CHESAPEAKE -- Families at Providence Mobile Home Park watched the hourglass turn over on the future of their neighborhood in December when the landowner announced plans to sell to a condo developer.
They hoped a meeting with the landowner last week would end in an assurance of compensation for their trailer homes or some other pledge of assistance. Instead, they left the meeting more convinced the sand is rapidly running out of the hourglass with no financial life-line in sight.
"We're pretty much resigned to the fact we have to leave," resident Katherine Stanley said.
Most of the more than 100 families here own their trailer homes but rent the land.
Those trailers cost thousands of dollars to move and are in some cases too old to move.
Only a handful of families have left since learning of the pending sale.
The rest face the prospect of finding the money to move their trailer or starting over in a new home elsewhere.
Both options are costly.
The residents met with the park's owner and the condo developer last week but Stanley said they were told not to expect any compensation for their homes.
A number of aid groups have offered free legal consultation and mediation, including the Virginia Organizing Project.
The Chesapeake Planning Commission is set to take a vote March 10 on whether to approve the condo development.
