Lakeland Hospital’s plan for expansion in Niles continues to move forward.

In September, Lakeland Healthcare discussed two projects to affect the Niles medical facility in 2011, including an addition to the hospital’s emergency room and the building of a new facility.

To make room for a new facility and additional parking, the hospital purchased property on St. Joseph Street and recently made an offer on two pieces of residential property on the State Street side of the block.

“Both decisions came along at the same time,” said Mike Kastner, director of building services for Lakeland HealthCare. “They’ll just improve the look of the campus.

“We don’t have them yet,” he said. “The purchase is subject to (residents) being vacated. They were rental properties, so we expect them to be vacated around the first of the year and we’ll demo (demolish) them sometime in the first quarter.”

The two properties are made up of a single family residence and a multi-family residence — meaning a number of residents are searching for a new place to live.

Just one year ago, Heather Moffitt, a tenant in one of the homes purchased by Lakeland, was watching her youngest son, Antonio, 12, fight through continuous rounds of chemotherapy.

Antonio had been diagnosed with malignant non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Moffitt made regularly scheduled trips back and forth to Bronson Methodist Hospital in Kalamazoo. Trips she’d been making only until recently.

“He is in remission and he’s doing wonderful and I am thankful for that,” Moffitt said. “But his cancer was malignant and we’re not out of the safe zone yet.”

Moffitt has received leads on a few possible available homes, including recommendations from her landlord, Paul Crouch, who said he’s owned the property she calls home since the 1980s.

Moffitt says while she is looking into finding a new home for her family, including her three children, Brooke, 19 and Tisha, 17 and Antonio, the need to find a new place to live is coming at a bad time, as she struggles with the financial stress of the holidays and moving costs.

“We feel like it’s still tough to celebrate when we don’t even know where we’re going to be,” she said.

Some of her neighbors have already found new homes, though in some cases, Moffitt said they were forced to “downsize,” moving into homes with less room than their State Street residences.

Kastner estimated construction would begin in April of next year on both new projects.

Including Moffitt and her family an estimated four or five households total will have to relocate. Moffitt rents the single family residence and estimated four or five apartments living in the second State Street property.