There can be only one!
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There can be only one!
The FBI is aware of the Anchorage Community Land Trust Insurance Fraud scam
ERIK HILL / Anchorage Daily News
C.K. McKellar, a retired Las Vegas bartender and Santa Claus, has been living at John's Motel and RV Park on $950 a month in Social Security and disability checks.
Cheap digs were last resort for 40 in Mountain View
Published:
April 25, 2007
Last Modified: April 25, 2007 at 02:06 PM
No one chooses to live at John's Motel and RV Park.
Around there, when the wind blows a certain way, it carries the stink of urine. The water runs brown. Suspicious wads of toilet paper dot the mud between the moldering fifth-wheels.
The people live there because they have to. At the first of the month, there were 40 of them, more or less, making homes in crippled campers and run-down motel rooms. In a town where cheap rent starts at $750 a month, a family can live at John's on Mountain View Drive for $450. And the tenants will tell you it doesn't matter if you have a dog, a drinking problem or a record.
Which is why they don't want to move.
But they're being evicted.
Anchorage Community Land Trust, an organization trying to fix up the neighborhood, took on the old property with plans to upgrade it or tear it down. After a year of maintenance problems, it sent out eviction letters in early April, saying the residents had a month to find new homes.
As of Tuesday, only about half had moved on.
Others were choosing to stay and fight with the help of a lawyer.
Remaining tenants fear they'll end up in shelters. Aside from being low-income, many of them say they have other issues, from substance abuse, to multiple pets, to criminal records. That makes it hard to find housing.
The place is a motel and RV park and was never meant to be anybody's long-term home, said George Cannelos, chairman of the Land Trust board. The trust is trying to work with the residents to relocate.
"It's the right thing to do to help people find another place to live," Cannelos said. " My guess is you'll never even see that motel open again."
If the RV park could have a mayor, it would be 56-year-old C.K. McKellar, a retired Las Vegas bartender and mall Santa Claus, who lives in a small RV with his husky, Sophia. He gets $950 a month in Social Security and disability. Having Sophia, his closest companion, makes him a poor candidate for public housing.
In the year he's lived in the park, which is only a few blocks from the Land Trust office, he's seen drug busts, children riding their bikes in garbage-tainted puddles and a pregnant woman living with no heat in the middle of winter. He's gone without water and electricity, he said. He's watched sewage burble from the shower drain in the communal bathroom.
He complained, he said. But nothing happened. Now things have deteriorated too much, putting poor people in the streets, he said.
"They neglected the property but they were more than happy to take the revenue," he said. "We made our complaints. We'd pass them on, but she (the property manager) said the board didn't want to put any more money into the park."
Angela Jimenez, a local activist and Land Trust board member, said that no one is trying to make a profit. As soon as the nonprofit board found out about the problems at the park, it saw that it wasn't a place where people should be living. The problems were beyond maintenance and people needed to move for their own good.
"We are not here to ruin anybody's life," Jimenez said. "Our interest is in the benefit of the community."
RV parks are a fading source of low-cost housing for those on the edge of homelessness. According to the 2000 Census, about 90 vans and RVs were being used as primary residences in Anchorage. Housing advocates say the number of people living in RVs may have grown recently along with ballooning rents.
"It used to be there were seasonal places people could go," said Kris Duncan, a planner at Alaska Housing Finance Corp. "With the diminishing land, though, those opportunities are going away."
It won't be easy for the Land Trust to find someplace else for the John's RV tenants, Duncan said. Some people wait more than a year for housing assistance.
Last week, in a basement conference room at the Mountain View Boys and Girls Club, John's RV people sat in dirty orange chairs waiting to talk to an investigator with the Law office of Darryl Jones.
"You walk into my room and it smells like a sewer," said Mystie Brock, who was living with her dog and husband in a motel room where a sewage flood soaked the carpet. Eventually a manager brought in a heater and sucked up the water, but the smell remains, she said.
She's been getting headaches ever since and her husband has stomach trouble, she said. But her health insurance has a $1,000 deductible, which she couldn't afford, so neither has seen a doctor.
Stephanie Tate and her husband Kenneth Tate Jr. have been living in the park with four young children-- Valarie, 9, Kenneth III, 7, Kevin, 4, and Savannah, 3.
The Tates have criminal convictions for a car title scam a few years ago, which they say makes it hard to find housing. Stephanie is four months pregnant. They are trying to turn their life around and find work. Living in the park made her worry about the kids, she said.
