Former Lakemill Lodge Tenant Gets Legal Victory and Some Money Back
A recap of our recent hyperlocal original reporting plus bonus content.
While the stairwells of the Lakemill Lodge can now reopen for former tenants to go up and retrieve their belongings, one of them also recently reported a legal victory.
She says a judge in civil court this week is forcing the motel’s owners to pay back her rent all the way back to June, when initial inspections failed in her room, and her current rent, totaling $3600. She will be going to Lakemill Lodge this weekend, hoping to retrieve all her belongings, and end this nightmarish chapter.
While she has gone back to Siegel Suites on 7th street where she used to live before Lakemill, where she says it’s a smaller space for a higher cost, she is looking into an apartment on Evans Avenue now with a monthly rent of less than $1000. The City of Reno is offering her move-in assistance as part of help being offered to former Lakemill residents.
The Lakemill was shut down abruptly in late October, due to safety hazards, with police rushing tenants out, telling them they should take belongings they needed for just a few days.
The abrupt evacuation has brought renewed scrutiny upon the Northern Nevada Public Health Board, which currently consists of outgoing Sparks councilman Kristopher Dahir, who skipped out on today’s meeting, Reno Councilman Devon Reese, County Commissioner Mariluz Garcia, as well as non-elected appointees and a physician. Â
Former tenants have complained the decision to force them out was ill prepared, leaving them in a lurch.
In early November, former Lakemill tenants we spoke with were left scrambling for housing, some of them sleeping outside, some of them kicked out of a Motel 6 where they had gone, while others, who have already been able to go back inside the Lakemill Lodge, said some of their possessions were stolen.
One of them who refused to leave was shot at by police, injured and charged with assault with a deadly weapon.Â
Our Recent Reporting
Displeasure Escalates Over Uneven Access to Local Soccer Fields
Nancy Roman, from UNR Dining to Her Own Chula's Tacos Food Truck
Jennifer Flynn, Recently Unhoused and Now a Librarian, Speaking up for Local Libraries
