MIDFIELD TENANTS LOSE FIGHT
Judge rules city hall has right to evict mobile home park residents
If you don’t make a lot of money in this city, get out now, you’re screwed. As a young couple we’re not going to succeed in our lives anymore — we’re done.
The City of Calgary was lawfully entitled to close the Midfield Mobile Home Park and evict all its residents, a judge ruled Thursday.
Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Colleen Kenny said the city took the proper steps under the law to close the trailer park and didn’t violate residents’ Charter rights by doing so.
Lawyer Mathew Farrell had argued the city violated the residents’ equality rights under the Charter, but Kenny ruled trailer park residents don’t qualify as an identifiable group.
“The residents of Midfield must be discriminated against due to something about them which is involuntary, or that they cannot change without great difficulty, such as their religion,” Kenny said in her written ruling.
“I recognize that, as the applicants suggest, television shows like the Trailer Park Boys may perpetuate negative stereotypes about mobile home residents,” she said.
“I also have no doubt that those stereotypes are completely untrue. That does not, however, justify extending (Charter) protections to people solely because of their decision to live in a mobile home park.
“A mobile home park resident being forced to choose a comparable housing alternative is not the same as, for example, forcing someone to change their marital status or sexual orientation.”
Kenny’s ruling did not sit well with the approximately two dozen present and former residents who showed up to hear whether she would rule against the city and possibly order financial compensation.
Calan Lovstrom and Laine Sloan said they have been made homeless by the decision.
“We’re just going to be homeless because we won’t be able to afford anywhere because we have to pay our mortgage,” Lovstrom said outside court.
“We have to leave the city, we are no longer Calgarians, Calgary doesn’t want us,” he said.
“If you don’t make a lot of money in this city, get out now, you’re screwed. As a young couple we’re not going to succeed in our lives anymore — we’re done.”
Added Sloan: “People have spent a lot of time trying to prevent homelessness and the city is pushing us to homelessness.” “It’s really hard, to feel hopeless.” Outside court, Farrell said it was certainly Kenny’s right to apply the law as she did.
“This is a sad end to a hard fight and it’s certainly disappointing,” he acknowledged.
“At the end of the day, when you see somebody you feel is being exploited, you stand up for them and sometimes you don’t always win. But it’s important for us as lawyers and for us as Calgarians to stand up for what we see as injustice.”
City of Calgary lawyer James Floyd said he was pleased with the decision, calling the issue a difficult one.
“We intend to support the residents as we can as we move forward,” Floyd said, following the ruling.
He said he understood why the residents were upset with the decision, but “the law is as Justice Kenny applied it.”
Calhome Properties Ltd., which manages the mobile home park, had asked that the remaining residents in about 10 trailers be forced out within the next two weeks, but Kenny said she would not evict them just before Christmas.
“It would be neither practical, nor humane for me to force Midfield’s remaining residents out of their homes only days before Christmas,” she said. Those people must leave by Feb. 19.