Residents of trailer park in northern Manitoba frustrated with looming eviction

An image from Google Maps in 2013 shows Timberland Trailer Court in The Pas, Man. (Google Maps)

Some northern Manitoba trailer park residents are calling for funds and more time to find housing after receiving an eviction notice requiring them to move out at the end of this summer.

The Timberland Trailer Court, located in The Pas and operated by Opaskwayak Cree Nation (OCN), informed residents of the park last week that they would have to vacate their homes by the end of August, as the park is being decommissioned. The trailer park has been there for 55 years.

“It’s just very disheartening, very heartbreaking that this group of people potentially has no care in the world of possibly adding to the homeless crisis in our community,” Gloria Ballantyne-Packo, a long-time resident of Timberland, said in a recent interview.

People living in the park include a mix of OCN band members and non-band members. The First Nation said the infrastructure has fallen into disrepair, and the nation is running a deficit maintaining the property.

“We’ve spent $1 million in the last 10 years just keeping up with the infrastructure, keeping the water going and sewer going and all that kind of stuff,” said OCN Councillor Edwin Jebb. “So, we’re losing money big-time.”

Kayleigh Lafontaine, whose aunt lives in the park, started a petition to ask for funding from OCN or another level of government to support people as they transition to new homes or to delay the closure.

“Simply put, there is not enough housing to support all of these folks in our communities,” Lafontaine said.

“In the rental market, there’s already a year waiting period for people who don’t have deadlines to be out from certain places by,” Ballantyne-Packo said.

Ballantyne-Packo and Lafontaine said a lot of the trailers can’t be moved, and non-OCN members are not receiving the same level of help as OCN members who are in talks with the First Nation to acquire housing in the community.

Lafontaine said many non-OCN residents and their families have lived at the park for years.

“They’ve lived there. They’ve invested there. They have memories there, and it feels very much like they’re being dismissed and not taken into consideration in these decisions,” Lafontaine said.

Jebb said OCN council will be speaking with non-OCN members in the wake of the closure.

“We will have individual meetings with all the tenants and try and work something out to see what kind of assistance we can give them,” he said, adding details have not been finalized.

Jebb said the final move-out date is likely to be at the end of September.

Jebb adds once everyone is moved and the site is decommissioned, OCN council will discuss plans for new housing but no plans have been announced.