Gov't no help for trailer park

Photo: Colton Davies

The Delta Mobile Home Park on the Penticton Indian Band.

With tenants of a Penticton mobile home park slated to be evicted on Oct. 1, there is no formal support from any level of government to assist affected residents. 

The Delta Mobile Home Park is on Penticton Indian Band locatee land, meaning provincial rules on residential tenancy don't apply. Otherwise, mobile home park tenants would be supported when land is slated for redevelopment — as is the case on this property.

Residents there were handed eviction notices on April 30. Two seniors in the park have reportedly committed suicide in the past two weeks, a result of dire circumstances according to one resident.

"There's two different laws, on the reserve and off the reserve... and if you're not a native [on the reserve], you have zero grants to stand on," resident Stew English told Castanet.

"Off the reserve, I think they'd have [compensation] to help them relocate. That's what we're asking, that's all we're asking. We're just trying to be calm about it and keep our sanity."

English added many residents won't be able to move their mobile homes because of their age, making them outdated for building safety, and said they will be torn down by the property owners.

"I don't know where I'm going to be living. Right now I'll be out on the street."

The PIB has no formal legislation to help relocate tenants. The mobile home park in question is on locatee lands, and the band said the situation with tenants is outside the purview of staff and council.

"The Penticton Indian Band is open to investigating options and engaging in dialogue with all levels of government to address the current affordability crisis," the band said in a statement.

MP Richard Cannings and MLA Dan Ashton both said there's no measures for the federal or provincial governments to support tenants on reserve lands. 

"My personal opinion is I think our rules should be province-wide," Ashton said in regards to residential tenancy protection. "A lot of these people are really stuck. And I know our office has been working exemplary on trying to find these people places."

Both politicians sympathized for the apparent suicides. Both also said the crunch faced by tenants in the park points directly to the Okanagan's housing crisis.

"These people are in a horrible bind, having to look for a new place to live, after a lot of them have lived there for a long time," Cannings said, adding housing costs are "at the root of this whole problem."