon Housing and Community Services created a $7.5-million bridge loan to CASA of Oregon in 2022 so that the organization could purchase the land from the former owner. A new loan will be sought in order to repay OHCS.
“We’ll get a long-term, permanent loan to help pay for the bridge loan. We’ll get some additional grant funds from local resources,” Ojeda said. “The state is providing funding for the new manufactured homes.”
The formation of the homeowners’ cooperative will begin in July, Ojeda said. Residents will join as members, and the cooperative will take over ownership of the park. The residents will decide what to name it.
“We will be … holding leaderships classes for the residents,” Ledesma said. “We want to set them up for success.”
Future residents had an opportunity to offer input on what the park should look like. Three sessions were held that covered the layout, community space and green space. Salazar Architect of Portland, which designed the park, helped facilitate the sessions with Coalición Fortazela.
A fourth session was held to enhance community building in preparation for the residents forming their own cooperative. Another session was held to help residents with the application process.
ACCESS, Jackson County’s community action agency, has screened residents to live in the project.
Nine homes that survived the Almeda Fire will be inhabited after the work is finished, Ojeda said. After the fire, some RVs were located on the site, but those have been relocated to the adjacent Totem Pole Trailer Park, which also burned but now houses FEMA trailers.
Some tenants will receive their homes without costs, while others may be required to make a contribution toward the transfer of title, Ojeda said. Space rents in the park will probably be about $625 to $650 monthly, she said. Rents will cover repayment of loans for the land and construction costs.
A community building that was on the site is being gutted and rehabilitated for future use.
Allan Timothy Shepherd, who was burned out of a home park in Phoenix in the conflagration, will be moving into one of the new homes. He attended Saturday’s ceremony.
Shepherd and his four adopted children lived in several different locations after the fire before getting into a FEMA trailer in the Totem Pole Trailer Park.
“My kids are excited about it,” he said. All of the children attend schools in the Phoenix-Talent School District.
Shepherd’s glad the park will be tenant-owned, as that should bring a higher level of care for the people living there, he said.
Reach Ashland freelance writer Tony Boom at tboomwriter@gmail.com. This story first appeared in the Rogue Valley Times.
