Candlewood residents come together under dire circumstances

By Dani Tietz

EDITOR’S NOTE: In order to protect residents in the Candlewood Mobile Home Park, names will not be used in this piece. Actual conversations with residents, not just ones taken from Facebook, have taken place over the last couple weeks. This is the account of those families who needed a place to put their voice without fear of retribution from current or former owners of the subdivision. We are happy to provide that for them. 

This is the first in a three-part series about Candlewood. More information will be published in the coming days. 

If love were all humans needed to live, residents of the Candlewood Mobile Home Park in Mahomet, Ill., might be OK.

But humans need more than that.

They need an affordable place to live, no matter what their income might be. They need a home and community that are safe and secure, with access to clean and reliable water. They need to have access to work so that they can fund other basic needs for survival, like heat in the cold, light, and food.

At this moment, the likelihood that one or more of these needs will go unmet on a day-to-day basis for the residents of Candlewood is high. 

And the only thing they can do about it is band together with empathy and vision for their community of about 600 homes. 

It’s not something that is unusual for the 108-acre community that was developed on the east side of the Village of Mahomet in an unincorporated area. 

Owned by the Parkhill family for over five decades, Candlewood was sold to Candlewood MCH, LLC. and Crown Communities, LLC, two organizations that are one in the same, in September, 2022. Some residents welcomed the change in ownership, citing neglect by its former owner and manager, Bud Parkhill. 

They were hopeful that new ownership would take care of the aging streets, make sure that they were plowed correctly when it snowed, fix street lights that are burnt out to help with crime or mischievous teenagers, take care of landscaping and condemned trailers, and manage their responsibility in taking care of the water system.

“I was originally kind of excited to have an actual company that could be held accountable for not taking care of the place,” one homeowner said. “Bud (Parkhill) always seemed untouchable. He rarely listened to us if we had a complaint about not having a park or bringing in more trailers that should have been condemned. (He) told us that he wasn’t going to spend money on those things because the people here wouldn’t take care of it.  

“The amenities that Kodiak (the property management group owned by Crown Communities) has proposed are necessary, and I don’t think any of that is asking for too much.  We need salted and plowed streets in the winter, an actual park for kids of all ages, street lights that function, safety patrols or cameras, better landscaping and a maintenance staff that REALLY is available 24/7.”

“If they REALLY do the things they’ve said, it’s a step in the right direction.”

In order to fund improvement projects, Kodiak (Crown) gave a rent increase notice to Candlewood residents shortly after Christmas. That change will take place in April 2023. The mobile home park is a single-owner subdivision, as are most mobile home parks and apartment complexes. In this case, Candlewood Estates (owned by Parkhill) or Candlewood MCH/Crown Communities actually owns the land the mobile homes sit on. A resident who owns their home pays rent for the land. There are also Candlewood residents who also pay rent for their home.

Mobile home park owners are only allowed to raise rent once a year. Parkhill raised the rent $50 in 2022. Rent is currently $340 per month. Beginning in April 2023, rent will be $525 per month.

“It’s the huge amount that really caused shock to people,” one homeowner said. 

While a few residents in Candlewood have a lease or signed a lease at one point, maybe decades ago, many other residents say they do not currently have a lease (maybe a verbal agreement with Parkhill) and are waiting on a lease agreement from Kodiak/Crown Communities. A spokesperson from Kodiak, Josh Weiss said, “New leases for all residents are being finalized to ensure they are fully compliant with Illinois and local laws.  They will be shared with residents upon completion.” 

Of the 18 mobile home communities Kodiak/Crown own, Candlewood is the first in Illinois, according to its website. 

In a phone interview, Weiss was unwilling to say what improvements would be made or give a timeline for those projects. He did say that the former owner had neglected maintenance, as has happened with other properties Kodiak/Crown has purchased. 

The organization’s statement on improvements via email was: “Unfortunately, we have been faced with economic realities such as inflation, rising supply and labor costs, and soaring interest rates which are necessitating an increase in lot rent.

“While this is a large increase, it still remains very much in line with similar communities in the area.

“With the funds, we are committed to many community improvements and upgrades, such as roadwork, landscaping, and repairs and improvements to community amenities.  All of this will help to improve curb appeal, increase safety, and will ultimately directly benefit property values. We are eager and excited for residents to see the reinvestment we are making in the community they are proud to call home.”

Some residents are leery in response to the promises by Kodiak. So far they have felt threatened and unheard.

“There are so many street lights that are out throughout the park,” one homeowner said. “They haven’t returned my call. They haven’t gotten back to me. Nothing’s been changed.

