More than 1,100 Pinellas County mobile homes hit with substantial damage letters (2025)

PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. — Cheeseburgers, wine, and card games. The Thursday night get-together at Matt Soehnlen’s home had all bases covered.

Soehnlen and several of his neighbors-turned-friends gathered around a dining room table and filled the warm, inviting room with laughter.

But looks can be deceiving.

Their smiles concealed a deep sense of worry that’s now present throughout the 55+ community off Gandy Boulevard, Gateway Mobile Home Park.

“I think they’re panicking,” Soehnlen, the president of the neighborhood's HOA, said. “They don’t know where to turn.”

Gateway Mobile Home Park is one of several Pinellas County mobile home parks now feeling the squeeze of the dreaded FEMA substantial damage rule.

Because the park flooded during Hurricane Helene, 235 mobile homeowners within the park were recently informed their homes were substantially damaged. Almost 900 other mobile homeowners across Pinellas County are facing the same determination.

Under the rule, a home is deemed substantially damaged if the cost to repair the home is 49% or more of its value without the land. A substantially damaged home will either have to be relocated or elevated to current flood elevations, which Soehnlen said is near impossible.

“They’d just fall apart,” he said. “There’s no way you could relocate ‘em, and it would cost so much to do that.”

Even more frustrating, neighbors like Connie Aguero believe the vast majority of substantial damage determinations in Gateway Mobile Home Park were made in error.

“Yes, the park flooded. Yes, water came in and went under. A lot of people had damage to their air conditioners or their vapor barrier under their unit,” she said. “But that was the extent of the damage to the homes.”

Aguero expressed her frustration during a Tuesday meeting of the Pinellas County Board of County Commissioners and tried to warn commissioners that enforcement of the FEMA rule will force people from their homes and cause homelessness and mental trauma.

Pinellas County leaders did not disagree.

“In some of those parks, there is going to be a transformative change,” said Kevin McAndrew, the director of the county’s Building & Development Review Services.

“We’ve gotta have places for these folks to live, right?” a worried Commissioner Dave Eggers asked minutes later.

“We absolutely do,” McAndrew answered. “This is, in many cases, one of the more vulnerable demographics we have in the county.”

McAndrew said the county is trying to help mobile homeowners. The county staff has visited many of the impacted mobile home parks. Additionally, inspectors were deployed, starting this past Tuesday, to reinspect the homes of owners who claim they suffered no damage yet received substantial damage letters.

“We’re making every effort we can to work with these residents,” he said.

He also urged those who receive a substantial damage letter to visit the county office in Clearwater at 440 Court St. to apply for a reassessment.

So far, 222 reassessments have been filed for mobile homes deemed substantially damaged. Of those, 203 are pending review, and four have been reversed.

Aguero, however, said filing for a reassessment is a time-consuming, confusing process, especially for communities of elderly retirees like her neighborhood.

“There are people in here who are barely making it and older people who have, you know, no idea how to navigate a computer,” she said.

Aguero believes Pinellas County should take its work to the field to ensure the homeowners get the help they need.

“Where are we going to be in a year? You know, it’s like are we going to still be fighting this in a year? Are they going to throw us out? What are they going to do?” she said.

Despite the worry, for now, she and her neighbors can continue to gather for weekly burgers and card games, but there may come a day when her mobile home park and all its friendships are broken apart because of the substantial damage rule.

Mobile homeowners who received a substantial damage letter from Pinellas County can find reassessment instructions by clicking this link.

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