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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Park residents prepare to move

CHENEY – When the city of Cheney won its lawsuit against Thomas Myers last month over his mobile home park, several residents of the park lost their homes.

Many of them own their mobile homes, and it is expensive to move them.

To help alleviate the costs, Arlene Fisher, the city administrator, called in representatives from the Office of Manufactured Housing to see what they could do to help the residents.

By state law, a $100 fee is imposed on the sale of every mobile home located in a mobile home park. The $100 is put into a fund to help in situations such as the one in Myers’ Park. The applicant must meet certain qualifications and can receive $7,500 to move a single-wide mobile home or $12,000 to move a double-wide.

There is a catch. The applicant must pay for the service before he or she can be reimbursed by the state.

In an unusual move, Fisher is offering that the city front the cash for the residents; the city would then be reimbursed by the state.

“We have some work to do tonight,” Fisher said at a meeting with the residents July 16.

She said she inherited the problem of Myers’ Park when she took over as city administrator at the beginning of the year. She added that the situation has been upsetting to her, and she even got a little choked up when speaking to the residents.

“I build communities,” she told them. “I don’t take communities apart.”

The residents of the mobile home park have been caught in the middle of what has been a more than 10-year dispute between Myers and the city, which has asked him to comply with certain city codes, such as providing adequate fire hydrants and road access to the park.

The dispute came to a head last month when the courts ordered Myers to close the park and work with the city to shut down its utilities by Friday or face jail time. That sentence was stayed Friday when a judge ordered Myers to clean the premises of all garbage, maintain weed control and continue paying for the water at the park until another hearing Sept. 26. None of the residents will be asked to leave before then, and Fisher said she expects the last of the tenants to have moved by the middle of September.

Fisher said that the meeting last week wasn’t so much about the problems with the park and what should have been done to fix the problems; it was to help the residents get places to put their homes.

To qualify for assistance, a home with four people living in it would have to earn less than $46,100 a year. The residents must also live in and own their mobile homes. Fisher said there were four residents at the meeting who qualify for assistance.

Fisher also said she has heard there are service organizations within the city, such as the Kiwanis and Rotary, and

churches willing to help the residents while they transition to new homes.

Some of the residents will likely end up at Hayford Village, a mobile home park that borders a golf course.

Bill and Linda Inlow, who work at Hayford Village, were at the meeting last week to explain what new residents can expect.

“We have a nice park,” Linda Inlow told the residents.

She said the park has 147 spaces, and only about half of those are filled. Residents must own their mobile homes, and the home has to have been built in 1996 or later.

They also have to have an eight-by-eight-foot deck attached to their home. One of the residents will be getting a deck from the Cheney Rotary.

“You are going to move into a better home,” Fisher told the residents.