[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 60 (Tuesday, May 4, 2004)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E729]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[[Page E729]]
                           DAILY DOUBLE-WIDE

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR.

                              of tennessee

                    in the house of representatives

                          Tuesday, May 4, 2004

  Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, Aaron Tallent, a member of my staff, has 
written a very interesting and entertaining article for the current 
issue of the Washington City Paper.
  He makes the very important point that just possibly some 
sophisticated city dwellers should not look down their noses at those 
millions around the country who live in mobile homes.
  There are many good and intelligent people who live in these homes, 
and I would like to call this outstanding article to the attention of 
my colleagues and other readers of the Record.

            [From the Washington City Paper, Apr. 30, 2004]

                           Daily Double-Wide

                           (By Aaron Tallent)

       One night at the Capitol Lounge, after I'd been in 
     Washington for a few months, I found myself talking to an 
     aide for a Northern congressman. He was sharing a fact he'd 
     picked up in a meeting with a housing-coalition 
     representative that day: ``Trailers are not considered real 
     housing, because they depreciate in value the minute they are 
     dropped off the truck.''
       Then he added, ``Have you ever been in a trailer? They're 
     downright trashy.''
       I let it slide. He didn't know that I come from Tellico 
     Plains, Tenn.--population 900, according to the last census. 
     Many of my closest friends still live in Tellico Plains. And 
     many of them live in trailers.
       My friend Chris, for instance, spent more than three years 
     living in a single-wide after college. He's a high-school 
     English teacher now, and his wife is a schoolteacher as well. 
     He's also an ordained preacher. With the money they saved 
     living up on blocks, he and his wife are now homeowners at 
     26.
       No one in my group at the Capitol Lounge, freely cracking 
     trailer jokes, was even close to owning a home. They weren't 
     even able to take care of themselves. The Yankee 
     socioeconomics expert ended the night puking on the floor. A 
     self-proclaimed Southern belle kept talking about how 
     frustrated she was because the guy she'd been hooking up with 
     for two months still hadn't taken her out to dinner. I went 
     out to get cigarettes with a lobbyist for a fiscally 
     conservative nonprofit; he put Marlboro Lights on his Visa.
       You want to talk about trailer trash? Put down your Stella, 
     turn-off your Blackberry, and listen: You are trailer trash.
       Just because your neighborhood is geographically broken 
     down by blocks does not mean that you metaphorically don't 
     live up on them. Urban America is full of trailer parks. You 
     just have fancier names for them.
       Let's stop by your studio apartment, shall we? You're proud 
     of the location, naturally. In Dupont Circle, on Capitol 
     Hill, in Georgetown--so sophisticated! So many urbane 
     attractions: Now let's go inside.
       Whoa! Almost tripped over your futon. Didn't expect it to 
     be so close to the doorway! It seems your futon is the center 
     of your place. Sitting on it, you can reach over to the bed 
     and fluff your pillows with one hand, while you pop a DVD 
     into your entertainment center with the other. How 
     convenient!
       Of course, I caught you at a bad time. Normally when you're 
     expecting company, you put the room divider up to hide the 
     bed from the ``living room.'' That's about as concealing as 
     hair in a can. In the kitchenette, you have a two-burner 
     stove and a counter with just enough room to make a peanut-
     butter sandwich. Is there a dishwasher? I think not. We could 
     go into your bathroom, but with the clothes hamper, there's 
     no room to move.
       Your mini-estate, like a trailer, is simply the compromise 
     you make to live on a lower income. And yours isn't 
     necessarily the nicer compromise. Climb up on the porch and 
     I'll take you inside a Tennessee trailer.
       How about that! There's a living room with enough space for 
     a couch, love seat, and recliner. Stick your head in the 
     kitchen--the separate kitchen--and you've got a four-grill 
     stove and a counter big enough for preparing dinner parties. 
     Still convinced your prison cell is nicer? Walk down the hall 
     and see, not one, not two, but three bedrooms! Then to top it 
     off, we have a bathroom that can hold a hamper, a magazine 
     rack, and two people. If you want to upgrade, there's room 
     for a Jacuzzi.
       On the inside, a well-kept trailer could hang with any nice 
     apartment in the D.C. metro area. Step out the back door and 
     . . . oh, look, it's a yard.
       Most efficiency apartments don't even have a back door. But 
     that's not your real home, you say. You're not planning on 
     living there forever. You've just come to Washington to work 
     for a politician or a nonprofit that stands for everything 
     you believe in. The efficiency is just a stepping-stone, a 
     place to lay your head until you figure out where you want to 
     go with your life and career. Or until you buy a condo in 
     Arlington.
       Welcome to Tellico Plains. My college-graduate friends, 
     starting out in nursing, physical therapy, or factory work, 
     were able to buy or inherit pieces of land. They just 
     couldn't build houses right away. So they bought trailers. 
     Yes, their purchases depreciated fast. But not as fast as the 
     $12,000 you threw away in rent last year.
       Now, some of the folks I went to school with may spend the 
     rest of their lives in trailers. They've got low-income jobs 
     and no means to find better ones. They can build a house now, 
     or they can guarantee that their children will always have 
     clothes on their back and three meals a day. It is no 
     different from an urban family living in a cramped apartment.
       I have received an e-mail no less than 10 times titled 
     ``Tennessee's Latest Lottery Winner.'' It contains a picture 
     of a trailer with a limousine parked out front. Like most 
     jokes based on stereotypes, it has some truth behind it. 
     Growing up, I saw my fair share of broken-down trailers with 
     new Corvettes in the driveway or satellite dishes in the 
     yard.
       But for every trailer owner who blows a third of his modest 
     paycheck on lotto tickets, there is a D.C. studio-dweller 
     running up a $300 tab at McFadden's or Cafe Citron, then 
     putting milk and bread on his credit card the next day. For 
     every trailer with a brand-new, souped-up Ford F-150 in the 
     driveway, there is a Washington efficiency with Brooks 
     Brothers suits and a Burberry coat in the closet. And for 
     every one of you who thinks a mobile home is the end of 
     existence, trust me, there's someone who'd take one look at 
     your one-room wonder, shudder, and thank the stars for his 
     comfortable double-wide.

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