Residents urge city to stop Bell mobile home park closure

Residents of a Bell Mobile Home Park say the city's plan could leave them with nowhere to go. Those residents are speaking out tonight at a city council meeting. Fox 11's Laura Diaz is there in Bell. She has the latest. Laura? Yes, Glenn and Christine, there was a lot of emotion here tonight at this meeting. It was an opportunity for people to speak out about that plan to relocate them at the Bell Mobile Home Park. And as you can imagine, for people who've lived there for a very long time, the notion that they would have to relocate during these very difficult financial times was really more than they could bear. Here's what they told me earlier this evening. I'm okay, but a lot of these folks in here aren't, and the city don't seem to care about them. A lot of people in here, when they close the park, it's going to be very hard on people, and they don't care. The city's promising to find a place for them, and they will pay the rent for like three years, And after that, they become homeless because there's no way they're going to be able to afford $2,000, $3,000 rent somewhere else. The relocation impact report and to adopt the resolution, title of the resolution, the City Council of the City of Bell approving the relocation impact report for the Bell Mobile Home Park, which passed. Went on for over an hour as we heard many people going forward to speak. many others who wanted to speak couldn't even get inside and certainly were not heard on that live mic but people were upset claiming that the city has portrayed them in a very poor light they are elderly many of them low income some of them are not able-bodied as you could see in some of that video they had to use walkers to get inside but today was really a first step and it did pass as you heard just a moment ago toward displacing over 200 people who live in that mobile home park It is a very preliminary step where they'll be looking about how to relocate them. But folks we talked to today said that if they were moved elsewhere, they didn't know how they would make ends meet. That most of their mobile homes could not be moved elsewhere because they're too old and they're too fragile. I'm talking about the structures right now. I'm going to call in another person who had a potential solution to this problem. Jesse Ibarra, if you can come in right now. and I know that you were telling me earlier that the people who are organized in your group were willing to actually buy that mobile home park from the city. Tell us what your plan would entail. Well, the plan would entail NPHS, Neighborhood Partnership Housing Services, which is a nonprofit organization, affordable home ownership provider, and community developer. What we are interested in doing is finding a solution that works for both parties. If we could acquire the park and both parks, if possible, from the city, we'd like to preserve them. Our experience is again in affordable housing and we really care about these residents and the fact that the city has targeted their most vulnerable residents it's very concerning and we want to do everything we possibly can to ensure that they're not displaced and that they have you know they can stay where they're at. Some of these residents have been here for much longer than any of the current staff or councilmen have ever have ever live in the city and we want to make sure they stay. So far the city has not spoken to me so I can only tell what I heard from others was that they claim that they're hemorrhaging money so this was a money issue as to why they wanted to start this relocation process. Do you see any way that you can stay afloat if you buy it? Absolutely. It's very interesting that they've run such a deficit. The previous owner was you know I've talked to them they're actually here today and And they were making $15,000 net a month once the city forced them out through eminent domain and threatened them. And that's why they sold in the first place, but they didn't want to sell it. And somehow it went from a cash cow from the previous owner to now running a deficit for this entire time. What's more concerning is there's a lot of discrepancies in the public information in terms of the financial information they've been sharing. So we don't quite understand how this could be possible. Okay, Mr. Ibarra, we are out of time, but you can see the many people behind us here. There were elderly, there were young children, they were carrying signs. They feel quite passionate about this, and they feel that they will be displaced. Some people said they could end up on the streets. I'm Laura Diaz reporting live from Bell, sending it back to the studio.