MIFFLIN TOWNSHIP — Several residents staying at the Mansfield Inn have been temporarily placed in another local motel, according to leaders of the Mansfield/Richland County Homeless Response Team.
“I think we have placed people from nine rooms, either individuals or couples,” Miles Parsons, executive director of Wayfinders said Tuesday evening.
He said the Wayfinders board approved spending up to $10,000 from its operating budget to assist the residents find places to stay. The shelter on West Third Street is at capacity.
“I will write for (financial) grants or whatever it may be. But this is one of those, ‘Just do it now and figure it out later (moments),'” said Parsons, a Crestview High School graduate who has spent most of his career working in nursing homes and senior care centers around Mansfield, Lexington and Mount Vernon.
That leaves anywhere from three to six rooms still occupied at the 800 Laver Road motel, a structure deemed unsafe by the Richland County Building Department. An order to vacate the premises takes effect Friday.
The motel also has no running water and is in violation of six Ohio laws and rules regarding safe drinking water, according to the state EPA.
more coverage involving the mansfield inn on laver road
Miles, who has led the local homeless shelter since February 2024, said he and other officials were at the motel three times on Monday.
“The first time I got out there was about 12:30 to talk to the manager. I said, ‘I’m hearing rumors that the power is gonna be shut tonight.’ He said, ‘Yep, that’s true. I’m shutting the power around 5 or 6 and I’m leaving.'”
That declaration turned an already bad situation into an emergency. Miles and the team scrambled to find housing for people.
“I went back out there around 4:30 just to see what’s going to happen when he actually shuts the power. He says, ‘Oh, no, no … I didn’t really mean that. I just told two people so they would leave.’
“I was like, ‘You have got to be kidding me. You just cost (the agency) like $4,000, unnecessarily,'” Miles said.
Miles went back to the motel at 6 p.m., joined by Richland County Building Dept. Director Steve Risser and social worker Angela Riley from Catalyst Life Services. He said the manager told him he was cutting off the power on Tuesday.
But Parsons went back to the hotel on Tuesday afternoon and found the power remained on, but the manager was not at the location.
Frustrations remain, he said, because the homeless response team has still not given an accurate count for residents remaining in the hotel.
“My guess is anywhere from three to five rooms, maybe six,” Parsons said. “But we’ve not been given an accurate count … somehow we’re missing folks. I don’t know how.
“I found another young lady (Tuesday) in another room that was totally unknown to all of us. So it’s like, ‘How many more are there?'”
He said the manager at the motel continues to change his stories for different people.
“We are going to play it by ear, but we want to be as proactive as possible.”
Parsons said he hopes the residents who have been placed in other local motels will qualify for assistance through the Great Lakes Community Action Partnership in Fremont.
“They typically will help folks who are homeless with first month’s rent security deposit. So I’ve been in contact with that agency,” he said.
Parsons and the homeless response team will continue to try to contact motel residents and convince them they need to leave, providing assistance to help them relocate into lodging, even if only temporarily.
(Below is a PDF from the Richland County Building Department from Jan. 30, which includes an order to vacate the premises by Feb. 13.)
The owner of the motel, Paresh Patel of Barstow, Calif., has filed an appeal with the state regarding the order to vacate. A hearing on that appeal is scheduled for Wednesday, Feb. 11 at 5 p.m.
The hotel was built in 1961 and purchased in 2007 by Patel for $1 million, according to the Richland County Auditor’s Office website.
The two-story motel caters to long-term guests and offers rooms for $225 per week plus tax for a single bed and $250 per week plus tax for double beds.
Should the appeal fail, Richland County Commissioner Tony Vero said local officials would move forward Friday seeking injunctive relief to get any remaining residents out of the motel, perhaps assisted by the Richland County Sheriff’s Office.
“We are mindful of the weather,” Vero said Wednesday morning. “We don’t think the building is in imminent danger of crumbling, but the balconies could come down at any time.
“Our priority remains to get people living in that motel without any running water a place to live and reside that has basic amenities,” Vero said.