Justice, Mercy and Shady Acres

Shady Acres Mobile Home Park

Three weeks ago, the museum opened the exhibition, Miracles of Mexican Folk Art: Retablos and Ex Votos, containing a range of beautiful art works dedicated by ordinary people of Mexico, expressing thanks for the small miracles or milagros of everyday. At the time, we didn’t anticipate that the themes of the show—devotion, mercy, gratitude, and aspirations for a better life—would become so deeply poignant, and so precarious, for the local Latino/Mexicano community.  On April 20, we learned, through some diligent reporting by Jesse Majors and Jessica Martinez in the Ellensburg Daily Record, that the Kittitas County Board of Commissioners had executed a purchase and sale agreement,  for $1.45 million, for the Shady Acres Mobile Home park, immediately across the street from our university. Their intention is to close down the park and evict or "relocate" all its residents.  The Commissioners’ plan is to rezone the park for a seasonal RV park, to be constructed and managed by a private concessionaire, to service visitors to the adjacent County Fairgrounds, which hosts the annual Rodeo each Labor Day. and the County Fair. Under state law, mobile home residents are allowed one year to move out of a mobile home park that is being closed.

There are about thirty low-income families in Shady Acres, all but two of them Latino. The majority own their mobile homes, while renting the pad of land on which the trailer rests; the remainder rent the structures in which they reside.  These are extremely hard working families who are just getting by; given the shortage of affordable housing in the County, it is hard for them to imagine finding a comparable, safe place to live. The County officials assert that there is state or Federal funding to move many of the trailers elsewhere in the County. The availability of this funding has not been fully confirmed, however.  Nor it is clear that many of the older trailers could be safely transported. In any event, many families have invested a great deal of time and money in making improvements and extensions to their homes over the years, which would be lost if they were forcibly relocated.

This is a vibrant, close-knit community, in which parents help one another look after their children, and in which generations of children have grown up together. The residents value the current location for proximity to sites of employment, education, medical care, cultural enrichment (including the university) and worship. All of that would be lost if these families were forcibly dispersed around the county.

Our students,  my colleagues and I have gotten to know many of these families through our volunteer work at the APOYO foodbank and through outreach work at the Museum. Some have been living in  the park for decades; the average time in residence is about eight years, so this is by no means a transient population.  There are clear challenges with infrastructure and basic services in the park, but it would be wrong to state, as some officials have, that this is a dysfunctional community or an "eye-sore."  We have been struck again and again, by the kindness and thoughtfulness of these families, who conduct themselves with respect and dignity, keep the park clear and repair the homes efficiently and diligently.  There is a great deal of prejudice against mobile home parks, in many middle class quarters, but advocates and scholars generally acknowledge that mobile home parks have an important role to play in meeting affordable housing needs in the modern United States. There is to my knowledge no evidence that this is a high crime area, and plenty of evidence that these hard working families contribute taxes and many other assets to the fabric of the broader community.

We have been told that the Fairgrounds and Rodeo, which are important economic engines for the county, need to expand if they are stay viable, and that a long standing strategic master plan , emerging out of a "consultative process with stakeholders," calls for the acquisition of the Shady Park property. I’m not convinced of these premises.  The stakeholder consultation process never included any of the residents, so far as we can tell. Notices in English were placed in the newspaper, for hearings which were held in English. The strategic master plan is located on the County website, only in English. No efforts were made to talk to the residents in Spanish about their needs, perspectives, and aspirations. No long term plan was drawn out for finding safe and affordable housing for the  over 30 families of the complex. Low income housing advocates in the county repeatedly tell us they are stretched to the limit and simply don’t have the capacity to locate or build new affordable housing. (See Nicole Klaus' excellent reporting on this topic.)  The Board of Commissioners has signed a $25,000 contract with CC Consulting, which has experience in evicting and relocating mobile home residents, but this amount is of course woefully inadequate for meeting the new housing needs. We are worried many of the families are facing homelessness, or will be forced out of the County.

Nor am I convinced that the Fairgrounds really needs this seasonal RV park. There are potential parking spaces within a few blocks; the open university fields to the north could still be used from time to time (albeit without hooks up at this point). There is an existing RV park at the west interchange, and regular shuttle buses could still be run during the Rodeo and Fair.

Ex Voto: Eusebio Najera, 1942

In any event, is it really worth sacrificing the social health and welfare of over 50 adult and 50 children for a RV park?  There is,  something enormously disturbing, even stomach-churning, about a governmental entity evicting so many low income, minority families, without building a comparable number of affordable housing units. Is this even legal, one wonders?  And what will this do to the regional and national reputation of the County, the Fairgrounds, and Rodeo: will we be known forever as the mass exilers of the poorest and most vulnerable amongst us? Where are the values of love, mercy and compassion that we normally purport to cherish?

I first got to know to the Fairgrounds during the summer of 2012, when the Taylor Bridge wildfire raced through the county, destroying about fifty homes and displacing hundreds of people and animals. My wife Ellen and I, with so many of our neighbors and new friends, worked through many nights at the Fairgrounds at animal rescue. Ellen and I fell in love with Ellensburg and Kittitas County during these difficult, smoky weeks, as we saw the most extraordinary outpouring of generosity and concern for the displaced, from all over the extended community.  Why, I now wonder, can’t that same spirit of courtesy, kindness and generosity be extended to the over thirty families of Shady Acres, by every resident of this county?  I would like to think that this has nothing to do with the fact that these families are low-income, non-white, or in some cases, non English speaking. I like to think that, after everyone has had some time to reflect on this crisis, our better angels will come to the fore, and that we will once again band together to aid and protect our friends and neighbors at their time of greatest need.

Perhaps the most beloved Ex Voto (or painting of gratitude) in the current Museum exhibition is the one dedicated by the couple, Eusebio Najera and his wife in 1942 in Mexico. They give thanks for successfully building a house in the face of great difficulty. The written text explains that the family prayed to San Antonio (St. Anthony) and in time a house was miraculously completed. The lovely painting shows the house embraced, in shade, under the generous arms of a great tree, which, like Saint Anthony himself, gives protection to the house and all who dwell within it.

I like to think that this sacred image holds a promise for all the residents of Shady Acres, at this dire moment—when they are threatened with eviction and dispossession, when they fear they are friendless and about to be cast out. Cannot all of us in Kittitas County find within ourselves the mercy and the sense of justice to reach out our arms, to ensure that every single adult and child at risk is similarly embraced, under the protective shade of another spreading tree, the interlinked branches of our extended, caring community?