Steve Foss

A man wearing glasses stands inside of a home. He's wearing a checkered shirt and blue jeans.

My name is Steve Foss. I’m a veteran that’s lived in Baltimore Terrace for 37 years. When I first moved in, the lot rent was about $100. When Homes of America bought Baltimore Terrace, lot rent started increasing each year. Today lot rent is up over 190%. I own my trailer, but soon I’ll be paying as much as some rentals.

Even though the new owners keep raising rent, their maintenance continues to be subpar. In the last three years the roads have been full of potholes and repaired with cheap material that doesn’t hold. One of the park’s retaining walls is coming down and risks falling into the road under it. When a pipe breaks, they dig up small sections at a time and leave it to us to fix the mess. 

Instead of fixing problems in the park the new owners just cover them up and make things more inconvenient for us residents. We have a tornado shelter that we can’t even use. They decided to take down the playground because they don’t want to insure it. Worst of all, the water in the park is rusty. When the city comes to inspect you can smell the chlorine, but two days later the water is rusty again.