业主赔偿每户3000元
星报通讯社/有说这是在密西沙加市心脏地带的过时产物！沿着联邦高速公路(Confederation Parkway)西面的登打士街(Dundas St.)开车，并不容易看到那流动车屋公园的入口，现时该区有47间流动车屋，共百多名住客。
这个位于加国第6大城市，已有60年历史的小社区，挤在一间正挂牌出租的修车店后面，被公寓大厦、办公室大楼、汽车销售中心重重包围。
不足1年后，这社区将会消失。现时沿着公园内那条脏乱的道路走，触目所见尽是残旧的汽车房屋，是百多人的安乐窝。
在这公园租地方停泊自己汽车房屋的人士，已接获通知明年3月必须离开，地产发展商要在这幅昂贵的地皮兴建多幢高楼大厦。
该批居民表示，跟园主兼业主的茱歌域(Anne Jugovich)关系融洽，但她今年1月去世，他们担心她女儿可能不想继续经营下去。今年3月最后一日，接到律师信通知，一年后要迁出。假如自行移走流动车屋，可以获得3,000元赔偿，否则该辆旧车就会被拆毁。
64岁的宾丝一边擦着眼泪一边说道，这是谷斯维尔(Cooksville)中部的心脏地带，但亦是他们的家园。她在这儿已住了16年，步行10分钟就会来到谷斯维尔GO车站，毗邻是超级市场和各类商店。
居民每月缴付400至500元租金，已包括税项和水电费。大多数居民用了4万元至6万元买下那流动车屋，部份人再用3万多元改善设备。
明年无栖身之所
宾丝现时在附近一座办公大楼内兼职教授有学习障碍的孩子打字。她表示，现时房价高企，对她们来说，买汽车房屋是唯一能拥有自己居所的机会，明年3月真担心无栖身之所。
居民委员会成员的德杜(Donnie Durdle)正尝试为流动车屋屋主力争多点赔偿金，对是否将流动车屋移走的居民来说，3,000元根本无补于事。假如要租住附近那些最细的单位，租金亦是现时的双倍。46岁的德杜表示，他在贵湖(Guelph)西面的流动车屋租住园可以找到一个空位，但只租给老人或者是那些在1995年或以后制造的流动车屋屋主，他那辆已有35年车龄价值4万多元的流动车屋便不合资格。
代表园主的律师迪科斯基(Jack Ditkofsky)认为赔偿合理，指出该流动车屋园不配合密西沙加市制订的发展计划。市长麦歌莲表示，一旦园主决定不再经营出租流动车屋业务，市议会依照发展蓝图做事。亦有市议员表示，该处居民多年来并未制造任何问题，将他们迫迁实在非常残忍。
Trailer park to be uprooted
May 01, 2007 04:30 AM
Jim Wilkes
Staff Reporter
It’s an anachronism in the heart of Mississauga.
Driving along Dundas St. W., west of Confederation Pkwy., it’s unlikely you’d spot the entrance to the trailer park where about 100 people live in 47 mobile homes.
A tiny tin community for 60 years within Canada’s sixth largest city, it’s surrounded by apartment blocks, office buildings and car dealerships, snug in behind a motor shop that’s up for lease.
But in less than a year it will all be gone. All the aging trailers along the dirt road that winds through the park. All the people who call it home.
JIM WILKES/TORONTO STAR
Veronica Brooks cleans out her car while her son romps outside her disabled mother’s trailer.
Residents, who own their trailers but lease the land they sit on, have been given until the end of next March to move out so developers can erect more buildings on the prime property.
Folks say they got along well with park owner and landlord Anne Jugovich. But when she died in January, many said they feared her daughter might not want to keep the place going.
On the last day of March this year, residents were handed legal letters giving them a year to leave. If they remove their trailers, they each get $3,000 compensation. If they leave their trailers behind, they’ll be demolished.
“This is prime land in the middle of Cooksville, but it’s our home,” said Linda Banks, 64, wiping away tears that flow easily when she talks about her uncertain future.
She’s lived in a trailer for 16 years on a sliver of leased land just a 10-minute walk from the Cooksville GO station and nearby grocery stores and shops.
Residents’ monthly rents of between $400 and $500 include taxes, hydro and water. Most residents paid between $40,000 and $60,000 for their trailers and some have spent up to $30,000 more to upgrade them.
“It’s so devastating,” said Banks, who teaches typing part-time to children with learning disabilities in an office building nearby.
“This was a chance to own a little something. You know what real estate is like. It was a chance to move out here from the city and own your own place.
“Now, I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
Donnie Durdle is on a residents’ committee trying to wangle more money from the trailer park owners.
He said the $3,000 offered so far won’t begin to cover the expenses of those who can move their trailers or those who’ll be forced to leave them behind. Rent for even small apartments nearby are double what residents have been paying for their leased land.
“With $3,000, what can you do and where can you move? What … do you want us to cry?”
Durdle, 46, said the nearest trailer park where he could find a vacancy is west of Guelph, but it was accepting only senior citizens or trailers made in 1995 or later. His 35-year-old unit, worth more than $40,000, doesn’t make the cut.
“It’s sickening,” he said. “Why don’t they just leave us alone and let us live?”
A lawyer for the trailer park said the money offered is fair.
“If they have complaints, let them complain,” said Jack Ditkofsky of the Toronto firm Blaney McMurtry. He said the trailer park doesn’t mesh with plans for the area established by the City of Mississauga.
Mayor Hazel McCallion agreed. “As council, we’ve designated that, down the road, when the landowner decides that they don’t wish to run a trailer camp any more, it will be high density. Period.”
Ward 7 Councillor Nando Iannicca called the park “a wonderful community” which has caused the city no problems over the years. He said the move for residents would be a “dreadful dislocation.”
Eighteen-year resident Rocky Cloutier, 63, said getting his eviction notice was “the saddest day of my life.”
“I just put a lot of money to upgrade my trailer,” he said. “I planned to live here a long time.
“We should have known something would happen when the landlady died, but for them it’s just a business decision. We’re losing our homes, we’re losing our lifestyle, our way of living for years.”
For Veronica Brooks, it’s the place where she grew up and where she still returns each day to look after her disabled mother. “My mother has been here 21 years,” said the 30-year-old mother of two. “My father died right here in this trailer. It’s not much, but he worked for it.
“I don’t know where I can put my mother. My townhouse is already full of people.
“Here, we’re a community. We all know each other and look after each other. It’s home.
“What are we going to do when all this changes?”
