Columbia mobile home residents launch tenants union, demand negotiations with corporate owner
Euphenie Andre
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
Residents from three Columbia mobile home parks publicly launched a tenants union Sunday, calling on their corporate landlord to negotiate over rising costs, safety concerns, and alleged retaliation.
Tenants from Richland Heights North, Richland Heights South, and Creekwood Estates announced the formation of Columbia Tenants Union Locals 1, 2, and 3 during a press conference and rally held at Creekwood Estates. The Columba Tenants Union represent 102 households and are uniting to issue collective demands to Regal Communities, the New York–based company that owns the properties.
Tenant leaders said they are demanding that Regal Communities come to the bargaining table in good faith with a democratically elected tenant bargaining team and immediately end what they describe as retaliatory actions against residents.
Organizers said residents began organizing after months of escalating rents, unexplained fees, unsafe living conditions, and what they describe as a lack of transparency under corporate ownership. Tenants said efforts to resolve these issues privately were unsuccessful, prompting them to go public.
Regal Communities lists its core values as outstanding service, integrity, a good reputation and affordable living but tenants arrgue their experience has been the opposite.
“So many of my neighbors are in a place where they are going to end up homeless if they continue to increase rent and continue to charge these bogus fees and continue to harass and attack them,” said tenant Logan Moore.
Several residents claim rent has steadily increased, along with additional fees they describe as unclear or unjustified. Some also allege they have not been given proper access to their current lease agreements.
“Extra fees or eviction if you did not comply,” one tenant, Bruce, said while addressing the crowd.
The frustration, tenants said, is not only with the company as a whole but also with specific leadership. Residents publicly called out Regal Communities President Josh Schulman and property manager Robyn Bealler.
The crowd repeatedly chanted, “Robyn Bealler, you can’t hide, we can see your greedy side.”
“A lot of us were getting harassed on a daily basis by the property manager who was coming to tell us that they were going to evict us if we didn’t fix whatever about our porch,” Moore said.
After sharing their concerns, tenants marched to the Creekwoods leasing office, where they hand-delivered a letter demanding direct negotiations with Regal Communities leadership. Among their demands are an immediate rent freeze and the right to collectively bargain.
“Rent is increasing again for some tenants with no access to the lease that we’re currently under,” another tenant said during the event.
The properties were once owned by Jack Overton, who died in 2009. His daughter, Kris Overton Remus, said her father cared for his tenants.
“He would be rolling over in his grave if he saw what the current owners are doing to the tenants,” Kris Overton Remus said. “He very much believed in affordable housing for everyone.
Speakers at the event included tenant leaders from each of the three CTU locals, Citywide Columbia Tenants Union representative Jack Dobbs, Empower Missouri’s Vee Sanchez, and Columbia Third Ward Councilwoman Jacque Sample.
Organizers called the launch a historic moment for tenant organizing in Columbia, saying it marks the first coordinated effort among multiple mobile home parks to collectively bargain with a corporate owner.
“I think the only way to make a change, the only way that anything ever happens is when the people start actually voicing their power as a collective. Nothing ever changes if we just keep going along and doing what these greedy corporations,” James Remus said.
The Columbia Tenants Union sad it plans to take its concerns to the Missouri State Capitol on February 17 as part of Empower Missouri’s annual Day of Action.
ABC 17 News reached out to Regal Communities.