The Thompson-Nicola Regional District has given a resident near Barriere until the end of day Sunday to leave her Dixon Creek Road home as it cracks down on people living in trailers and RVs.

Angie Smith says she purchased the property with the intention of building a home and has been living in an RV on a temporary basis. She says she’s been told she can’t live there until she has an active building permit.

“He just kind of explained that, that takes a long time, it’s a long process. Basically, at the end of the day, he says that’s your only option,” Smith said. “You need to get a building permit and that’s the only way that you’ll be able to live in an RV is during active construction. Other than that, it’s just not allowed. You can’t live in an RV. He didn’t really seem to care about our plans.”

Smith purchased the property in May without knowledge of the RV laws. She says she was handed her first infraction notice in June with the eviction notice coming on August 7th, and she says she has no other options for where to live.

“I have no arrangements. We simply have nowhere else to go. It’s next to impossible to pay a mortgage on this land and rent somewhere else,” Smith added. “We have this livestock here and we need to take care of our belongings. We don’t plan to go, we simply can’t.”

“Since the meeting that happened in Clearwater on Wednesday, we told our story and everybody just kind of got emotional about it and were upset for us hearing our story. So they all just kind of among themselves said well let’s just go out there and show our support for them.”

Smith is upset with how the situation has been handled. The TNRD started to crack down on people living in trailers and RV’s on a year round basis this summer.

Angie Smith says she has always planned to build a permanent home on the property with the RV serving as a temporary solution.

A rally is planned at Smith’s home on Monday morning.