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Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401
Iowa City concludes voluntary relocation program for Forest View residents
All 80 eligible households received assistance under the $1.3M program
Feb. 20, 2023 12:02 pm
Forest View resident Margarita Baltazar speaks through a megaphone during a March 20, 2022, event held to support residents calling for repairs to the community and fair treatment at Forest View Trailer Park in Iowa City. (Geoff Stellfox/The Gazette)
Forest View Mobile Home Court in Iowa City, pictured in 2019. (Jim Slosiarek/The Gazette)
IOWA CITY — Residents who were living in Forest View Mobile Home Court have all vacated the property and received relocation assistance from the city of Iowa City.
The city used federal pandemic aid, supplemented with local funds, for a $1.3 million voluntary relocation program intended to help residents of the mobile home park find safe, stable housing ahead of the park’s closure.
The City Council unanimously approved the program last April. The city was not legally obligated to provide such assistance, but council members expressed the “moral obligation” to help residents.
Residents living in the park off N. Dubuque Street and south of Interstate 80 were promised new homes as part of a deal the city made with a developer in June 2019.
The plan was to develop 73 acres that included the mobile home park into a mix of housing and commercial space. The mobile home residents were promised first consideration for the manufactured and multifamily housing that was going to be built there.
The proposed development did not move forward due to the COVID-19 pandemic, landowners last year told The Gazette. They said the ramshackle mobile park would not survive another winter.
Households living in Forest View when the conditional zoning agreement was approved in 2019 were eligible for the aid. The city partnered with the Center for Worker Justice to help with translation and case management services for residents as they looked for new housing.
Of the 80 eligible households, 54 were living in the mobile home park as of May 2022 and vacated ahead of the Dec. 9 deadline, grants manager Cassandra Gripp wrote in a city memo. The other 26 households had vacated before May 2022.
The city used just over $1 million in American Rescue Plan Act dollars and $232,470 in local funds to pay the eligible households $15,750 in relocation assistance, the memo said.
About 57 percent of households relocated within the city, and 28 percent relocated somewhere else in Johnson County. At least 7 percent moved out of Johnson County but stayed in Iowa, according to the memo. The remaining 8 percent either relocated outside the state or did not report their new location.
Iowa City received $18.3 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds and has approved $6.4 million in projects to date.
Comments: (319) 339-3155; izabela.zaluska@thegazette.com