"You go inside for one minute and then you think, "Oh my God, I have to worry about them playing in sewage," Stephanie said.
The family's RV flooded when the pipes froze, and now they are living in a hotel until Friday on borrowed money, she said. Six people crammed into a single room, and they feel lucky. The spring temperatures were making the RV's stench hard to handle, she said.
"The people are struggling to get the $450 together each month to just barely survive," said Jones, the lawyer. "To move is a virtual impossibility; they are one step above Brother Francis (shelter)."
The Land Trust office is just a few blocks away from the park, but the board didn't know about the park's problems until late March, when the property manager was fired for suspected illegal activity, said Cannelos.
The Land Trust, established several years ago with the help of a grant from the Rasmuson Foundation, has not had an easy go in Mountain View.
The nonprofit has been wrapped up in a number of losing projects including Noble's Diner, which recently closed, Color Creek art studio, which is now vacant, and the Sadler's Home Furnishings building, which, after a multimillion-dollar remodel, is having a hard time attracting tenants.
The trust's latest CEO, Suzanne Little, resigned from her position on Monday, Cannelos said
The board wasn't focused on John's RV because it was preoccupied with other problems, Cannelos said. Jimenez toured the park on Tuesday. She is confident the people living there will find new homes, she said. The Land Trust has a social worker on the job. Some tenants could be given extra time if they need it, she said.
The hotel is very old and was never in great shape. The situation would have been handled sooner had the board known, she said. She questioned why residents didn't get in touch by going to the office until after they got eviction notices.
"The only thing we are guilty of is maybe lack of communication," she said.
McKellar says the Land Trust's lack of attention over the last year is unforgivable, and tenants should be compensated.
"If you are going to come in and displace a community, you have to offer them something better," he said.
Daily News reporter Julia O'Malley can be reached at jomalley@adn.com or 257-4325.
Shame on you.
I told Greer to tell you ( The Mayor ) that the city should open up an empty warehouse which our tax dollars are heating anyway and let the Homeless stay there when there's a cold snap. She said " Hey that's a Great Idea". Well, when I called back 20 minutes later, and she said to me that she was sorry, (Greer said) they said, that there would be a "Liability Problem"
Well your right there is a Liability Problem! I think a Wrongful Death law suit is in order, and this action should be pursued against the City of Anchorage on behalf of Victor Rock Jr. I think that it is irresponsible for the City of Anchorage not addressing the immediate problems of the homeless. Now I told the Mayors office as well as the Homeless Coalition, that this was going to happen, but to no avail they were more interested in what was going to happen 10 years from now. Personally who cares what is going to happen 10 years from now.
It's obvious now that the helping of the Homeless is a situation that should be address now! Trust me when I say, the City of Anchorage and the Homeless Coalition will never forget the name of Victor Rock Jr., by the way how will you explain to his parents that you could have done something and but chose to do nothing.
Are you people that cold hearted, or are you afraid of losing your jobs. It saddens me to think that our society forgot the little guy. The person who can't take care of himself.
We as a society have a fiduciary obligation to look out for one another. and shame on you if you don't.
Greer, I commend for your instant assessment of the situation, and having the compassion. to speak from your heart. I Thank You for that. Subconsciously she was thinking of your best interest. Mr. Mayor.
Diane De-Santo, its evident that you didn't covey the significance of what the conference was regarding to the Mayor. The urgent and immediate help of those in need. Were you there, when I told the Coalition my thoughts, or were you? Diane De-Santo your Fired.
Hey Mr. Mayor just keep listening to your workers who really don't care one way or another if you sink or swim. Let them guide you, let them speak for you.
Greer, now that's the girl you want too listen to she speaks the truth and has compassion for other human beings.
This has up set me so much that I felt need the let the rest of the world know, as well as the 65 Mayors who signed that what ever pact to help the homeless, that when you are dealing with these homeless human beings, it has to be a one on one encounter. These folks can't be treated like they're cattle. You have to show them the way. Hey, it's Christmas haven't we learned something from Jesus, it doesn't hurt to 'b' kind.
I'm sure those 65 mayors are going to learn from your example Mr. Mayor, on what not to do. You the people who run the City of Anchorage are suppose look out for our best interest rich or poor.
See you on 60 Minutes. and don't forget to say a prayer for
Victor Rock Jr.