March 12, 2015

Susette Kelo, a registered nurse, purchased her dream home on East Street in Fort Trumbull in July 1997.  From her dining room window on a clear day she can see Montauk Point at the tip of Long Island.

When Susette first purchased the cute little Victorian, it was so overgrown with weeds that she literally needed a hatchet to reach the front door.  But soon thereafter, the house was lovingly restored into a little pink “show home” for herself and her husband Tim.  They were happy there until a notice was posted on their door the day before Thanksgiving in 2000 by the New London Development Corporation.  It informed Susette that she and Tim would have to leave their home by March 2001 or the police would forcibly remove them and their belongings.

Less than two years later, Tim drove his truck into a concrete embankment while driving home from work and was nearly killed.  Tim relearned to walk and to talk, but as a result of the accident, her husband is now like a child whom Susette must care for as she works two nursing jobs.

Fortunately, her little pink cottage—the home that was the subject of a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case and a national symbol of the fight against eminent domain abuse—was relocated and spared from the wrecking ball.

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