A group of 15-20 residents met at the main office to ask employees right after the New Year holiday for clarification on the rent increase and water issues so many residents are experiencing. They wanted clarification on the improvements Kodiak/Crown were planning on making, but left without answers. 

One homeowner recalls Kodiak continued to tell residents that they were “answering their own questions.” The homeowner left the meeting feeling confused about what the statement meant. 

It is estimated that around 40 Candlewood residents are without water. Others have reported “brown water” while another resident, who may be just across the street, has access to clean water. 

Weiss said Kodiak has provided Candlewood residents who are without what they are legally obligated to provide for them. Still, local churches and Mahomet residents have taken to Facebook to offer gallons of water delivered to residents. Others have started fundraising campaigns to make sure they have what they need during this difficult time.

Issues with water, especially in the winter months, are not uncommon in Candlewood. The standpipe, which brings water from the main to the home, is exposed to the elements as it runs from the ground to the home. When the Midwest experienced a hard freeze in mid-December, pipes froze, then quickly thawed prior to life-threatening temperatures sweeping through Illinois in the days before Christmas. This broke meters running to the homes. 

As the water from Candlewood homes went back into the main system, it caused the water main to have pressure and contamination issues. This is why the Illinois EPA ordered a boil order for the community. As of Jan. 10, the community is still under that order.

While the Illinois Mobile Home Act clearly lays out infrastructure ownership: requiring owners to maintain the streets, garbage and water and sewer within the park boundaries,  the issue of water main ownership has been ongoing for decades. This issue came to a head last summer when Parkhill was not re-elected to the SVPWD board. Candlewood MHC is currently in litigation with the Sangamon Valley Public Water District over ownership of the water mains within the park. 

Ownership of the water main will be laid out in another article in the coming days. Still, the residents will keep having water problems until the problem is fixed by someone other than the residents. The first two weeks of January have been warm, but the threat of another freeze has residents worried.

“We can make accommodations for other drinking water while our neighbors get help. I feel terrible for them. We’ve been through it and not being able to flush your toilets or take showers, wash your dishes creates living arrangements that are ‘barely livable’… not to mention, expensive,” one homeowner said. 

A set of parents with a child is rearranging their financial priorities to stock up on 5-gallon jugs of water for their home. 

Like many in Candlewood, this family is on a fixed income, budgeting social security payments to cover rent, car payment and utilities. 

The 2022 social security increase helped them absorb the cost of rent, but they are not sure how to cover the additional $185/month in the upcoming year. 

The issue with flooding in the park isn’t just that of usable water, it’s also causing damage to homes, both with broken pipes and those nearby. Some residents have extensive water damage throughout the interior and exterior of their homes while others watched water creep up to their home, causing it to “bow”. 

One family also pointed out the time it is taking Kodiak/Crown to remove vacant trailers from the park. They worry about exposure to black mold, among other contaminants that may be carried through the park by the wind. 

Recently, for sale signs have been popping up all over Candlewood as residents are unsure of how to make it from month-to-month. One resident said, although the rent increase will force them to move things around, they can absorb the cost. Still, that family knows that their neighbors, particularly the elderly who live in Candlewood, have few to no options to change their financial status. 

Several Candlewood residents told a story of a woman taking her life because of the rent increase she couldn’t manage. 

“I see more of that happening in the future from people who have no hope of finding other suitable accommodations,” one homeowner said. “We put our lives and souls into our homes here in Candlewood. Mostly because we don’t have disposable incomes. Most out here live paycheck to paycheck and are one illness away from homelessness with the current rent increase. It’s a wake-up call for sure.”

Kodiak/Crown said they are not concerned about pricing low-income residents out of their home, though. 

The organization does have plans to put new mobile homes on vacant lots, just as they have done on other properties they own in Iowa, Michigan, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and Ohio. A 3-bedroom, 2-bath home in Candlewood is listed for $75,000. Homes in other communities are listed for $80,000 to $120,000. 

Weiss said the placement of those homes could begin as early as May, 2023.

Other local mobile home communities have lot rent with similar amenities anywhere from $330-$400 per month. If someone rents the home in addition to the lot, rent with a mobile home can increase to $800-$1,000 per month. 

The homeowners we spoke to mentioned the amenities Kodiak/Crown lists on their Candlewood website: a basketball and volleyball court, a clubhouse and pool, playground and on-site maintenance. For starters, residents would like to see these amenities actually meet the standard of being usable. 

“I don’t think that they were prepared for the community feeling of Mahomet. Maybe they were there thinking that in a lot of towns, people who live in poor neighborhoods are not taken care of as part of the community. 

“I would guess, from the lack of response, that they’re probably pretty shocked that people are like standing up for this, about this.”