CLEVELAND — In February of this year, more than 150 families living in the Euclid Beach Mobile Home Community were notified that they would have to move out.
The mobile homes sit on a prime location on Lake Erie between two parks.
The Western Reserve Land Conservancy, who bought the property from the previous landlord in 2021, intends to connect those two green spaces by removing the mobile homes.
Now, about a year from the park’s closing date, 124 families still remain.
One of those residents is Mary Johnson, who finds it hard to stay positive knowing she only has a year left in the place she thought she would retire.
“Every time I walk in my house now, I’m literally like emotionally paralyzed,” Johnson said.
The Western Reserve Land Conservancy took ownership of the property in 2021, after the previous owner expressed interest in selling the area to developers.
Leaders at WRLC said they bought the park to keep it in local hands and maintain they didn’t determine what they would do with it — until they went through a community engagement process in March and April of last year.
But in a 2019 letter that the Legal Aid Society of Greater Cleveland obtained through a public records request to Cleveland Metroparks, The conservancy’s CEO Rich Cochran was already discussing the displacement of residents with the property’s previous owner.
The letter states, in part, “We know that this is going to be a messy, expensive, legally complicated, and time consuming. We will have to endure a public battle, and this all comes at (a) great cost in terms of time, hard costs, and hassle factor. We think there will be approximately 162 people/families who will require relocation.”
For residents like Johnson, reading the letter felt like a blow.
She said she had a feeling this would happen as soon as the land was purchased.
“Our first question as residents was, 'OK, so how long do we have?'" she said. "It was probably one of the very first questions that came out, and they were like, ‘woah, woah, woah — nothing is set in stone.'"
WRLC declined to be interviewed for this story, but in a statement said, "For over 40 years, the City of Cleveland and the Collinwood neighborhood have tried to combine Euclid Beach, Villa Angela, and Wildwood Marina into a single public green space that will attract much-needed investment into the community and provide better access to our region’s greatest natural resource: Lake Erie. We purchased the property to keep it in local hands, to ensure it would not become expensive high-rise apartments, and to treat the residents of the Euclid Beach Mobile Home Community with the kindness and respect they deserve. Each resident’s situation is unique, and we are committed to continue working with them as they transition into alternative housing over the next 12 months.”
WRLC recently received a $10 million grant from the Mandel Foundation, which they said will be used to demolish abandoned units, get third party appraisals for the homes, and pay for moving expenses for residents and for the equitable hardship they've gone through.
They'll distribute the money on a case-by-case basis.
Johnson said she'd rather just stay in the place she finally found her peace.
"This spot is everything,” she said. “This is where I watch the sunset every night, and in the winter, I watch the sun set over the frozen lake. You get all the views. This is my sense of calm, my sense of peace."
The Western Reserve Land Conservancy plans to close the park in August of 2024.