Some Periwinkle Mobile Home Park residents still don't have a place to call home as deadline looms
PHOENIX - Time is almost up for the residents of Periwinkle Mobile Home Park owned by Grand Canyon University as the land their homes are on have changed zoning rules.
The remaining residents have just a day to move out after they were warned many months ago, and the night before the deadline on May 27, some say they still have nowhere to go.
The residents of three mobile home parks in Phoenix – Weldon Court, Periwinkle and Las Casitas – are being forced out because the owners of these properties have decided on a land use change.
"It's just aggravating. It's hard to pack and everything when you get older," Esther Cook said.
Moving is stressful, and when you're not the one making the decision to leave, it's even worse.
"We're both epileptic, so we've got to be careful and not get worked up. It's rough. I don't want either one of us to have a seizure and end up in the hospital. It's scaring me," Cook said.
She and her husband have lived in the Periwinkle next to GCU for almost 20 years, but that's about to change.
The university plans to turn the area into a campus expansion project.
Phoenix City Council did not stop evictions at 3 mobile home parks in the city
Residents at three mobile home parks in the City of Phoenix are now forced to pack up and move out, after a vote by the Phoenix City Council on Mar. 22. While the city approved a $2.5 million fund to help residents, they did not adopt a motion that would have stopped the evictions. FOX 10's Stephanie Bennett reports.
Cook is now just waiting for the city to come through with movers and take her trailer to another mobile home park, but with the holiday weekend, she doesn't know when that day will be.
"I've had a spot since last July and paid for and everything. They should have had us moved," she said.
Others, unfortunately, don't have a new place to call home just yet.
"I have to go. The university said ‘go.’ I had 24 years living here, and the university gets this plan and says ‘go,’" a resident said.
Those without a place to live are spending the long Memorial Day Weekend searching for a new one.
"We don't have another option. We have to go."