Huron City Council votes to purchase mobile home park, have residents removed
HURON – Huron City Council voted at their Tuesday, March 28 meeting to purchase Oster’s Mobile Home Park, which will cause all of its residents to be removed from the property.
The meeting began with City Manager Matt Lasko telling council that the City has partnered with Great Lakes Community Action Partnership to help relocate displaced residents. He claimed that the sale is “a matter of last resort to try to bring-about to those who reside there” and “is in the best interest of the wider, broader community.”
Many who spoke in audience comments had a different view on the sale.
Roxanne Goss, a Huron resident who said she knows many people who live in Rye Beach, told council that they “are about to cause a lot of people to be homeless.”
“Where are these people going to go? Most of these people don’t drive. They work within the city, around where they live,” Gross told council. “We are talking about people who are physically not capable of moving.”
Chris Hakeman, a Huron resident who runs a soup kitchen, told council that despite the poor living conditions, hard-working residents have nowhere else to go.
“They moved into a place that they are trying so hard. It’s not to our standards, but it’s to theirs. That they can live within their means; they are so proud people. You have no idea; we have been feeding them for ten years now or better,” Hakeman said. “We understand that it’s not suitable. We know that I don’t have the answer. I’ve only got the solution of food. That is my means, my gold; but to uproot this many people in the condition they’re in. It’s not feasible.”
David Martin, a resident of Oster’s, raised the concerns of residents who own their own mobile home, but, due its age, are unable to move it. He added that residents of the park always have each other’s backs.
Lucinda King, another resident of the mobile home park, was in tears while speaking to council about the process of rebuilding the home that she will soon lose.
Stacey Hartley, a local-government activist and current Huron Board of Education, said that she was disappointed with council and how they did not make the agreement more public. She also raised the point of limited housing in Erie County and added that when she reached out to the Erie County representative for the Great Lakes Community Action Partnership, they claimed that they were unaware of the situation.
Two residents who live in Rye Beach, Shaun Bickley and Andrew DuFresne, said they support the City’s efforts to clean out the mobile home park.
“I commend you to make a stance finally. It’s an eyesore to our city, and all these years I’ve been fighting this,” Bickley said. “I know that we’re going to take care of these people. We’re going to find them a place. We’re going to give them some rent. We’re going to pay for them to move.”
Council ended up unanimously voting to waive the three-reading rule and passed the ordinance to purchase the property as an emergency.
This article was written by Nate Hinners. Contact Nate at nhinners@huroninsider.com.
PHOTO CREDIT: Google Earth