Calgary Shutting Down 16th Avenue Trailer Park
This is outrageous, I wanted to post about it last year but now it's making me increasingly mystified at how the city is handling this. My girlfriend has been following it more than I have as she has family living there so I'll summarize the points I'm upset about after a brief explanation for those that aren't aware of what's happening.
Just west of Deerfoot Trail on 16th Avenue is a trailer park with about 100 residents and the land it is sitting on is worth a fortune but the city isn't collecting much in taxes because of the low income families living there and the low property values. The city has decided they are going to forcefully evict everyone from the park, give each resident $10,000 and put condos there instead. These people have nowhere to go, they were given notice since, I believe last year, but where does an 85 year old single woman with no family go?
1. The city is complaining that the infrastructure below the park is crumbling and needs to be completely replaced as the pipes are no longer safe. Bullshit, the infrastructure in Inglewood is way older but nobody's saying anything to them. Also, do you think the developer that purchased the land is going to tear it all up and replace all the piping before starting construction? When that happens I'll go down there and you're all welcome to line up and kick me in the nuts because it never will.
2. These people are being given $10,000, how are they supposed to find another place for that? Many of those trailers are worth over $150,000 and many residents are still paying on a mortgage. So they're going to be evicted with a mortgage to pay and no home? Or yes, they can take their trailer but there are no other parks in Calgary to place it on, they would have to move outside Calgary to live, how are they going to get to their doctor? Who is going to bring them groceries? Right now they can walk to Co-Op next door.
3. The city is offering each resident $10,000 but they're making each owner pay property taxes based on the higher property value they received earlier this year. If their property is only worth $10,000, shouldn't they just be paying property taxes on that? WTF?
4. Prior to being elected councillor for the ward, the politician went door to door in that park telling them he's going to fight for them and it's a huge deal that the city is making this happen, he is going to do what he can to make sure they are taken care of. As soon as he was elected for the ward, he signed the papers to have them evicted! WTF? Looking online it looks like it is ward 9 and the politician appears to be GIAN-CARLO CARRA but I'm not too sure exactly whom it was at the time.
5. Many seniors have already committed suicide over this. How is an 80-90 year old person going to get a mortgage? Is any bank going to give someone 5 years from death a 25 year mortgage? Any one of these seniors without family is going to be living either on the street or moved into the welfare system.
6. The city says they're going to take care of the older seniors by moving them into low income housing. Really? Many of the residents in there were placed there by the low income housing program by the city!
7. A couple of years ago my girlfriend's family got together with some of the other owners in there and offered to buy the entire park from the city. The city told them no, they would never sell that property, no way. Now it's sold to an independent developer. Nice.
8. Have you driven by there lately and seen the number of vacant trailers left there? People are putting their keys in the mailbox and just leaving, they owe so much money on the property and they're getting so little for it that they can't afford to even live there any more.
9. The city originally had a plan to build them another trailer park to move them all to but it got too expensive so they just dropped the idea and now aren't doing anything for them.
What a load of fuck, how do you knock on the door of an 85 year old with no family and tell them it's time for them to take their shit because you're bulldozing their home? And they can go down to the welfare office now to find somewhere to live. It's nonsense, it enrages me just thinking about it. We live in a city with the ability to do something for one another but it seems more important to make money on it instead. No joke, the Syrian refugees emigrating from another country were given more money to start lives here than our own residents are being given to bulldoze their lifelong homes. It's embarrassing to admit that I am a part of the city where this is taking place, I feel ashamed people live a long nice life and now have to go through this. It makes me sick to my stomach.
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Originally Posted by Yolobimmer
