Greens Road Mobile Home Appraisals Skyrocket in Mandatory Buyout Program

How does the land value double and improvements increase over 400% after Hurricane Harvey at the 1710 Greens road mobile home park? Which is also known as a mandatory buyout zone.

HCAD appraised this nearly condemned trailer park at nearly $5M prior to the HC flood district buying on 5/30/23, because it was declared a mandatory buyout zone. The trailer park appraised for $1.4 million prior to Harvey.

As you can see from the video above, most of the trailers in the area are dilapidated, boarded up and the roads are covered in massive pot holes- so why is the land worth so much?

On June 27, Harris County commissioners dedicated $7.7 million in funding for mobile home communities being required to relocate to less flood-prone areas.

The details

Commissioners unanimously voted to add $7,706,250 from reserve funds to the Project Recovery Post-Disaster Buyout & Relocation program’s Special Assistance Funding Effort. This program grants funding to undocumented immigrants living in mandatory buyout areas, according to the Harris County Project Recovery website.

“In my judgment, immigration status should have no bearing on one's ability to recover from a climate disaster, or to live in a healthy home ... less vulnerable [to] flooding,” Precinct 1 Commissioner Rodney Ellis said.

The funding will be used to help an estimated 49 residents of the Greens Road mobile home community who do not qualify for full or partial assistance from the federal Uniform Relocation Act, according to June 27 commissioners court documents. A total of 83 residents from mobile home communities are expected to need SAFE funds.

With the added funding, the residents’ available benefits were upped to:

• $210,000 to replace a resident's home

• $60,000 in rental assistance

The backstory

In early 2021, Harris County leaders developed the Mandatory Buyout Program to provide communities with a “history of severe, repetitive flooding the opportunity to move to a safer location,” according to June 27 commissioners court documents.

At commissioners’ May 16 meeting, nine people spoke about the county’s buyout program, including residents impacted by the program.

“We need more of your help,” Perla Garcia said. “We are in your prison. We are only immigrant people. There [are] a lot of people sick with cancer, with diabetes. People are under stress, and they are not feeling well, and ... people are not treating them well.

After approving additional funding for the SAFE program on June 27, commissioners thanked the residents who spoke up.

“Anyone that sat in that courtroom for the last several months, they listened to the heartbreaking stories of what's happening because [of] this program; this is only right,” Precinct 3 Commissioner Tom Ramsey said on June 27. “This is an issue that we created when we took those homes. It's only right that we take this step and make it right.”

The same mobile home location experienced a fire on June 6th, according to news reports;

When firefighters arrived, they found two mobile homes engulfed by flames. They tried to get to work quickly, but had trouble establishing a water supply.

"All the hydrants in this trailer park were dead, so we had to get the water from Greens Road, which took a little longer than normal to get water set up," Deputy Chief James Cone said.

Cone said the dead hydrants delayed their extinguishing efforts by about seven or eight minutes.

In total, four homes were damaged or destroyed. The back wall of one of the homes was completely destroyed.

The mobile home where investigators said the fire started appeared to be vacant.

The county also appears to have deleted specific wording for Social vulnerability incentive and equity income in order to receive the funds, only to create a SAFE fund the same day the county accepted the the GLO funding.

Harris County has not only sued to prevent the release of election records, but also sued Paxton to block access to public records related to the county’s mandatory Post Disaster Relocation and Buyout Program and formulas used to determine how much families are offered for their homes or relocation packages.

You can read further about the lawsuit here