The 150 residents of the North Bay Trailer Court just outside Prince Albert have been told to leave.
They received eviction letters May 30 stating they and their homes need to be off the property by August 1.
Kelly Jackson has lived in the trailer court for 30 years and had planned to retire there.
“We have to leave our homes. It’s very disheartening,” Jackson said. “We don’t have any choice but to walk away.”
The sewage lagoon for the trailer park is out of date and no longer meets the requirements set forth by Saskatchewan’s Water Security Agency, and without a new lagoon the park can’t remain open.
The owner of the park, James Wankel, bought land in the area and had a plan to build a new lagoon but after a meeting where neighbours voiced their concerns, the RM of Buckland voted against it.
Wankel made his frustrations clear in a letter to the tenants.
“I have never had the door slammed in my face so harshly,” Wankel said in his letter. “The RM of Buckland, (Water Security Agency), City of Prince Albert, and local government officials have done absolutely nothing to help this process.”
Veeda Boudreault has lived in the trailer court for six years and says Wankel put forward other solutions after the lagoon was denied, including individual septic systems, but those ideas were turned down as well.
Boudreault says she believed a solution would be found and even with the eviction hanging overhead she is doing everything she can to get help for her and her neighbours.
“We’re losing everything, so we can just walk away or we can go out fighting for our homes and our families. To lose everything, it’s just not fair.”
Boudreault said she has heard of other trailer parks receiving financial help from their provincial governments in forced moves, so she has reached out to all levels of government for help or compensation for their homes.
