Mobile home residents hit with soaring rent after hurricanes

LUMBERTON, N.C. (AP) — For eight years, James Lesane paid what he could for his mobile home lot rental every month – $150.

But in February, five months after Hurricane Florence flooded the Lumberton region and shortly after Florida-based company Time Out Communities bought the park, his monthly lot rent more than tripled to $465.

With a fixed Social Security disability income of about $791 a month, Lesane said it's impossible for him to pay that.

"If I had to pay $465 I couldn't even pay the lights in this place," he said, gesturing to the dim lighting inside his trailer, where trash bags covered windows to keep the trailer cool on a sweltering 100-degree day.

Time Out owns 23 properties in low-income Robeson County, many of which were bought in the past two years. At the same time, the county was one of the hardest-hit areas during hurricanes Matthew in 2016 and Florence in 2018.

All but two of the properties are in Lumberton, where residents say an affordable housing crisis caused by the hurricanes has been exacerbated by Time Out, a Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based company.

In an emailed statement, Time Out said rents were raised consistent with current market rates and that some of the additional revenue will go toward community improvement.

North Carolina Housing Coalition Executive Director Samuel Gunter said it's not uncommon to see property investors "start snatching stuff up," after a disaster because they see a chance to make money.

"In the aftermath of a disaster, folks are flooded, those land values are depressed, and if you have capital, there's economic opportunity there," Gunter said, adding that lower-income communities often live in disaster-prone areas such as flood plains.

"Folks may not be able to do repairs themselves, and if someone comes at them with the right offer, it can be tempting to take," he said.