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    • Mobile Home Repairs Will Be Expensive in Western North Carolina
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    Mobile Home Repairs Will Be Expensive in Western North Carolina

    Umito Posted on

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    SWANNANOA — The walls and floors of Nelson Cruz’s home were completely bare.

    It’s where he and his family lived for 16 years, with the house now uninhabitable after flooding from Tropical Storm Helene that swept through the community in September. Everything they owned had been taken away, only the wooden frame remained.

    Cruz’s house sits on the edge of Black Mountain Manufactured Home Community, a collection of dozens of mobile homes on a hillside across the Swannanoa River. It is one of approximately 138,000 mobile homes spread across western North Carolina, many of which were hardest hit by the historic devastation.

    Spray paint marks rows of buildings deemed unsafe for habitation. Lines indicating the high water mark are more than six feet above the ground in some areas.

    Cruz worked for weeks to restore his home to what it once was. There is still much to do and he has received little help beyond a GoFundMe created by his daughter. He said he estimated the delivery cost alone to be about $17,000.

    “It’s difficult, but we have to do it,” Cruz said.

    Mobile homes make up 15% of homes in Helene disaster-declared counties

    Cruz worked on the house whenever he had time between shifts painting houses two to three days a week. Much of that money now goes toward rent. His family lives in an apartment that costs $1,500 a month, on top of the $500 rent he still pays for the land the mobile home sits on.

    About 15% of homes in counties under a major disaster declaration in North Carolina are mobile homes, according to a report. report from the United States Census Bureau. That excludes numbers from Mecklenburg County, which was separated in the report because the federal agency said the area skewed data for more rural counties that faced much of the severe weather.

    Mobile home residents are more likely to be injured during severe storms like Tropical Storm Helene. The Federal Emergency Management Agency does not consider mobile homes safe during hurricanes.

    Residents face a long road to recovery, said local real estate agent Antonio Garcia. Many people living in the Black Mountain manufactured housing community work in service or labor fields and lost job for weeks, even months, this fall.

    This is added to rising housing costs. Many Buncombe County residents have turned to mobile homes as one of the last affordable housing options, Garcia said.

    “Everything else is very expensive,” he says.

    Estimated cost of repairing a mobile home: $50,000 and more

    Garcia works with a nonprofit called Community Organized Relief Effort, or CORE, which has been in the neighborhood for weeks repairing about 24 homes. He estimates repairs for most homes will cost more than $50,000.

    Cruz’s family is looking to move out of their longtime home if they can afford it. Coming back under the threat of another flood would be difficult, he said.

    Although some people have planned to move or have abandoned their homes altogether, most hope to stay, said Kirsty Greeno, construction site supervisor for CORE’s mobile home community. She said most of the people she works with hope to be where they know people best.

    “People are also fighting for their community right now,” she said.

    The storm affected many of the state’s vulnerable populations

    Cliff Stewart, 76, was at home early on the morning of September 27 when officials knocked on his door urging him to evacuate. But Stewart, who uses a wheelchair, couldn’t get out of her mobile home when the flooding started. That’s where he stayed, with no way to escape as the water rose up to the wheels of his chair.

    Officials found that more than 22 percent of people living in affected counties are considered highly vulnerable by the Census Bureau. This refers to someone with three or more vulnerabilities based on things like poverty, age and access to broadband.

    The area also includes a disproportionate number of older people, with about 22% of people living in affected counties being 65 or older, compared to 17% in other counties. The population is more at risk than others during storms, with two out of three deaths in the state during Hurricane Florence being elderly according to FEMA.

    Data shows that communities of color are more likely to face hurricanes and other natural disasters, with experts pointing to decades of redlining pushing people into areas with poor infrastructure.

    Joseph Kemper was carrying building materials to his mother’s house on November 19. It’s been weeks since she left her home in September, and only managed to get up the hill when downed trees prevented her from driving any further. She stayed in her car, watching the water enter her home and destroy everything she owned.

    Curtis Bond, who lives in a nearby turquoise mobile home, plans to move some of his belongings to a junkyard on Nov. 19. He suffers from chronic pain, which often prevents him from performing manual labor after suffering a herniated disc at work several years ago. .

    He is still working to qualify for Social Security Disability Insurance, after being unable to work. He said he wishes he could do more to help, noting how much people lost in the storm.

    “It changed our lives forever,” Bond said.

    Helen Rummel is a USA TODAY Network reporter reporting for the Asheville Citizen Times in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Helene.

    Umito
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