Thirty-five days after a Cambridge, Ont. man said his RV was mistakenly towed from a Ministry of Transportation Ontario (MTO) carpool lot, the vehicle remains impounded. On Aug. 6, Kevin Moss said he returned to the Cambridge lot near Townline Road and Hwy 401 to learn his RV had been towed. Unlike the dozens of other trailers and motorhomes that had been parked in the lot for months, Moss claimed he had only been parked for four days before it was removed. The MTO rules allow a vehicle to remain at the commuter lot for up to five days before it can be towed. “We weren’t tagged for 120 hours yet. We were coming back to move it to a private location, and it was gone,” said Moss when he first spoke with CTV News on Aug. 6. How he can get it back At that time Abrams Towing, the company ordered to remove the overstayed vehicles, said it would cost $644 to get his RV back. Moss said he is currently unemployed and collects $733 a month from Ontario Works, so he is unable to pay the impound fee. Now, 35 days later, Moss believes the bill is over $2,000. “There’s no way I could come up with that money. I’m trying [to start a] GoFundMe and some other ways of getting some funds to release my property from Abram’s Towing,” he said. Moss and his partner are currently living with a friend in Cambridge, but he said that arrangement may not last. “It’s not exactly stable. The person I’m staying with, a friend of ours, she’s getting evicted too,” he explained. “We’re helping her through her hard times. So it’s just all a big ball of stress.” Exploring housing options Without his RV or a place with a friend, Moss said he will be forced to turn to a shelter or public housing. However, researchers say these options are much more costly for the municipal and provincial government. “We know that emergency shelters cost upwards of $2,000 a month to stay in a shelter. We know staying in a hospital costs anywhere from around $13,000 a month. These are all much more expensive than social housing, which costs roughly $600 a month,” said Erin Dej a professor of criminology at Wilfrid Laurier University. Dej said although not ideal, finding solutions outside the shelter system is often leads to better results. “The solutions that are more economically viable are also often the right things to do, not spending money on police and tickets and things like that, but actually supporting people to find housing that’s cheaper and better for everybody involved,” said Dej. On Aug. 6, the Office of the Minister of Transportation said they were aware of the situation and were working to learn more details. Following a conversation that day, CTV News has repeatedly asked for updates or comments from the Minister’s Office, but have not received a reply in the last five weeks. We also reached out to Abrams Towing but did not hear back.
