Some solutions he devised himself – he cleared and laid sod on a kudzu-strangled field and added a car maintenance shed, for instance. Others, such as the organic garden overseen by the InterFaith Food Shuttle, he accomplished through grants and partnerships.
Last year, Parrish landed a three-year, $85,000 state grant to get his residents exercising more by adding a walking trail, picnic area and sports programs for kids at the soccer field, part of an effort to stem childhood obesity, which is particularly common in low-income families.
Grant coordinator Marjorie Lanier says its rare to find a developer so interested in the health of his community – or so prolific in his improvement efforts.
In the public health world, we dont come across toomany like Chris, says Lanier, who coordinates the states Healthy Places, Active Spaces grant program. What hes doing is pretty remarkable.
Parrish rattles off programs so numerous its hard to keep up – visits from mobile petting zoos and dental clinics, a walking program using pedometers, healthy cooking classes – but he punctuates his list with shrugs, as if rounding up such services for his tenants is simple common sense.
We try to put ourselves in their shoes, says Parrish, 38, who grew up in Smithfield. You think, How would you want your family to grow up? and then you make it happen.
A Halloween party
Lines of perfect white rectangles wind around the paved streets of Parrish Manor – 280 homes with driveways, sidewalks and tiny, immaculate yards.
Landscapers mow the grass and pick up trash.
The 70-acre site was farmland when his grandfather bought it in the 1950s. His father had it zoned for mobile homes, but it took the family until the mid-1990s to get water and sewer service there.
By then, Parrish had earned his bachelors degree from UNC-Chapel Hill and was considering law school. But he changed plans and earned a masters in business administration – better preparation for entering the family business.
Parrishs father, Charles Parrish, had some experience as a developer of stick-built and mobile homes. But Parrish Manor, which opened in 1998, was the familys largest such undertaking.
At the time, the mobile home industry was suffering a post-bubble decline similar to that of the overall real estate market in recent years. The Parrishes couldnt sell their mobile homes, so they rented them.
They now rent 80 percent of the homes, which range from $695 a month for a two-bedroom to $975 for a four-bedroom. Such a large rental community of mobile homes is rare, considered by many to be too risky and unstable.
The Parrishes counter that risk by keeping close tabs on their tenants, screening them carefully before they move in and evicting people for unruly behavior. Were not one of those places where if you pay rent, we look the other way, Parrish says.
They have also tried to keep stable tenants by making the neighborhood a nice place to live. Parrish says they started out by providing a Halloween party and parade.
Then a nearby church offered to bring presents and a visit from Santa Claus at Christmas.
When he decided those foundering fishermen needed mentors, transportation was his key problem in getting them to area Boys and Girls Clubs. So he started a nonprofit in 2006 to be able to accept donations toward a used school bus he bought. That year, roughly nine Parrish Manor kids regularly went to the club. Last summer, about 50 went.
This place is different
Parrish says he considers himself the mayor of a little town of about 900 residents, nearly half of them children. And he has learned that his town sits in what is known as a food and recreation desert – there is no grocery store nearby, and until he cleared out his field, there were no parks or ball fields.
There was no place to run around, he says. And the only food around was all fast food.
He learned that lots of nonprofits are looking to help the low-income, often minority families in his community. So he calls them up, one by one.
My whole thing is to try to get people who have the services to come to us, he says. We have the population theyre looking for.
The communitys links to a range of services has been a boon for Brenda Grothe and her three sons, ages 6, 14 and 16. Her youngest loves the new after-school sports classes. Her teenagers are working with the county to research recreational activities for a teen-centered website.
Ive seen other trailer parks before, says Grothe, 34. But this place is different.
For his next project, Parrish has set his sights on a community center that would double as a tornado shelter – making it eligible for FEMA grants that would cover much of the $1.3 million cost.
Parrish calls this plan his craziest idea yet, but as he talks about the potential of a larger space – moving his Zumba fitness classes from the tiny clubhouse living room, offering English as a Second Language classes – he uses the word will more than might or could.
We call him the bullet train, because he just has this incredible capacity to get things done at breakneck speed, says Lanier, the grant coordinator.
Lanier would like to see more affordable communities focusing on residents health. And Parrish has plugged his nonprofit work at industry meetings – trying to guilt the huge corporations that own most mobile home parks nationwide into action, he says: If I can do this, anyone can.
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