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Mobile home residents granted reprieve after AG's office intervenes

AG meets with mobile home park residents.JPG
Posted at 5:27 PM, Oct 10, 2019
and last updated 2019-10-10 22:24:29-04

INDIANAPOLIS — In August, residents of the I-70 Mobile Home Park on the city's southwest side were told they had two months to get out.

After RTV6 reports brought the issue to light, the state filed a lawsuit and Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill's office sought a temporary restraining order against the owner of the mobile home park to prevent the residents from being forced out of their homes. On Thursday, a Marion County judge granted that request.

The owners of the mobile home park, Blue Lakes Inc., told residents they had to either move their mobile homes from the property or they would be demolished on Oct. 15. Residents called RTV6 looking for help after being left with a list of questions and few answers on why they had to leave the property the residents themselves owned.

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On Thursday, Hill came to the mobile home park himself and went knocking door-to-door handing out notices that say not so fast.

"All of a sudden I'm told we've got to leave, just out from nowhere," resident John Hale said. "It's putting people in peril because they can't afford to move their trailers. So a lot of them are kind of just moving in with other people and some of them are in the streets right now."

All of that might change.

Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill filed a lawsuit this week, accusing the company of deceptive consumer sales, knowingly violating the consumer sales act, not obtaining permits to sell mobile homes in Marion County and exploiting senior citizens who paid for mobile homes they never received titles to, as required by Indiana law.

"The owner of I-70 mobile lot has neither secured a permit nor done anything to affect a transfer of title," Hill told RTV6. "Therefore, placing the consumers or the homeowners into a heck of a bind by demanding that they leave without providing them with the wherewithal to take their property with them."

The temporary restraining order prevents Blue Lakes from closing or excavating the park and shutting off any utilities for reisdents until after an Oct. 18 hearing when a judge will decide what happens next.

"These residents were facing extreme disruption in their lives that they had done nothing to deserve," Hill said. "We are committed to working toward a resolution that protects people's basic rights to be treated fairly under the law."