By Catherine Reagor | Arizona Republic
A street near the entrance of Shadow Mountain Village Mobile Home Park. – Joseph Cooke/The Republic
More than 500 seniors who live in a mobile home park near Scottsdale on the Salt River-Pima Maricopa Indian Community will have to find a new place to live when the park shuts down in 2026.
Ric Olsen, who retired and moved into Shadow Mountain Village mobile home park about 10 years ago, planned to spend the rest of his life at the park.
Now, he and his neighbors are scrambling to find a place to move their homes.
Their options are limited.
Mobile home parks — once a popular, affordable option for low-income families, local retirees and winter visitors — are disappearing across metro Phoenix.
Rising land values in the region have led some park owners to redevelop the parks into pricier real estate options, like apartments or condos.
Parks still operating have raised rent prices and stopped accepting older mobile homes like Olsen’s.
“What am I supposed to do?” Olsen said.
When parks close, residents often have a short amount of time to find a new place to live. The high demand for a dwindling number of mobile home lots has left some people with no choice but to abandon their homes.
“This most definitely affects people’s lives, and it’s most likely affecting those who are most vulnerable and have the least alternatives,” said Mark Stapp, executive director of the Master of Real Estate Development program at Arizona State University’s W.P. Carey School of Business.
5 years to move
Residents at Shadow Mountain Village said they thought the company that manages the mobile home park had a long-term agreement with the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community to operate the park for decades.
Actually, the company’s lease with the community ends in October 2026.
The community initially leased the land near Loop 101 and McKellips Road to a developer in 1976 for 25 years. It renewed the lease for another 25 years in 2001.
The developer of the 55-and-older Shadow Mountain Village mobile home park leased lot spaces to more than 500 individual renters. The renters own their mobile home but lease the land.
A California-based company called Wenner Management took over the lease and operation of the mobile home park more than a decade ago.
The renters have to renew their leases with Wenner Management annually, but the company must renew unless there is just cause not to.
Several renters at Shadow Mountain Village, including Olsen, told The Arizona Republic the management company verbally told them it had a 99-year land lease with the Salt River-Pima Maricopa Indian Community, which led them to believe they’d be able to live the rest of their lives at the park.
The community told Wenner Management it did not plan to renew the company’s lease for Shadow Mountain Village and another park it operated on the reservation in 2015 or earlier, according to court documents.
Wenner Management did not respond to a request for comment.
A spokesperson for the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Community confirmed the community does not plan to renew the lease with Wenner Management but did not say why.
Benjamin Anton, a real estate agent in the East Valley and Salt River member, said it is unusual for non-Native people to live on the reservation and he believed the community never intended for the parks to operate in perpetuity.
He noted that the mobile home parks led to many unanticipated challenges. For instance, if a crime was committed at the park, the community couldn’t try the suspect in tribal courts even though the crime occurred on the reservation.
“That’s probably the main reason why they don’t want to do it, just because of the headache that comes along with it,” Anton said.
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