Wilfried Gebelhoff, 72, said he and his wife don’t want to leave Burton Avenue Mobile Home Park
Approximately 22 residents still remain for several reasons. Some don’t have the money to leave. Others can’t find suitable housing in a city that does not offer much low-rent housing.
One such couple is the Gebelhoffs, who are in their 70s. They live in a manufactured home into which they have sunk thousands of dollars to fix up.
“I put everything into my home. Everything is brand new, and now we’re getting chased out of here,” Gebelhoff said. “There’s nowhere else to go, and renting is not an option. I’ve always had my own house, my own property, and I don’t want to go into an apartment, but we have to start again,” he said. “I have no idea what we’re going to do.”
Gebelhoff and the other 22 remaining residents reached a deal with landowners Joseph Vellinga and Dino Melchior on Friday, February 6. As part of the deal, the residents withdrew their appeal to the Ontario Rental Housing Tribunal.
The agreement will see them paid $7,500 by July 1, with $3,000 coming at the end of this month, an amount mandated under the Landlord and Tenant Act. If they leave by July 1, they will receive the remaining $4,500.
“I just signed the agreement this morning,” Gebelhoff said. “I knew we had to leave some day, of course. That’s the way it is. But it’s not acceptable at all. It’s still a drop in the bucket because I’m going to lose $62,000 to $65,000.”
Frank Fanuzzi is one of the residents who appeared at an earlier Ontario Rental Housing Tribunal hearing. He said that it’s seniors and people with special needs who are still living in the park because they have nowhere else to go.
“Where else can we find rents in Barrie ranging from $300 to $700 a month including hydro?” he asked. He says it’s a human rights issue because it’s about social status.
All Frank Fanuzzi wants is a place to call home.
“It still stands that ‘mobile home parks’ are an affordable way of living,” Fanuzzi said. “It’s not based on whether you’re on disability or anything like that.” He’s disappointed that social service agencies didn’t back residents’ efforts to fight the eviction. And he’s not the only one who feels that way.
“This is a terrible travesty for the city and a big mark on our city. We’re all responsible,” said Mandy Hillyard, who works at the Community Mental Health Service at Orillia Soldiers’ Memorial Hospital. “With gentrification, who’s next?”
According to Simcoe County’s social housing department, there are about 3,000 rent-geared-to-income units throughout the county, with another 2,772 available to the department through former federal providers.
About 2,800 people are in the system waiting for a unit. In 2013, there were 1,752 people on Barrie’s wait list.
One-bedroom units are the most sought after, with seniors waiting more than four years and single applicants waiting more than three years. Families with children wait more than a year to find a home.
However, the statistics still show less than 10 per-cent of people on the waitlist were given housing in 2013, as some were bumped because of the 118 special priority applicants getting into housing last year. ##
(Photo Credits: Barrie Advance)
Article submitted by Sandra Lane to – Daily Business News – MHProNews.
