NORFOLK, Neb. — Johanna Rios is a proud first-time homeowner.

Rios, with $40,000 worth of help from her mom Carmen, purchased a home that sits in the Norfolk Mobile Home Park over the summer. They spent a few months fixing it up. Then, on move-in day, came a big surprise.

“I was getting ready to move in when we came home to that sticker saying that the house was condemned and deemed unsafe,” Rios said.

The yellow tag meant Rios and her five-year-old son, Mateo, had to go back to their apartment.

“It was devastating for my son to go through this," Rios said. "He was very excited to move in.”

The root issue started with the previous owner, who built an attached garage that violated city code. The city informed Rios, who pledged to fix it. She also mentioned the previous owner did some interior electric work, which led city building official Steve Nordhues to yellow tag the home on November 15th.

“Once the current owner said that electrical work had been done by the same person who did unsafe electrical work in the garage… that’s where we want to make sure that the house is safe also,” Norfolk Director of Planning and Development Valerie Grimes said.

So how can the tag get removed? The city must inspect and clear the home. Sounds simple enough, especially since Rios says a third-party contractor already did an electrical inspection and the home passed. But she has no plans to let the city in. Here’s how the phone call with the building department went.

“My immediate response was, ‘absolutely not,’" Norfolk Mobile Home Park manager Mason Volkema said. "And they wanted to hear from Johanna herself, and she said the same thing, ‘you are not allowed inside my home.’”

Volkema says this isn’t the community’s first brush with the city. He’s seen 10 to 12 mobile homes demolished.

“Many of them started as yellow tags. Not a single one of them has ever gone from a yellow tag back to a normal, livable home," Volkema said. "Every single one of them has gone from a yellow tag to a red tag, which basically means you demolish the home.”

Knights One Management owns about 50 similar communities nationwide. Volkema says he’s never pulled a permit for repair work at any of them. In Norfolk, he says permits are essential and they require inspections, which in Volkema’s experience, eventually lead to demolition.

“You’re only left with one option, which is to bring in a brand new home, which if you just think about replacement costs on that, makes it financially impossible to keep things affordable,” Volkema said.

Knights One first owned the neighboring Elkhorn Mobile Home Park. COO John Squartino says he met with former mayor Josh Moenning and Nordhues before buying Norfolk Mobile Home Park in summer 2023. He says the company has since spent $1.5 million to improve the community, but the problems persist.

“I believe that we’re being targeted and our tenant base is unfortunately the victim here," Squartino said.

The city doesn’t keep records of mobile home demolitions, but Director of Planning and Development Valerie Grimes is quick to rebuff the claim of targeting.

“I don’t know that it’s specific to a mobile home park that is trying to rehab a house, because they’re held to the same standard as anyone else in the community,” Grimes said.

She says the city adopts codes set by the International Code Council meant to keep people safe. Grimes calls safety into question at the mobile home parks, where she says she’s seen cases of extreme termite damage and city records show 44 fire calls over the past decade.

“We don’t want this to come down, either," Grimes said. "We just want people to be living in a safe and secure manner.”

The City and Volkema have engaged in multiple economic development and community subcommittee meetings to search for a solution to the big picture problem. Both sides say there’s been limited progress.

Volkema and Squartino see only one true solution.

“It is our opinion that there needs to be a change within the building department itself, with new individuals that are more pro-development and pro-growth within the city,” Volkema said.

Meanwhile, Rios is caught in the middle of the struggle over code enforcement and repairability. The stakes are high… shelter for her and her son, plus the investment of her mom’s life savings.

“There’s been multiple people affected in the mobile home community," Rios said. "It’s just not fair for people to have to go through this.”

But they remain hopeful.

Translation from Spanish: “I have faith, a lot of faith in God that it will be resolved in the best way," Rios's mom, Carmen, said. "I have faith, faith in God.”

The mobile home park owners are considering a lawsuit. The city plans to have another subcommittee meeting late next month. There’s no specific timeline for how long a property can remain yellow-tagged, so Rios ended up moving into the home after her apartment lease ran out, leaving a stalemate with wide-ranging implications.