Lockport rent strikers visit other Cook parks | Local News | niagara-gazette.com

2022-06-29 06:52:52 By : Ms. Tiffan S

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Organizer Yvonne Maldonado speaks to Applewood Estates resident, Milton Hinkley Jr., about his rights as a resident during a visit to the Medina facility on Monday.  (Photograph by Benjamin Joe)

Organizer Yvonne Maldonado speaks to Applewood Estates resident, Milton Hinkley Jr., about his rights as a resident during a visit to the Medina facility on Monday.  (Photograph by Benjamin Joe)

Residents of Ridgeview Manufactured Homes Park in Newfane were busy over the weekend into Monday visiting other parks in the area, including two in Lockport and another in Medina, all of which are owned by Cook Properties, the largest MH Park owner in the state.

Currently, the Ridgeview association is on a rent strike against Cook Properties and has been withholding rent since May. This stems from another rent strike in March of 2022 which was ended when Jeff Cook, owner of Cook Properties, promised residents that their concerns would be addressed.

A month later, a sewage issue involving waste water being pushed out of the pipes into resident’s lawns, also pushed residents to return to the strike until real repairs and improvements were made.

Yvonne Maldonado, the organizer for an advocacy group called MHAction in New York, had thrown down the gauntlet at a recent Ridgeview MH Association meeting, saying she was looking for volunteers to continue to wage battle against Cook by canvassing other local parks.

“MHAction is a growing national movement of residents that live in manufactured communities,” Maldonado said, noting that she too lived in a manufactured home, six-hours away from those at Ridgeview.

In the days that followed, the group was kicked out of Suburban Rapids Mobile Home on Saturday, according to Ridgeview MH Association President Sharon Ruth, who saw live wires had fallen on the rooftop of one of the homes.

“We were kicked out,” she said when this reporter caught up to her and the rest of the group at Applewood Estates in Medina on Monday.

Upon arrival, Maldonado reiterated her role as an MHAction worker.

“We’re here bringing awareness to families and communities living in manufactured homes suffering with poor maintenance issues, infrastructure issues, trees falling on their heads, sewage backing up and the quality of water,” she said. “It’s really bad. You’ve got children here and we’ve got to band together.”

Maldonado noted that the local governments all the way to the federal level should be acting to keep companies like Cook Properties accountable.

“MHAction works with nine other states,” she said.

If the mood at the home association’s meeting on Thursday was any indication, the residents of Ridgeview were not about to stop holding Cook accountable and would continue to “band together.”

At the meeting, Attorney Sean MacKenzie advised residents to stay the course even as residents found 30-day notices on their doorstep. MacKenzie said he’d been on both sides of the argument, both for and against manufactured homes’ residents, and will fight for the residents of Ridgeview.

“If they file evictions with the Newfane Town Court – if some of you have been served in the last few days – they must wait at least 30 days before filing,” MacKenzie said. “Knowing Newfane Court the way I do, the earliest any of you would get served with eviction papers, that could end up at a hearing, is at least 75 and probably closer to 100 (days) from today (June 23).”

Jerry, 22, and his wife, Mikayla Gifford, 23, have been living at Ridgeview MH for two years now.

“We bought it as a project and ended up living here,” Mikayla said.

The couple, who work as a landscaper and interior decorator, respectively, said the home association was very helpful for them and had “a lot of knowledge” and that they intend on sticking to the rent strike.

"It’s not like we want to withhold rent,” Jerry said. “But it goes both ways.”

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