Wonderland, Indeed
Wonderland
Amid the turmoil of today's housing costs and scenes of mud-crushed houses, there is this good news and, perhaps more surprising, government is behind it: Wonderland Estates, a 109-slab Renton mobile home community that has faced closure for 18 months, was bought yesterday by the King County Housing Authority.
That preserves homes and maybe saves lives: The fear of moving, according to residents, led to the death of at least one elderly resident; others were offering to give away their mobile homes to any takers. "People are running off and leaving their properties, selling for a dollar, many have nowhere else to go," Swannee Rivers, of nearby New Life Church, told me at the time. She and others were trying to help residents save the 12 acres of low-income housing.
"The public needs to see the face of the senior citizen taking care of her 100-year-old wheelchair bound mother, and hear the stories of those who have fallen ill from the stress, the depression. It is horrific."
The community ultimately pulled itself together, raised money with pancake breakfasts, and went scouting for help, finding it, at last, at the county level. Hear hear. Kudos, too, to Wonderland owner Robert Eichler who wanted $12 million for the property but agreed to take $8.5 million.
�In this season of hope," says county housing director Stephen Norman, "it�s great to be able to tell the residents, many with nowhere else to go, that they won�t lose their homes."
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