Evicted tenants of Minnesota trailers deemed unsafe for human life settle with owner

DULUTH – Some tenants evicted from a neglected Hermantown, Minn., trailer park have settled with its owner, attorneys shared in St. Louis County Court Tuesday.

Owner Elevated Management LLC, was set to argue why plans to close the park weren’t retaliatory, after the city of Hermantown asked that the company be held in contempt for not complying with court orders.

An attorney for the tenants said amounts were still being finalized, but his clients were happy with the resolution.

“The goal at the start of this was to make sure that my clients were safely housed and set up for the future, and I think the settlement will reach those goals,” said attorney Peter LaCourse of the nonprofit law firm Justice North.

Amid a severe affordable housing crisis in the region, Hermantown city officials have barred at least half of the 50-plus trailers in the mobile home park from occupancy because of their threat to human life. Some families lived without water during the region’s coldest days this winter, amid spilling sewage from burst pipes.

Owner Steven Schneeberger pleaded guilty to several misdemeanor violations in early December, and was ordered to immediately make repairs to trailers without water and other essential services and fix all other code violations. St. Louis County Judge Shawn Pearson also ordered him to pay for alternate housing for a handful of residents living in the worst conditions in Maple Fields mobile home park, just outside of Duluth.

Recent court records show the city of Hermantown has asked that Schneeberger pay everyone who was evicted by the city $5,000, along with returning rent payments made since February of last year to all tenants in homes classified as hazardous.

Hermantown says that while the park owner is evicting tenants, he hasn’t followed court orders to begin that process.

Hermantown’s attorney argues in filings that Elevated Management has “ignored the basic needs of its tenants,” along with legal orders of the city, state and court, claiming an economic burden to justify it.

“When the tenants finally asked for a habitable place to live, they were evicted in violation of the court’s order,” attorney Gunnar Johnson wrote.

Schneeberger was in court but declined to speak. He has said that he did the best he could for residents having bought a park with problems decades in the making. Early this year, he began giving closure notices to both renters and trailer owners and has paid some residents to move out.

The Minnesota Department of Health has two pending enforcement cases against Elevated Management, for the park’s noncompliant sewage system and a daisy-chained water line.

Hermantown’s case with Schneeberger, who is based in the Twin Cities and has owned the park since 2021, is still unresolved.