Due to the government shutdown of national parks, monuments, recreational areas and conservation areas, 60 families who live in privately-owned cabins on Lake Mead, Nevada were kicked out of their homes on Oct. 5 and told they could only return after the government shutdown is over, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.
Among the residents who were given 24 hours to gather their belongings and leave was Bob Hitchcock, a 71-year-old resident of Las Vegas who has lived in his privately-owned cabin for over 25 years, the Review-Journal reported.
Hitchcock has been writing a yearly check, which was $500 a year ago and is now $2,400 a year, to the National Park Service since they took over the land from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, who built the Hoover Dam in 1987, according to the Review-Journal.
"I seriously, seriously threatened to stay and not leave," Hitchcock told the Review-Journal. "I mean, I thought, 'Are they really going to come down hard on somebody for trespassing inside his own home?"
Hitchcock said no such order was given to cabin dwellers in 1995, when the federal government shut down for three weeks under the Clinton administration and stated all his land, which is leased to him by the government, is up to date with all its payments.
Joyce Spencer is 77-years-old and her husband Ralph, 80, were also kicked out of their home on Stewart's Point on Lake Mead which sits on federal land. The Lake Mead properties are considered vacation homes and one of the lease requirements to own a plot is people must have an alternative residence.
The Spencers said it's their property and they should be allowed in, shutdown or not.
Christie Vanover, a spokeswoman for the Lake Mead Recreational Area, told the Review-Journal that if any resident needs to gather personal belongings their access will not be denied, but they cannot "spend the nights there" or "have barbecues during the day."
"They are all vacation homes and everybody who lives in them are considered visitors," she said. "They need to get in and get out."
