By Tommy Acosta
Sedona, AZ/ — How sad
Time is running out for the tenants of Windsong Mobile Home Park on 89A, as they now face a $300 to $400 rent increase on August 1 due to its sale to a new owner, as reported in the Red Rock News.
For some of us $300 to $400 is dinner with a few friends. Sometime even a tip at our classier restaurants.
For the tenants of Windsong, the rent increase of approximately 40 percent is a disaster.
Most tenents are working class Latinos employed as gardeners, day workers, hotel staff and food industry workers with children attending school here in Sedona.
An increase proportionally of such magnitude may force them to uproot and find somewhere else to live in Cottonwood, furthering the lack of un-skilled laborers in the city.
No one can fault the new owners for raising the rent to whatever they want. It’s just the way it is.
Some might say good riddance, claiming that the Windsong is a haven for criminals and drug dealers selling their wares to high school students and others addicted to drugs.
They see it as an eyesore and blight for the community
Others may say its criminal to do that to these people, who work as our waiters,, cleaning ladies, gardeners, servers and others in the hospitality industry
What will they do?
Will there be space for them to rent in Cottonwood? Will they leave Sedona en-masse?
Will they become homeless?
The onus will now shift to Sedona employers, who would, if they wish to survive, need to increase the salaries of their workers by three to four hundred dollars a month.
And the extra costs will be passed down to us, the consumers.
Then again, the owners of the Windsong could be playing the long game and the rent increase is a prelude to the true worth of that property.
Regardless, hard times are coming to the residents of Windsong. And in turn, we may lose the laborers we need to keep our tourist town ticking
Already restaurant owners are pulling their hair because of lack of workers. Try to imagine how much worse it will be without a labor force.
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10 Comments
“Some might say good riddance, claiming that the Windsong is a haven for criminals and drug dealers selling their wares to high school students and others addicted to drugs”
“Some” can say whatever bullshit nonsense they want but there is ZERO statistical proof that migrants commit crime at a rate higher than natural born citizens. In fact statistics show the rate of migrant crime is 45% lower than natural born citizen crime especially violent crimes!
Forcing Sedona’s lower income and unhoused workforce out of town is going to be Sedona’s end! You wealthy white residents won’t be able to replace the BIGLY hole in the workforce and it will collapse upon itself!
Those who HATE migrant migrants would do well to learn some basic history about how their own cultures were viewed as they flowed into and stole Indigenous Peoples lands. There was the “Chinks” and “Spics” who built our railways, the “Guinea/WAPs” who built our bridges and buildings, the white Irish “Ni**ers” who along with the “filthy Slavs” who mined your copper, gold and silver” and let’s not forget the “Jewish Kikes” who fled WWII Europe. Sorry for the racial slurs- their words never mine except as a teaching tool.
Fact is that people are people regardless of nationality or religion. Wealthy white people are responsible for colonizing, raping and destroying the lands of many many other countries worldwide and did so by lying and creating hysteria about the people they wanted to take things from just as they are doing here today!
How do we know that there isn’t some wealthy white drug dealer living in a McMansion right here in Sedona who is facilitating the flow of fentanyl into our community and many others? Takes big money to make big money!
Will we have to close another SCHOOL???!!! There are lots of Windsong kids at West Sedona and Sedona Charter Schools. We have already lost much of our student body to surrounding communities due to the housing crisis. (Air BnBs)
This is an awful turn of events for those residents AND for Sedona! 🙁
How dare these capitalist raise the rent on Sedona slave labor?
We, the residents of Sedona demand low rents for decrepit mobile homes so we can pay as little as possible for services.
How DARE they !
Those who own that park should have been sued into oblivion decades ago for renting barely inhabitable buildings to those attempting to be good hard working SEDONA EMPLOYEES who keep Sedona on the map as a prime tourist destination to line their pockets of
Love the Chief of Police to provide some historical data on crime committed by park residents vs. crime committed by other residents and visitors.
I hate the trope of criminals and drug dealers. When I was building our home in 2018 I hired quite a few day laborers from Windsong and I can say every one of them was a hard worker who just wanted to provide good service. I talked to many of them about their families and they all wanted nothing more than to work hard and support them. I always tried to pay above average wage knowing that they likely were struggling. We need more people like those in our community!
Leave to this JB guy to create a fantastical rant on every topic that can be dreamed up. Suggest you get back on your meds.
The Red Rock News article said the rents went up $250. I am not sure from what. So that’s a mystery. And the new owners have that right.
I’ve not known anyone but hard working people who live there. If they had a reasonable apartment project to move into like Inspiration in Cottonwood, they would have some options. Then maybe Windsong could be turned into a high density new facility that catered to kids and work force labor, the people that keep this city running for all.
This town talks and talks about affordable housing, then when some is proposed its “too dense”, it’s “too tall”, then the crocodile tears for our labor force start to flow.
If you won’t change your thinking then don’t expect our environment to improve for the people who are part of our community.
Sorry for you BUTT not my topic it’s Tommy’s. Not fantastical either except in your tiny narrow mind.
Still hoping Sedona’s Chief of Police will weigh in here on crime statistics for the city as a whole vs. those of the park and its residents. You’ll likely contest those FACTS too though since you are Conspiracy and Alternative Fact prone.
“This town talks and talks about affordable housing, then when some is proposed its “too dense”, it’s “too tall”, then the crocodile tears for our labor force start to flow”
So you ASSume I have said such things and I absolutely have not! No crocodile tears here either, just someone who believes all humans have rights and Sedona needs its workforce to be able to survive by earning a decent salary and have affordable non slum housing available to them.
If that’s wrong I’d love to hear your thoughts on what is right.
Your 4th and 5th paragraph is all anybody needs to read to utterly ignore anything you have to say after that.