Life interrupted

Residents reluctantly find new homes after trailer court closes

When the Aug. 15 deadline passed, remnants of mobile-home life still lingered at Greenwood Trailer Court in Whitefish.

Worn-out decks were left behind. Pieces of trailer skirting and an assortment of garbage languished on overgrown lawns. A few abandoned trailers remained, and the last couple of mobile homes to be moved were prepped and waiting for the movers to show up.

After 60 years in operation, Greenwood Trailer Court is now closed, and 55 trailer owners, some single but many with young families, have found other places to live.

"Whew, it's over," said SueAnn Grogan, director of the Whitefish Housing Authority that helped many families relocate. "There were a lot of stressed-out people there."

Six months ago, Greenwood owner Dennis Rasmussen sent out eviction notices, alerting residents the court would be closed by mid-August. He's operated the trailer court for 41 years and plans to sell the property.

The 12-acre plot has both U.S. 93 and Whitefish River frontage. Rasmussen stands to make millions on the sale.

He, too, breathed a sigh of relief when the final day came.

"I shut the water off today," he said on Tuesday. "What a good feeling."

Leaks in the water lines and the constant maintenance of an older trailer park were among his reasons for wanting to sell the property.

"Everyone found a spot to live," Rasmussen said. "Most people were good about it."

FINDING ANOTHER "spot" wasn't an easy

task, though, in a high-end resort town where affordable housing is becoming increasingly scarce.

The Whitefish Housing Authority helped 15 families and used roughly $10,000 from its housing rehabilitation program to help low-income Greenwood residents pay for moving costs and utility hookups. One couple got a small grant for a security deposit.

The housing authority met with residents in early March and mobilized volunteer help along with grant assistance.

Many Greenwood residents scattered to other trailer courts. Some found private apartments; others qualified for public housing.

"We tried our hardest to relocate trailers within Whitefish," Grogan said. "But it just didn't pan out."

A couple of landowners offered property, but the city's regulation that mobile homes be placed on permanent foundations drove the relocation cost up to $25,000 to $30,000 and wasn't affordable, she said.

ONE BY ONE, the trailers were moved out of Greenwood and lives went in different directions.

"This is the worst day of my life," Sally Porcarelli said a couple of months ago as she watched her home being plucked from the spot it had occupied for more than 30 years. "Nobody who has lived somewhere for this long should have to go through this. It's just a nightmare."

Porcarelli had lived at Greenwood for 32 years and was forced to relocate to Forest Acres, about five miles south of Whitefish. After having the luxury of walking to most destinations in Whitefish for more than three decades, the active community volunteer now has to find a way to pay for gas on a fixed income.

Ida Knutson, who lived at Greenwood for 28 years, found a one-bedroom apartment at a housing complex near Muldown School. She rented a storage unit to house all of the belongings that wouldn't fit in her new apartment, and is just now sorting through things, downsizing.

"I'm getting there," she said. "There's no end to the work, though, it seems."

Knutson said she got lucky and sold her mobile home to a company that's using it for employee housing at a rock quarry near Hot Springs.

NOT EVERYONE got lucky.

Mike Zorn, a Whitefish firefighter, had to let his double-wide mobile home go back to the bank. Zorn, his wife, Amber, and their three children squeezed into a two-bedroom rental house in Whitefish so he could keep his job with the fire department.

The Zorns' house payment went from $650 a month for three bedrooms and two baths, to $900 for two bedrooms and one bath. All three children share a bedroom.

"We're going to be OK," Zorn said. "We were starting to panic. We looked at a lot of places and we wanted to have a yard [for the children]."

They landed a rental house on Aug. 3, just two weeks before the deadline.

"It was a bit stressful for a while," he added.

Jane Ingle moved her trailer to a small mobile-home park across the viaduct on Whitefish's north said.

"It's a total dive, in an alley, against a bunch of garbage cans, but I'm happy to be in Whitefish," Ingle said.

She has a teenage son and didn't want him to be uprooted from Whitefish schools.

What still irks Ingle is the fact that Rasmussen allowed her to move into the Greenwood court in November 2005, knowing he was going to soon issue eviction notices.

"A neighbor said she was surprised, because they all knew Dennis was planning to sell," Ingle said. "I had to pay moving costs twice" within six months.

"Then the mover did a bad job. He cut a gas line that cost me an extra $800 to fix," she said, adding that she borrowed money from her mother to pay for the move.

The stress of moving aggravated Ingle's Grave's disease, a form of hyperthyroidism, to the point where she became dangerously thin.

Despite the trauma, Ingle said she's "fairly well settled" in her new location, and is thankful she was able to stay in Whitefish.

CARRIE BIERMAN was another Greenwood resident who moved in just a few months before the eviction notices were issued. Her son, Hunter, was a newborn when she faced the prospect of relocating.

Bierman had been able to walk to her job at Mike's Conoco, and living in Greenwood was the only way she could afford to make ends meet in Whitefish. Now she's living in Columbia Heights and struggles to pay for gas to commute.

"I don't like the situation much at all, but I guess there's nothing I can do," Bierman told Inter Lake photographer Chris Jordan as he was documenting the Greenwood exodus.

ON MOVING day, Laura Fauth couldn't bear to watch as the movers tried to wriggle her and Kenny Gochanour's trailer out of a tight spot between two trees.

"To some people this looks like we're just moving a trailer," she told the photographer, "but to me, it's my home. It's where I've lived for more than 10 years and I just can't watch it getting dragged around like this."

Fauth sat in a pickup and watched in the rearview mirror while the crew inched the trailer out.

The family was forced to give up their two cats because Half Moon Trailer Court doesn't allow pets.

Afterward, Gochanour contemplated the fate of the towering pine trees in Greenwood.

"Those are probably some of the oldest trees left in town," he said. "I wonder if they are going to cut these down. It would be a shame, but I imagine they will. Businesses probably won't appreciate them the way I did."

MANY GREENWOOD residents had the feeling that other Whitefish residents considered the trailer park an eyesore.

"They're happy we're gone," some said.

It's one more piece of "old Whitefish" that is succumbing to development.

Greenwood Trailer Court has been in Whitefish so long that the zoning on the river end of the court is still agricultural. Only the front half of the property is zoned commercial. Even though it's sandwiched between the hospital and Mountain Mall, the area was wooded open space when the trailer court was built.

"Nothing's forever," Rasmussen mused in February, shortly after he'd given notice of his intent to sell. "Land use is changing all the time. A lot of people don't like it, but the truth is, the highest and best use for this property is not a trailer park."

One of the abandoned trailers was auctioned off a couple weeks ago for $92. The winning bidder was Dennis Rasmussen.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by e-mail at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com