Mobile homes built in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s are still being rented and lived in. Too old to be moved, others are being abandoned. It is hard to tell whether some are still occupied or deserted. Some abandoned homes are used as camps by the homeless.  What does it say about us as a society that some shelters for people are that close to being ruins?

Envisioned for and sold to families with high hopes of rising up the middle class ladder, today, these structures serve as affordable housing of the working poor, the first homes of immigrants, and the last for the elderly. 

Around 1961 my father, Frank Drake,  finally found a good paying job as a buyer for Taylor Mobile Home in Troy, NC. It gave our family so much hope. He died a few years into the job from cancer. My dad most likely helped build the first mobile home featured in this series, a 1961 Taylor Home. I never knew my father, but  for decades I have thought of him whenever I saw old mobile homes like these.

This series is dedicated to both a long lost father, and to so many who, like my family, find a way to pick up and live on with dreams deferred.  

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