Deann Sweeper, a long-time friend and member of OSTA writes to us,
Senior Mobile Home Park Residents Worried About Future
We residents who live at Lakewood Vista, a 55+ mobile home park in north Eugene, received a letter dated April 2, 2026, that our park is now on the market for sale and we had until April 20 to advise the owners if we would be interested in purchasing this park ourselves. We held an emergency meeting of residents and voted to go forward with this plan.
To form the co-op, we have several steps we must take and are working with a nonprofit organization here in Oregon to help us. Obviously, with 184 homes, several vacant, we will need financing to raise the multi-million dollar cost to buy this property and are looking for grants and/or low-interest loans. We know there are others who find this property desirable for possible other uses. If we are outbid by one of these corporations, Oregon law states they can move us out of our homes for $8,000.
This could literally put about 275 old and disabled people who mainly survive only on Social Security out on the street. Even if another corporation wants to keep this mobile home park as it is, Oregon rent is capped at 6% growth a year, but our Social Security increase was only half that amount. We already have residents who are being pushed out by rent increases. Nationally, the average co-op park has a rent increase of 0.9%.
We are writing this letter as a means to inform the public on just one housing situation here in Eugene with hopes that other residents will raise their voices to our elected officials to help promote housing for all low-income people. Demographically, we are a wonderful mix of people of all political parties, levels of education and work experience, ethnicity, gender identity and veterans. We are trying to preserve a way of life that shows we, with our diversity, can unite together for the general good of all.
