About 30 families living at Crossroads Motel began looking for a new home Wednesday when they were notified power would be shut off at the motel at noon today. IMMEDIATE help for the displaced families literally out in the cold apparently rests with local churches, individually and the Iola Ministerial Association through the Community Pantry. A VISIT and telephone call to the motel by Register reporters early today got no response from its owner, Kiran Gandhi.
City Clerk Roxanne Hutton said notices were made at each room.
“Some of the people were packing and said they were going to move in with friends or families,” she said, although some may have difficulty finding a place to stay.
Hutton said payment was tardy for the utility billing for December.
The city’s policy is to give residents 30 days to pay after their due date, with 5 percent penalty added.
“Then we give them another 12 days before shutting off electricity,” she said.
Following that schedule, the power would have been severed on Tuesday, but it was put off because of the winter storm that hit Iola that morning, and “then we gave them another day because so many families were involved,” Hutton said.
The motel wasn’t alone in having utilities shut off for failure to pay a bill.
“We shut off 22 residences Wednesday, but most of them then paid bills and had power restored,” Hutton said.
“We have about $2,500 to help with rent and things like that,” said the Rev. Phil Honeycutt, who oversees distribution at the pantry, but allowed that all resources couldn’t be committed because others will have needs in the future. “We also have about $700 from the Salvation Army, part of which we may be able to use.”
Honeycutt said IMA might be able to provide a night or two lodging in another local motel or pay for bus fare to Joplin, where there is a homeless shelter. He said motel lodging would cost about $50 a night, about the same for a bus ticket to Joplin.
“We’ll do what we can to help,” Honeycutt said.
Hope Unlimited has limited bed space in its shelter, but whomever it might help would have to have had some history of domestic or sexual abuse, said Director Dorothy Sparks.
“We got a call from a church about 5 o’clock Wednesday about the motel closing and we’re going to meet with (representatives of) some churches today to see what we might be able to do,” Sparks added. “We could provide blankets, some things like that, but that wouldn’t help too much.”
Gandhi, who moved to the United States from India with his family in 1980, has owned the motel since 2001.
Out in the cold after power cut
