On May 7, 2024, a tornado picked up Angela Bailey's home with her inside.
"It went up, and then we were weightless, and then it smashed back down."
No one was hurt, but her home at Pavilion Estates was destroyed.
When I spoke with her last year, she was staying at a Red Cross shelter, eager to return home.
But after a year, her situation had not improved. In early May, Angela Bailey and her teenagers Conner and Rayne, were living in a tent at the Markin Glen campground north of Kalamazoo.
They'd been there for two weeks, the limit for a stay at the camp. So, it was time to pack up and move.
To learn how Bailey got here, we had to go back to May 7. Bailey said at the time of the tornado, her stepson owned the trailer she was staying in.
After it was destroyed, she reached out to her insurance company. But her renter's insurance would only cover her belongings within the home that were damaged, not the home itself.
She added that at the time, she couldn't find any programs established to help Pavilion residents rebuild, so her only option was to have her stepson get his deposit back from Pavilion, which he used to help the Bailey family while they looked for a new home.
Bailey and her family eventually moved into Morrow Crossing, another mobile home park near Galesburg. But it wasn't long before misfortune struck again.
"My husband lost his job because we had to take so much time off for the disaster and clean up and getting into the new home. And then he ended up getting a cold and they let him go because he missed too much time."
Bailey's husband Bryan worked at DJ's Landscape Management, which claims that he quit. Bryan denies this.
To make up for the lost income, Bailey began to pick up work where she could, but this effort was impeded after she had a heart attack.
"I was like Door Dashing in between when my body would allow which was helping us fill the gap between his job, but it was not enough to dig us out of the hole."
She said she applied for state assistance, but it wasn't enough to stave off an eviction. So, in April, the Baileys were evicted from Morrow Crossing. They've been living out of a tent ever since.
Bailey said months after the tornado, she heard of a program to help people rebuild at Pavilion Estates...through South County Community Services, a Vicksburg-based nonprofit. But Bailey said she wasn't eligible because she wasn't the owner.
"You have to have certain things before you can get assistance and if it's not your name, you don't get the assistance. So, we missed out on quite a bit of help because it was in my son's name."
Bailey said her stepson looked into the program as well, but she added that he believed he would have to move back into the home once it was rebuilt, which he was not planning to do. But South County Community Services Executive Director Drew Johnson said that was not a requirement.
Despite everything, Bailey maintained a positive outlook.
"Lord will never give you anything more than you can't handle, so might be a little frustrating, might not be what we want at the moment. But we'll get through it."
She said her husband has found a new job, and they're hopeful they'll have permanent housing soon.
Those who remain at Pavilion Estates
Much of the destruction at Pavilion Estates occurred near the rear of the park, exactly where resident Jayme Bowman's home resides.
Bowman still remembers the destruction he witnessed on May 7.
"It's hard to explain cause it was like here and then before you know it, it was gone but the devastation was just, oh my god, it's like a nuke went off."
Two empty lots sat to the right of his home, marking where his neighbors used to live. Bowman said they were offered their deposits back and moved out.
While not destroyed, Bowman's trailer had roof and siding damage. He said Pavilion Estates fixed the roof, but not the siding.
I asked him if he had confronted management about this discrepancy.
"I mean, I've tried but it wouldn't make a difference."
And Bowman said he's not alone, he pointed out a tattered blue mobile home nearby that he said has also been neglected.
"That's a year right there. And that should have been priority one. They're living with a generator going. They can't even have power hooked up."
Then Bowman noticed we were being watched, he pointed out a black truck that sat two streets down, tucked between two mobile homes.
Bowman said it was the managers, and he wasn't at all surprised by their tactics.
"Kind of intimidating really, but you know, I'm used to it."
When I left Bowman's yard, the truck pulled up next to me. A woman in the passenger seat stepped out and said I had to leave. She said media visits must be approved by Pavilion Estates' owner Yes Communities, even if I was invited by a resident.
Yes Communities did not respond to a request to confirm this policy, nor did it respond to any of the several inquiries about tornado recovery.
Michael Symonds reports for WMUK through the Report for America national service program.
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