Brackendale trailer owners describe a room full of anger
Posted September 9, 2016 12:07 am.
Last Updated September 9, 2016 12:13 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
BRACKENDALE (NEWS 1130) – People living in a Brackendale trailer park are considering their legal options, after they’ve been told to vacate the property.
Homeowners fear they’ll be homeless by this time next year.
They received eviction notices Wednesday night, at a meeting hosted by the Squamish Nation.
Tom Green, who was in the crowd, says there were tears and anger and “it got pretty loud” at the meeting.
“We’re done, we’re hooped, we don’t know what we’re going to do,” says Green, who has lived in the park since 2009.
He pays $400 a month for the spot his home sits on, and has invested about $30,000 into the trailer, thinking he’d eventually sell it.
Now, his plans have changed.
“I’m phoning moving companies seeing if I can somehow move my trailer out of here. It’s not cheap. It’s very expensive. It will be about $5,000 to $10,000 to move it down the street, kind of thing. Then I need a place to put it.”
Green says some people are threatening to squat on the property and they’re looking at hiring a lawyer.
Back in 2012, the Squamish Nation took over operation of Riverside Trailer Park from a man who had run it for decades. The band made the prior leases invalid, so homeowners couldn’t sell their properties.
“We feel the Squamish Nation could have been more upfront with this whole thing over the last four years. If they had told us four years ago what they were going to do, I wouldn’t have invested a cent in this place,” says Green.
The band wants homeowners out of the park by October of next year and will allow them to stay rent free until then.
It is also offering people who opt to move before the end of the year a payment of $9,600. The payment goes down to $4,800 if they leave between January 1 and March 31, 2017.
