As a former denizen of a trailer court, I deeply sympathize with the people living in the mobile home parks.
During my time there, the stall rent went up every year. The trailer we lived in looked like a small Russian submarine but it had a nice little yard - which was taken away to squeeze another trailer in.
The roads were always full of potholes and you could smell broken sewer lines. But the kids were happy because of the beautiful hinterland behind the park. It was better than paying a slumlord and that trailer wound up being worth $2,000.
But, every year the stall rent rose, from $75 a month then to the present-day $450. If you slip on paying the rent in time, then a $50 late penalty kicks in. Is that legal, I wonder?
The Yukon government should be ashamed for not paying attention to this matter. Do you have no regard for the people who fix your tires, clean your offices at night, and serve your fine restaurant meals? With today’s building codes and land prices, those trailer park folks cannot afford to move out.
It is all part of a worldwide trend - that the rich get richer and the rest of us pay for it.
I leave you with a quote from William George Jordan, who wrote this in 1902:
“The man who makes the acquisition of wealth the goal and ultimatum of his life, seeing it as an end rather than a means to an end, is not true. Why does the world usually make wealth the criterion of success, and riches the synonym of attainment? Real success in life means the individual’s conquest of himself; it means ‘how he has bettered himself,’ not ‘how he has bettered his fortune.’ The great question of life is not ‘What have I?’ but ‘What am I?’”
Sam Holloway
Marsh Lake