Housing is tight on the Kenai Peninsula, especially for renters. And when the owner of a prominent Soldotna RV and mobile home park handed down dozens of eviction notices last year, it laid bare some of the challenges faced by some of the area's most vulnerable residents.
It’s dark inside David Booth’s home office. VHS tapes and stuffed polar bears line the shelves above him while he rifles through folders and drawers. It’s the first time Booth’s been able to get back inside his home at the River Terrace RV Park since getting evicted earlier this year. And he’s looking for something.
“Well, I’m going to have to do a search,” he says. “And I’ll have to get a hold of the DMV, I think, and ask them to run a search on it. Because it should be on file.”
Booth, 76, is trying to find the title to his mobile home. The 60-foot-long trailer is parked on the property’s northernmost lot. You can see it from the Dairy Queen drive-thru; it’s appended with miscellaneous structures, such as a greenhouse he calls his “man cave.”
The trailer was Booth’s home for more than two decades. Now, he’s paying $120 a night to stay at the Kenai River Lodge while he figures out where to go next. He knows he wants to stay in town.
“I’ve been in Soldotna for 35, 40 years,” he says. “This is my home and this is my address.”
But like a lot of people trying to find affordable housing in Soldotna, Booth has few options. State data shows the Kenai Peninsula Borough’s rental market has tightened since the COVID-19 pandemic. And it’s also gotten more expensive.
Booth was just one of dozens of people evicted from the River Terrace RV Park last year. The property owners say they’re changing how the land is used.
“What was my reaction?” he asks. “Shock and panic and, like, ‘(I’ve) got to get out. How can I get out?’”
Nineteen tenants sued River Terrace’s owners. They argued the evictions were a way for owners to resolve allegations of unsanitary living conditions; the complaint describes high levels of arsenic in the park’s water supply, fraudulent electricity charges and dangerously low water pressure.
In February, the residents and landlords reached a confidential, out-of-court settlement. Legal counsel for the River Terrace owners declined to comment on the outcome of the case and on the status of the park.
Booth says he’d been negotiating directly with the owners about ways he could stay on his lot at the time the suit was filed. He lived on the property through the summer. But about two months ago, he was given 24 hours to get off the property, or face law enforcement action.
The evictions also came as Soldotna worked on the early stages of a development project that overlaps with the mobile home park. Here’s former city planner John Czarnezki earlier this year.
“We were looking at, how do we make the Kenai River a bigger part of our community?” he said. “How do we make it a focal point of our downtown and a destination?”
He was presenting details of the project’s master plan, which envisions a new ‘main street’ along the Kenai River between Soldotna Creek Park and where the Sterling Highway crosses the river. Schematic designs show a market hall, walking paths, new shops and housing options and a community plaza where the River Terrace park is.
Soldotna’s riverfront project has been underway since the city received a $360,000 federal grant to start work on a plan. City council members formally approved that plan in February and have since brought on a consultant to manage the project moving forward.
The city and property owners have said the evictions are unrelated to the project. But for residents like Booth, there aren’t many other places to go.
On average, Kenai Peninsula Borough residents pay almost $1,100 per month in rent, plus utilities – a cost that’s steadily risen over the last five years. And in 2022, state economists reported the Kenai Peninsula had the highest rate of short-term rental units of any area in Alaska at about 7%. That further strains the market.
Soldotna also has a small geographic footprint – about seven-and-a-half square miles. There are only two other mobile home parks in town, including one near city hall where Booth says there’s an open lot he can move to. In the meantime, he says he’s running out of money.
Aneliese Palmer is an attorney with the Northern Justice Project. She represented the River Terrace tenants in their class action suit. Because the settlement is confidential, she can't talk about the case. But she can talk generally about the unique challenges mobile home park tenants are up against.
“I think the law recognizes that mobile home residents are, like, a particularly vulnerable group and that there's a particularly big gulf in the power dynamics between them and their landlords,” she said. “I think this is for a ton of different, complicated and overlapping reasons.”
Because the settlement is confidential, she can't talk about the case. But she can talk generally about the unique challenges mobile home park tenants are up against.
Palmer says it’s difficult to move a mobile home. Instead, owners sometimes force people to abandon their trailers if they can’t sell or relocate them. There are also generally few mobile home parks in Alaska, especially in city centers where people usually want to live.
Palmer says the challenges facing mobile home tenants are indicative of Alaska’s larger housing issues. The Association of Alaska Housing Authorities says overcrowding and low inventory are fueling statewide housing problems. And the housing that is available isn’t always affordable.
“Low-income housing is in short supply in Alaska,” she said. “We’re in a housing crisis. And that, you know, has also affected the availability of spaces in mobile home parks as well and then it puts another pressure on folks who are often going to be lower income who are living in a park.”
Soldotna City Council members have acknowledged the city’s housing problems. In 2022, the council approved a new housing type that allows property owners to build more housing on the same property as a primary residence. And in the wake of the River Terrace settlement, the council strengthened city protections for mobile home residents.
But challenges remain. Zoning laws for trailers make it even harder for residents like Booth to pick up and leave, especially if they want to stay in a city.
In Soldotna, mobile homes need a building permit before they can be moved to a new location. That wasn’t always true, though. River Terrace has been around longer than Soldotna has been incorporated. And federal rules identify 1967 as the cutoff date for whether a trailer is new enough to qualify for a building permit.
Booth didn’t sign onto the lawsuit. A couple of months ago, he says he was given 24 hours to leave his trailer, or face law enforcement.
Court records show River Terrace owners have taken three tenants to eviction court, including Booth. According to police records obtained by KDLL, owners enlisted the Soldotna Police Department to enforce an eviction order in one of those cases.
Last month, he recovered a few cherished items from his trailer: his favorite picture of his wife, Sheila, a photo album and a sheet of stamps featuring his artwork. He says he’s trying to stay positive about the situation. He enjoys his view of the slushy Kenai River from the picture window in his hotel room. But that’s hard sometimes.
“This whole process of what I've been through has affected me emotionally and everything, spiritually, intellectually,” he said.
As of last week, Booth still hadn’t found the title to his trailer. He says he’s going to go through the DMV. But he’s been sick and says he needs a little more time.
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