After flooding two years in a row, the Evergreen Village Mobile Home Park is a problem that needs to be dealt with.

The park was built in a floodplain, making water damage more likely when it rains.

“We have 100 plus families here that shouldn’t be subject to water every time it rains,” said Frank Santoro , owner of the Evergreen Village Mobile Home Park. “It’s something very disheartening to go through.”

DeKalb County agrees, said Ruth Anne Tobias, DeKalb County Board Chairwoman.

Since the flooding in the area in August 2007, there have been talks of a mitigation plan, or a buyout of the area.

“It is the hope that this area has been designated by the state of Illinois as a hazard mitigation area,” Tobias said. “The plan would be to purchase homes owned by residents and by the owner of the mobile home park and try to provide some funds to move the people to a different type of housing.”

From there, Tobias said the area would be closed to any sort of residential development.

Dennis Miller, DeKalb County Emergency Services and Disaster Agency Coordinator, said a consensus must be made regarding funding.

“Every party involved must agree on a set amount. Then FEMA [Federal Emergency Management Agency] would step in along with other agencies to relocate the individuals and buy out the park and make it open space,” Miller said.

Potential funding of the mitigation plan would come from FEMA, the state’s Emergency Management Agency, DeKalb County and the owner of the park, Tobias said.

“There’s not enough federal and state money to get the project going in DeKalb County, so we don’t know what our share would be at this point,” Tobias said. “This could cost DeKalb County between $1 and $2 million to do something like this. We don’t know if the plan can even go forward.”

Tobias said there are insufficient federal funds for the state’s needs, because there were so many places affected by the flooding and not enough money to cover all the damages.

DeKalb County is trying to change the cost structure in the estimates and appraisals of the units damaged at the park in an attempt to help the plan’s proceedings, Tobias said.

There is much more to be done when it comes to the project’s cost.

“Every time this area floods and the people have to move out, the county’s planning office has to go back in and inspect the houses and say that they’re OK to go back into, so there’s costs associated with that,” Tobias said. “In addition, the county would have to find funds to contribute to the buy-out project.”

Until funding clears, nothing more can be done when it comes to mitigation.

“This park should never have been developed here,” Santoro said. “The problem needs to be corrected.”