Williston RV Evictions | Video

Evan Kruegel | 8/14/2012

On September 1, people in Williston will officially be banned from living in RVs or campers inside city limits. That means hundreds of people are about to be forced out of town. People are scrambling to find open lots for their RVs outside of town before the September 1 deadline, but there simply aren`t any available. A huge RV park north of town was supposed to be completed by September 1, but it`s still under construction, and people are starting to get worried.

For the estimated 400 people living out of RV`s and campers in Williston, it`s almost time to get out of town.

"If you are living in a camper in someone`s backyard, you need to be making plans to move in the next two weeks, because we are going to be enforcing that ordinance," said Mayor Ward Koeser.

One of those individuals is Dan Corona, who lives with his wife and their daughter Lexi inside their RV.

"It was some rough living at the beginning, but now in the RV it`s a lot better. But now they`ve got the law coming up on the first and we don`t know where to go."

They`ve been trying to find a place to live, but every RV park they`ve checked is full. And the new park isn`t quite finished yet.

"Our plan is to wait until the RV park is done, but we`ve heard it`s not even going to be ready by the 1st. So we don`t really know what we`re going to do now."

The new park will have 700 lots, but only 180 of those will be available by early September. That means over 200 people will have no place to live.

"It`s going to be close. If we`re a few days off and the park isn`t quite ready I think the police will be flexible. But we are going to start enforcing it around the first of September," Koeser said.

For the Corona family, that might mean having to head back home. Not ideal timing for a move, considering Lexi starts school in just over a week.

"I think they should have had those places in before they put the law in. Or when the law was passed those should have been finished. We should at least have until September 30th, because the law goes into effect the first. You`d think those places would have been done already."

For now, Corona and other residents living out of their RVs will simply wait and see. If lots at the new park aren`t available by September 1, they`ll have no choice but to leave town.

City officials did tell me they want this to be as smooth of a transition as possible, so they`re doing all they can to have enough open lots available outside of town before the September 1 deadline.

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