KEYRIS MANZANARES: The garden at Alvaro Hernandez's home is ready.
All summer, he and his wife Rebecca, have been tending to their rows of cucumbers, tomatoes, and fruit.
Now it's time to eat.
The couple lives at Bermuda Estates Mobile Home Park in Chester, just off Route 1.
(Keyris speaking Spanish language) (Alvaro speaking Spanish language) KEYRIS MANZANARES: But it wasn't always this nice here.
In the past, Hernandez says the landlords were absent, the trailers were broken.
Weeds grew wild, and the one road that goes through the park was so battered that the school bus refused to go beyond the entrance.
(Alvaro speaking Spanish language) KEYRIS MANZANARES: Today.
Hernandez's trailer, as well as most of the other homes here, could be mistaken for traditional stick-built houses in any suburban neighborhood.
These trailers or manufactured homes come complete with driveways, porches, and yards.
Bermuda Estates is the first mobile home park of its kind in the county.
It's run by project:HOMES, a nonprofit specializing in building high quality, affordable housing rather than a for-profit landlord.
MADELINE PETRIE: So the difference between this unit and a lot of the other homes that you see in manufactured home parks is that we really build this to resemble and have the same structural integrity as a traditional stick-built home.
KEYRIS MANZANARES: Madeline Petrie, director of Mission Advancement for project:HOMES says residents here are partners, not just tenants.
MADELINE PETRIE: Not only did we want to provide high quality housing but we wanted to also undergo a thorough community engagement process so that we could really fully understand the needs of the community members and provide amenities and resources that match those needs.
TEACHER: What is a schedule?
KEYRIS MANZANARES: Along with managing the property, project:HOMES has also built a community center where residents can take classes such as English.
TEACHER: Okay.
And then what will tomorrow be?
STUDENT: Tomorrow will be Tuesday.
(Alvaro speaking Spanish language) KEYRIS MANZANARES: At a time when the supply of affordable housing is critically low, advocates like Senator Ghazala Hashmi say Bermuda Estates could serve as a model of how other mobile home park communities, often poorly run and using predatory practices, can work in the future.
SEN. GHAZALA HASHMI: We have a shortage of housing and one thing that the research has shown is that manufactured homes is a growing trend that can help us to address the housing crisis.
These homes will offer an opportunity for so many families to have safe and stable housing conditions.
KEYRIS MANZANARES: But getting Bermuda Estates to this point wasn't easy.
Dan Cohen, Chesterfield County's Director for Community Enhancement, says, before the sale to nonprofit owner project:HOMES, residents at Bermuda Estates were facing major problems.
DANIEL COHEN: So there were a lot of unsafe, you know, conditions that existed there at the time, and you know, the county was always in a difficult position about what to do with it because on one hand, they knew that it would like to have the units fixed.
On the other hand, they wanted to make sure that folks wouldn't be displaced.
KEYRIS MANZANARES: The county repeatedly cited the former owner for safety violations and eventually pressured him to sell the park.
The next step was to find a buyer who wanted to revitalize and manage Bermuda Estates without forcing residents out.
According to the Manufactured Home Community Coalition of Virginia, 84% of mobile home parks that sold in the last five years went to out-of-state buyers.
Some like the Six-0-Five Village Mobile Home Park in Mineral have seen rents rise dramatically after being bought by an investment firm.
DANIEL COHEN: When I was talking to the park owner, trying to find out if there was some interest perhaps in selling the park, I approached project:HOMES and I said do you have any interest perhaps in pursuing the purchase of the park?
Then I stepped away and I let the two parties talk.
We sort of created a situation just to force the hand as best as we possibly could.
KEYRIS MANZANARES: Project:HOMES purchased Bermuda Estates in 2020.
Since then, they have not increased the rent.
Instead, project:HOME says they've raised $4.2 million to buy and fix up the park.
$800,000 came from Chesterfield County, the rest from private sources.
This has allowed them to fix the old, failing sewer pipes, repair existing homes, and to bring in new homes like this one.
ZACK MILLER: So yesterday we got the unit cited.
We pulled it generally where it needed to be and today is the fine tuning and actually setting the structural supports for the unit.
KEYRIS MANZANARES: Zach Miller, the Director of Housing Innovation with project:HOMES, is in charge of construction at Bermuda Estates.
ZACK MILLER: Since we took over the park, the number one thing we wanted to do is bring some better replacement units into the park for those that want and need them.
We want homes that look more like traditional, stick-built homes.
They look like homes, they feel like homes.
They last like homes.
KEYRIS MANZANARES: As of now, each resident can purchase one of these trailers for between $25- and $35,000.
This is much less than the $130,000 it would normally cost for a resident to buy and install a new home here.
Miller says their goal is to have six more installed by the end of the year.
SEN. GHAZALA HASHMI: And I think what we've done here in Chesterfield County is provided a very important example.
We've also created the pathway for other organizations and other localities to move forward using the kind of partnership and collaboration that we've seen in Bermuda Estates.
(Alvaro speaking Spanish language)