Mobile home owners schooled on tenants’ rights, new protections

Dozens of owners from Sonoma Valley’s mobile home parks attended a training on tenants’ rights Thursday night at the Center for People Power in Boyes Hot Springs.

The training, organized by the Golden State Manufactured-Home Owners League and the Sonoma Valley Housing Group, discussed legal aid and new protections for mobile home residents passed by the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors.

“People in Sonoma Valley are aware of what happened in Petaluma and the county,” Fred Allebach said alluding to rent increases of more than 100% at Youngstown Mobile Home Park in Petaluma. “The owners feel like they have a right to a certain profit. And so the point of view of the tenants and mobile homeowners is that they have rights, too.”

In August, the Board of Supervisors voted on a rent moratorium for mobile home parks in unincorporated parts of the county. Then on Oct. 24, the Board of Supervisors voted to limit annual rent increases at mobile home parks in unincorporated areas. The amendment to the county’s mobile home ordinance would limit future rent increases to 4% or 70% of the Consumer Price Index, whichever is less.

The update to the mobile home ordinance directly affects residents of the six manufactured-home parks in Sonoma Valley, including Seven Flags of Sonoma Mobile, Rancho Vista, Meadowbrook Mobile Estates, Lazzarotto’s Mobile Home Park, Brookside Mobile Manor and Acacia Grove Mobile Park.

Mobile homes, also known as manufactured homes within the community, serve a vital part to the affordable housing stock of communities. Manufactured homes are considered “naturally occurring affordable housing,” Allebach said, because they are generally not supported financially by local governments to keep costs down.

“It's not subsidized, it's just lower cost because mobile home parks tend to be – from a land use perspective – in the least desirable land use areas like in the floodplains of creeks,” Allebach said. “Plus, the structures are cheap and they’re just not worth as much… because people can't charge as much as you would for a stick frame house in a nice neighborhood with trees.”

Because of recent updates to the mobile home ordinance and the essential function of manufactured homes, GSMOL and Sonoma Valley Housing Group organized a training with residents of mobile homes in Sonoma Valley to provide knowledge of these recent changes and other protections they’re afforded.

“Many of the residents are not fluent English speakers and may not have understood the lease terms, or the fact that they could have chosen year-to-year leases covered by rent control,” chair of Sonoma Valley Housing Group Mario Castillo wrote to the Index-Tribune. “One resident of the Rancho Vista park said he was paying a monthly space rent of $1,250, which is far above the average (manufactured home) rent.”

Attendees of the training were also not aware of their tenants’ rights from both the state and county. Knowledge of these rights is important for owners of manufactured homes when encountered with rent increases or eviction notices.

“Some in attendance said many park operators did not provide copies of the state mobile home residency law or Sonoma County's Mobilehome Rent Stabilization Ordinance when they took up residence,” Castillo wrote to the Index-Tribune. “This amounts to withholding crucial information about residents' rights”

During the training, residents of Sonoma Valley’s manufactured home parks paid attention to a presentation on legal assistance for tenants from the California Rural Legal Assistance. Many were concerned about eviction and the rules governing “just cause” evictions.

“They listened closely to the eviction presentation given by Jose Tapia, an attorney for California Rural Legal Assistance, and asked some questions,” Castillo said. “Our impression was that at least some of the audience had witnessed eviction proceedings against park neighbors but are fearful of pushing against their landowners, especially Latinos.”

The hope of GSMOL and the Sonoma Valley Housing Group is that meetings like the one on Thursday will help educate low-income, working-class residents from being displaced by the significant rise in housing costs in recent years.

“The housing crisis hasn't gone away. And we're just keeping the spotlight shined on it,” Allebach said. “The housing crisis hasn’t gone away, and the people at the low end of the economic spectrum face the brunt of that.”

Contact Chase Hunter at chase.hunter@sonomanews.com and follow @Chase_HunterB on Twitter.

Clarification: The Nov. 30 meeting was for mobile home owners who are tenants because they pay for “space rent” at mobile home parks.