CLEVELAND — The grand vision to create a lakeside park on Cleveland's east side is one step closer to becoming a reality, according to the Western Reserve Land Conservancy.
On Tuesday, it received a $10 million grant from the Mandel Foundation to advance the project, but there's controversy about relocating a mobile home community to make way for the park.
The Euclid Beach Mobile Home Community in Cleveland's Collinwood neighborhood has already known since February of this year that it will be shut down in August 2024. The land conservancy, which owns the facility, says it will use more than half of the new $10 million grant to generously compensate the people they're relocating.
"My primary goal is to make sure that the people who live in the mobile park are taken care of," Western Reserve Senior Vice President Matt Zone said. "I feel really confident and comfortable, and what gives me energy is to know that we're going to create a world-class regional park that is going to attract tens of millions of dollars of investment in the short term, hundreds of millions of dollars investments in the long term. And the people who live in the community, they deserve it, because on the in the east side of Cleveland, they don't have this type of quality park."
The envisioned park will be the result of unifying Euclid Beach Park, Villa Angela Park, and Wildwood Park in North Collinwood. Zone tells 3News closing down the mobile home community is essential to make room for the lakeside park.
124 lived-in mobile units will be displaced in the process. Zone says they'll use the Mandel Foundation grant money to fully pay to move the units to wherever tenants would like them moved.
For homes that can't be physically moved because of legalities, old age, or poor condition, Western Reserve will appraise it and pay a fair market price for it. Zone claims they'll also cover all moving expenses and give tenants hardship compensation as well as connect them to strong social support, including affordable housing organizations and social workers.
"We want this to be holistic so that there's a safety net underneath these individuals," Zone continued. "We're not just telling them, 'You're out there on your own.' We know that would be an untenable situation, and we're going to wrap an unprecedented amount of resources and support and organizations to make sure that the transition is as smooth as possible."
Still, one tenant told WKYC she moved to the mobile community seven years ago and never planned to leave.
"I plan to retire here, grandkids and all. All that's gone," Monica Cater said. "Just to replace one of the dreams in the home, I don't think any package probably will compensate that, as of this moment."
Attorney Michael Russell with Legal Aid Society of Cleveland is representing about 40 tenants in the community, specifically those who are part of the United Residents of Euclid Beach Association. He says until they know specifics about the compensation packages, they can't call anything just or fair.
"More resources is good news, of course, but how those resources are applied and who determines how those resources are applied is really what's important," he explained. "We're representing Euclid Beach and supporting their efforts to have a say in how this process plays out.
"We haven't filed a lawsuit. We hope that a lawsuit won't be necessary, but they have to be included in determining how resources are spent to satisfy their own needs. They're experts in their own circumstances."
3News asked Western Reserve exactly how much compensation each tenant would get. They told us that will be determined on a case-by-case basis, and that those figures would remain private between themselves and the tenants.