Posted on 02/23/2017 10:09:59 AM PST by kathsua
Rocky Cole is stuck between a rock and a hard place.
The city of Hutchinson has told him he and his wife, Lisa, can’t continue living in their home because of code violations, but he is struggling to afford to make the needed changes because he is on a fixed income.
He has lived in the home at 211 N. Chemical St., owned by his mother, Myrna Cole, for about 11 years, he estimated. Unable to work full-time because of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, Rocky Cole relies on Social Security disability income. Because of that limited income – and because Myrna Cole disconnected the gas and water after having to evict squatters from the house before Rocky Cole moved in – he has gone without water or gas utilities.
In place of those utilities, he buys water in bulk at the grocery store, washes up at a welcoming church and uses space heaters in the house.
Cole said it hadn’t been an issue until recently, when he saw a new neighbor talking with city officials.
“I’ve been there all this time,” he said. “I didn’t have no trouble with nobody in that area until he moved in.”
On Dec. 28, he received a notice from the city’s building inspection department, declaring the house uninhabitable and telling him he couldn’t continue living there without water and gas service. He said the city also cited the condition of the house’s siding as an issue.
City codes require homes have water and electric service, sewage systems and permanent heating systems, building official Trent Maxwell said. Heating systems can be gas or electric, but must be permanent. Space heaters do not qualify. Structural issues, such as a roof that doesn’t keep out rain, also can make a home uninhabitable, he said.
Enforcement of a notice that a home is uninhabitable depends on the situation, Maxwell said. In the event of squatters in a house, the city may have it boarded up by a contractor after police make sure nobody is inside.
On the other hand, if a lawful occupant won’t comply with a notice, the city may take the case to court to seek an order, although Maxwell described that as a last resort. The city prefers to see property owners make repairs instead.
City Manager John Deardoff said Hutchinson City Council adopted the International Property Maintenance Code in February 2011. It was a contentious issue that arose from the recommendations of a housing needs assessment Hutchinson commissioned in 2009. That study was prompted by the deterioration of housing in the core of Hutchinson, which was starting to spread, but not any specific cases, he said.
Rocky Cole takes exception to the declaration that the house is uninhabitable, and he said he has been spending time both at the house and staying with family since getting the notice.
“I’ve been staying there anyway,” he said. “I have to have somewhere to stay.”
Myrna Cole strenuously objects to the city declaring the home uninhabitable, or even having the power to do so.
“If you own your own home, how can they come in and tell you what you have to do or how you can live?” she asked.
“On a rental house, I could see that, but on your own house?” she added. “The thing that’s wrong is putting someone out of their house.”
She doesn’t live in the house, but she allows her son to live in it rent-free, she said.
City Council member Steve Dechant, whose district includes Rocky Cole’s house, said issues like the Coles’ situation aren’t black and white, but the city has to come down on the side of health and safety, and a lack of heat and water – and consequently, sewer – present risks to others.
“The problem government has is we’re not a social service agency; we’re an enforcement agency,” Dechant said.
Myrna Cole said she has looked into programs that could help restore the house, but she found they had too many strings attached.
“There’s things they have to offer, but they all cost money,” she said.
Staff at Interfaith Housing Services told The News that many of their repair programs are restricted to owner-occupied homes, which would exclude Rocky Cole’s home, since the deed is in his mother’s name. And Rocky said he spoke to the Salvation Army, but its programs didn’t match up with his needs.
So efforts to fix up the house have been slow. Myrna Cole said her husband, who died in 2015, used to maintain the house, but he had been ill for the last seven years of his life. Still, she said, it hasn’t declined enough to be uninhabitable.
“It was livable then, and it’s livable now,” she said.
Regardless, the family is trying to fix the issues the city raised in December.
She got a building permit from the city to repair siding on the house Feb. 6, and Rocky Cole and his adult son are working to put up the new siding as time allows.
On Thursday, they got some good news and some bad news. The good news was that after All Pro Plumbing, Heating & Air addressed a couple of leaks, the house’s gas lines are ready to have gas hooked back up.
The bad news is that a city inspector told them the heating stove needs replaced with one that has current safety features and the hot water heater needs some repairs before gas can be turned back on. Those will be expenses that aren’t budgeted for and that the family doesn’t have the funds to address immediately.
If they can get those resolved, the next step will be to get water service restored to the house. Rocky Cole prefers not to think about what will happen if the city’s issues can’t be addressed and he is forced to move out.
“I don’t know. Be homeless, I guess,” he said. “That’s why I’m trying to get done what I’m doing.”
Most cities have grants available to help folks like this. Why aren’t they trying to help?? They just love that power.
But if he were an illegal he could probably get free or subsidized housing.
Said the local gov't fascist.
Why have no local churches stepped in to help with needed repairs?
James 1:27 Pure and undefiled religion before God the Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their misfortune and to keep oneself unstained by the world.
While they these folks are neither widows nor orphans I believe this extends to the infirm and destitute as well.
“I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”.....................
I wonder why nobody helps this guy.
If he was my neighbor I would offer to help him.
He’s probably not very neighborly.
He cleans up at a church. I wonder if they have offered help.
“If you own your own home, how can they come in and tell you what you have to do or how you can live?” she asked.
“On a rental house, I could see that, but on your own house?” she added. “The thing that’s wrong is putting someone out of their house.”
The City cannot control them is the problem.
I understand the water maybe, but why would they require permanent heating? I know the answer, but these local and state authorities need to be watched for overreaching just as much as the federal government.
1. Just because you turn the water on at the street doesn't mean it is used. You just turn off the main shut off in your house and/or never turn on a faucet and never use a drop. What good did saying you have water to the house do?
2. Just because you have electric to the house does not mean you have to use it. You can just shut off all the circuit breakers in your house and not use an electron of electricity. What good did saying your house has electricity do?
3. Repeat for gas, furnace, hot water heater, etc.
So stupid...
Churches should care for their own destitute first, then if funds are available and/or if God allows, to help in the community as God leads...a church could go out of business or crazy trying to decide which of a community’s destitute they should help first....maybe another family is more needful than this guy...how is a church to decide on any case outside of it’s own membership?
I suspect its more that communities want the houses they may have to seize to be in sellable order!
So he buys water in bulk.
But is that enough water to flush his toilets?
As a small boy, I remember living with my grandpa, aunt, mom and sister in a very small house with board floors that had spaces between the boards where you could sweep the dust through them to the dirt below. We had no running water, and we had a pot belly stove my granpa burned anthracite coal in. We did get REA electricity so we had a light bulb in every room and a radio. Outhouse out back and a well about 20 ft. outside off the kitchen, and I got my baths every few days in a galvanized tub on the floor by the stove.
When/If the EMPs come, Zombies or whatever, I wonder how all them bureaucrats and their codes gonna fare?
Not that difficult, review requests for assistance and available funds, pray about the needs and act accordingly.
Wouldn’t helping those outside their own congregation be extending the love of God and be outreach?
Did Jesus only reach out to his own?
Habitat for Humanity could step in.
It’s better that he should be homeless or living in a tent down by the train tracks than to live in his own house if he doesn’t live up to the dictates of the bureaucracy.
Perhaps a coalition of churches? Being Catholic, we help a lot of non-parishoners and non-Catholics all the time. We also have the groups larger than the parish that help even more. (Diocesan, state, regional, national, international...) I would hope a Catholic parish would be around to pitch in with another group to help get things done.
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