MEDFORD, Ore. — Over 20 adults and children were displaced this week after a Cave Junction motel was forced to close its doors.
The residents tell us they were given a little over a day’s notice to move all their stuff and get out.
Commissioners say the power was shut off on the property on Friday and it’s unclear when the motel will re-open.
“There’s like 5 or 6 families here because there’s no housing,” said Cave Junction resident, Leann Brame.
Brame was scrambling to find last-minute housing on Thursday after she and 23 other adults and children were forced to move out of a local motel.
“It’s a week before Christmas. We have a two-month-old baby and we only live here because we can’t afford to get into a house, so the reaction is pretty scary,” said Brame.
Josephine County Community Development Director Mark Stevenson says the county’s decision to condemn “Junction Inn” didn’t come at an ideal time, but was a health and safety emergency.
“There were children staying in the rooms permanently with their families, so it was a real serious situation,” said Stevenson.
He says the motel’s fire alarms weren’t working, the water may have been contaminated, and electrical cords were tampered with and exposed making the entire building a fire hazard.
“Separations between the space across the attic had been opened up to where if we did have a fire in that attic, it would have spread to the whole complex quite quickly,” said Stevenson.
Josephine County Commissioner Lily Morgan says the county reached out to the motel owner who lives down in California nine months ago.
“When they were given a list of things that were safety concerns, not one of them were addressed and more have been piled on since then,” she said.
Although Morgan acknowledges the decision displaced families right before the holidays, she says it’s amazing to see how the community came together to help secure shelter for the families in need.
“Most responses have been ‘thank you, this needed to happen a long time ago,'” said Commissioner Morgan.
County officials say they spoke with the owner of the motel on Friday. They say she is willing to comply with the code and regulations necessary to re-open.
The five families who were given temporary housing will have a place to stay until the end of the year.
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