Senior Citizens are being evicted from their homes of more than 50 years, according to a Deseret News article today.
Residents of a well established mobile home park in Cottonwood Heights, most of whom are elderly and low/fixed income and who had planned on living out their lives in the park, are being forced to move as a result of the sale of land upon which their homes sit. Many of the residents will be unable to move their mobile homes because of the aged style of the structures.
The developers who purchased the land plan to build more luxury homes (Cottonwood Heights is an area for million dollar homes)and 150 trailers will have to be moved or destroyed.
For those with newer mobile homes who can move to another park, the cost to relocate is anywhere from $7,000 to $12,000. The incoming developer has offered to offset some of those costs, but “it’s not going to be painless,” Cullimore[Cottonwood Heights Mayor Kelvyn Cullimore Jr.] said. “And there’s going to be some human costs as this unfolds.”
There is talk of hiring lawyers to fight this.
Some residents want to hire attorneys to fight the landowners and developers. Shearrer[one of the long time residents] said she feels helpless: “How can you fight people with money? You just can’t.”
The Salt Lake Community Action Program is stepping in the help the displaced residents, but this scenario is very disruptive to these peoples’ lives.
“These people that are truly, truly in need, and how do they survive?” Martinez[Salt Lake Community Action Program’s Virginia Marrufo Martinez ] said. “I always say I believe in miracles. So, we’ll see what happens.”
The mayor is portrayed in the article as having empathy and compassion for these folks and is quoted as stating that the land owners “had the right” to sell their property. That may be but where has the mayor and its council been? Can’t they re-zone the land? It’s not too late.
This is yet another case where money and greed is superceding human needs. With our aging population increasing significantly, we just cannot allow these things to happen. Goliath must be confronted by the Daveys here and fight for what is right. Kicking seniors out of their homes just isn’t right.
Deanna Dee-Dee Taylor 