Low Income Residents Of Troubled, 110-Room Motel Face The Boot After New Ownership Takeover; City To Begin Offering Relocation Assistance To Residents Terrified They'll End Up On Streets

In St. Petersburg, Florida, the Tampa Bay Times reports:

• Mary Ott, 55, lives in a room at the Mosley Motel with her two grandsons. Erik is 8. Sean is 11 and nonverbal autistic. They've lived at the 34th Street N motel since January, after her husband died of cancer.
  
  Those with nowhere else to go often end up at the Mosley.
  
  Now they — and everyone else who lives at the motel — have to find somewhere else to live.
  
  The motel's new owners served residents with legal notice of the change in ownership []. Altis Cardinal Storage acquired the property at 401 34th St. N from Julious Mosley on July 21.
  
  Cliff Smith, manager of veterans, social and homeless services for the city of St. Petersburg, said his staff wants to start relocating residents soon, before eviction proceedings start.
  
  But Smith said residents should have had much more time to prepare. He wanted to start helping them find new homes four months ago but said the old owner refused to let city officials visit the property to talk to people.
  
  "We knew it was coming," he said.
  
  The residents didn't.
  
  Julie Lythgoe, 52, who's lived at the property for nearly two years, said "very few" people knew the Mosley was changing hands. And with rumors of legal troubles lasting years, she said, they didn't have any reason to believe this was the time they would suddenly have to move.
  
  Smith said he thought if they did, he could have worked on finding them help sooner. "You have to understand we haven't had the ability to really communicate with them at all," he said.
  
  The only reason Mosley gave for barring city officials from the property, Smith said, was that the legal process was ongoing.
  
  ***
  Smith said he believes the city can help the Mosley's residents relocate within the next month. He hopes they don't stick around until they're evicted, which could make it much harder to apply for housing.
  
  ***
  The Mosley's 110 rooms have long provided a cheap home, often for the elderly and families. But it has also been repeatedly fined by the city's nuisance abatement board and visited by police officers.

For the story, see Those who live at St. Petersburg's Mosley Motel must leave their home — and soon.

For a follow-up story, see Mosley Motel residents getting help moving to safer housing (Residents need to leave by Sept. 16):

• More than a hundred St. Petersburg families living in the Mosley Motel are finally getting help getting placed into more permanent, safer housing. Most have been terrified they would wind up on the streets.