City says four mobile homes remain occupied at Midfield park
A once-bustling 183-unit community in the middle of Calgary is now home to just four occupied abodes, nearly a month after a judge ruled the city was lawfully entitled to close the mobile home park and evict its residents.
The remaining tenants of the city-owned Midfield Mobile Home Park have until Feb. 19 to leave, though at least one longtime resident of the community on 16th Avenue N.E. maintains he’s not going anywhere.
“They might hit my place with a bulldozer, but they’re going to have to do it with me in it,” said 82-yearold Rudy Prediger on Friday.
A city official said Thursday that “approximately five” mobile homes remain occupied in the park, later clarifying that four homes still have tenants living in them, five abodes have tenants that still drop by, but are now living elsewhere, and two mobile homes are vacant.
Prediger, who remains in one of the four occupied homes, questioned the accuracy of the city’s numbers and said, regardless, he doesn’t count how many homes remain because it’s not important.
“The numbers don’t mean nothing — the point is what they’re doing to everyone,” he said.
“It doesn’t matter if there’s two here or 22, we’re still being mistreated.”
Since residents, including Prediger, were handed eviction notices in May 2014, they’ve complained about being abandoned by the city, which backed out of previously discussed plans to build a new mobile home park on Calgary’s outskirts.
About 400 residents, most of them seniors, called Midfield home when the notices were delivered. The notices said the city was closing the park — located on highly desirable inner-city land close to schools, parks and amenities — at the end of September 2017 because of aging water and sewer pipes.
Tenants were offered a lumpsum payment of $10,000 to leave and a maximum of $10,000 toward the cost of moving their mobile home.
The Sept. 30, 2017, deadline was extended after a lawyer took the city to court, arguing residents’ equality rights were violated under the charter.
While Prediger missed the court battle because he was home with pneumonia, he said the new Feb. 19 deadline is inappropriate because moving mobile homes in winter damages their pipes — not to mention there’s nowhere in Calgary to move his home to, he said.
“They say we can move to North Battleford, (Sask.). Who wants to move to North Battleford? They don’t even want us in the province,” Prediger said.
Bureaucrats and municipal politicians have previously said the city has no plans for Midfield park, once the remaining trailers are removed.