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Projects: Eviction of Franklin Valley Estates

A letter from KWN Properties to residents reads: "Franklin Valley Estates is no longer a viable economic option. You will be receiving eviction notices in the near future that will allow you time to find alternate living." When the notice came, it gave residents of the mobile home park less than two months to find another home.  

  • A young boy walks among discarded toys and trash as residents of Franklin Valley Estates mobile home park fill trailers and cars with only their most important possessions. At night over the past month, metal scavengers have come and helped themselves to aluminum siding from abandoned trailers and even from some occupied ones, several park residents said.
  • {quote}I've never seen a community go downhill so fast,{quote} said Robert Cook Wednesday afternoon while looking over property near his mobile home in the Franklin Valley Estates mobile home park. Wednesday marked the deadline for residents to vacate the property. {quote}I'm hurting for the loss of this home, and thanking God I found a new home,{quote} Cook said and is planning to relocate to a nearby mobile home park later in the week. {quote}When I moved here 12 years ago, I thought I was set for life. Well, it didn't work out that way.{quote}
  • Pedro Morales helps remove the aluminum siding from Sylvia Ortega's, not pictured, mobile home to sell as scrap metal to assist with funds needed to vacate the Franklin Valley Estates mobile home park. {quote}I was the first one in the park to take the siding off my place. It's mine, so I might as well get something out of it,{quote} said Ortega.
  • Some trailers are missing whole walls, providing glimpses inside, where piles of past possessions - furniture, clothing and kitchenware - are arranged in piles, seemingly forgotten.
  • Deb Allman sits amongst a pile of bills and notices, reflecting upon the following day's deadline to vacate the Franklin Valley Estates mobile home park after being evicted by property owners to make way for redevelopment. {quote}Two months is not long enough to try to find another home,{quote} Allman said. {quote}Good Lord, it's only going to get worse.{quote}
  • Francisco Ampudiaz takes a break from removing the aluminum siding from his mobile home. Ampudiaz, a tenant of the Franklin Valley Estates mobile home park for eight years, was forced to sell the metal for scrap to help fund with moving expenses.
  • A child's basketball net is all that remains on the concrete that just days prior used to house a mobile home.
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