Your rights Bytes #15 - The Other FAQ, Part Three

· I got a call from an owner of a small mobilehome park who asked for advice on how to evict a very disruptive tenant.  The owner said that the tenant hadn’t paid rent since he moved in four months prior, and when the owner asked him for the rent money, the tenant laughed at him.  The park owner explained that the disruptive tenant had taken over the mobilehome when his father died, bringing with him drugs and unwelcomed guests.  The park owner noted that the recently deceased father had been a good tenant, but that his son was a nightmare.  I asked the park owner if the son was a registered tenant.  The owner said “no”; that the father had never registered his son.  The park owner was emotionally worn down, not only by the son’s behavior, but by the pressure of the other tenants for the owner to evict the son.  The owner, hoping I had some sort of legal leverage, said, “I don’t have the money to pay for an attorney.  What do I do?  Can you help?”  As I did in so many cases, I first told him that I was not an attorney and that I could not give legal advice.  I explained he law  – as I understood it – that since the son was not a registered tenant, and that he was never invited onto the property, then he was officially trespassing.  In this case the legal eviction process was not necessary.  I advised the owner to contact local law enforcement and have the son escorted off the owner’s property.  The owner was hopeful and understood this option but was now concerned about the empty mobilehome remaining in his park.  I explained that he would need to follow the official abandonment procedure, and if the son did not remove the mobilehome, then the owner could have the unit towed from his park.

· A man who had been living in his RV for many years, called me one day very mad that the park manager was making the tenants move their RVs out of the park every 30 days, and re-registering at the front gate.  He thought it was somehow discriminatory towards RVers that they had to move out every 30 days, just to line-up outside the park and drive back in and hope to get their favorite spaces back.  “The management makes us pack-up and drive our RVs out of the park every 30 days.  Is this legal?”  I asked the man what county he lived in, and when he told me he lived in one of California’s scenic coastal counties, well, that explained it.  I told him that all counties have their own laws on recreational vehicle living, and that most coastal counties are very strict on enforcement.  I had done some research a while back and learned that popular counties, like it or not, had some sort of ordinance restricting how long an RV could be parked in one spot.    So the 30-day in-and-out requirement was not an arbitrary park rule, but a county law.  I explained that even though some less-traveled counties might have similar laws, they may not be strictly enforced and that some long-term RVers in, say, Inyo County are not pressured to move out every 30-days.  The man wasn’t happy with my answer and maintained that it was “discrimination against RV residents.”  I cautiously explained to him that high-tourism counties have ordinances that try to keep RV park spaces available to all RVers, and that some RV parks might lose their status if they don’t make spaces available to visiting RVers. 

· On the subject of RV living, there are a few northern counties that advertise themselves as “recreational counties”. These are counties where outdoor activities are abundant.  Many private land owners have their own cabins, or camp for a short time on their land.  In these counties, non-permanent living structures are illegal.  In other words, it is illegal for the property owner to live on their own land in a temporary housing structure, such as an RV, car or tent.  And some counties won’t allow a mobilehome on private land unless it is situated in a registered mobilehome park.  One retired couple travelled to my office to ask me for help in getting the officials in their county to allow them to place a new RV on their own lot.  “We have owned this land for years, but now they are telling us we can’t live on it.  Are they allow to do that?”  There was an interesting back-story to this couple’s problem.  Their county had experienced a wild fire, wiping out hundreds of acres of forestland and destroying structures.  For decades prior to the fire, land-use ordinances had not been enforced.  But after the fire, the local officials started enforcing their ordinances.  This meant that this couple, and many others like them, could not replace the RVs or mobilehomes they had lost in the fire.  They argued that they should be “grandfathered-in” because they had been living on their land in an RV for years.  “Grandfathering” is not applicable here because the county’s ordinance had already been on the books, whether or not they had been enforced.  So in this case, the couple had to either build a permanent structure on their own land (acquiring all the permits to do so) or visit their land in their RV at restricted time intervals.

· An older man who lived in a mobilehome park in a quiet rural county, was told one day by the park manager that he had to take down his patio.  “I have lived in the same park for over 30 years.  After all these years I was told I have to take my patio down.  Is this fair?”  I asked him to describe his patio to me, thinking I could figure out from his description what the violation was.  He explained that he rented two spaces, side-by-side, and that he constructed a “patio”, connecting his two mobilehomes.  He said that since he was paying rent on both side-by-side spaces, that he was entitled to use the square footage between the spaces as well.  I told him that it sounded like his park got a visit from HCD and that his “patio” violated a very basic fire safety regulation.  I explained that a fire-fighting crew must be able to walk between mobilehomes and be able to haul their equipment with them.  I told him that he enjoyed his “patio” a lot longer than other residents in other parks would have, but that it was time for it to come down.  He thanked me for listening to him but decided that he would wait it out hoping that the park manager would not mention it again.

· A woman called me and wanted to know if I knew anything about the rumor that the mobilehome park where she lived was going to close down.  “We are all scared here.  If this park closes, we don’t know where we would go.  What should we do?”  I told her that I had no information on the status of her mobilehome park, but I did discuss with her why parks close down, and that she may want to watch for specific clues, if not outright ask the park owner.  When I asked her where her park was located, she explained that it was in Orange County near Disneyland (Clue #1), that her park was on a wide boulevard (Clue #2), that it was on the corner of a big, busy intersection (Clue #3), and that other parks near her had closed (Clue #4).  I explained how, generally, all mobilehome parks are on land zoned “temporary”, and that in very urbanized counties it was only a matter of time before temporary-use plots were destined to change and sold to developers (or to Walmart or Target).  She was very grateful for the time I spent discussing this with her over the phone, and that she was going to meet with her neighbors and tell them what she learned.  It didn’t solve her looming problem of displacement, but it was clearer to her why some mobilehome park owners sell their land, and what she needed to do to prepare.  Simply knowing why a mobilehome park would close down helped her tackle the next challenges.

--Stephanie Reid, formerly on staff with the Senate Select Committee on Manufactured Homes and Communities

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Your Rights Bytes #14 - The Other FAQ, Part Two

· The subject of rent is the first official FAQ because it generated the most phone calls to the Senate Select Committee for Manufactured Homes.  I explained to residents that they had to appeal to their city council or county board of supervisors to enact rent control.  Many residents called me back and said, “I called my councilmember’s office asking for rent control and they said I need to call the State.”  Local staff either did not know how rent control laws worked, or they simply didn’t want to tell the truth, which is “This city (or county) does not want rent control here.  Period.  End of discussion.”  Rent control falls under the definition of “local control”.  This means that cities and counties do not want the State taking away their right to run their cities their own way.  Most local jurisdictions retain a fulltime lobbyist in Sacramento to protect their exclusive rights of governance.

· “Why can’t the Legislature pass a MHP rent control law?”  This has been tried at different times with no success.  All bills must go through a hearing and review process.  It is during this process that some bills die on the battlefield of compromise.  If a MHP rent control bill has any life left in it by the time it reaches the Governor’s Desk, it has been so heavily amended that it is virtually useless.  This is why it is strategic to develop a rent control ordinance at the local level.

· “Why do some cities have MHP rent control ordinances, but mine doesn’t?”  These ordinances were enacted because a core group of MHP residents worked consistently and patiently for years negotiating with their local elected officials.  Getting any kind of rent control ordinance is pushing against the tide.  A few local jurisdictions have strong MHP rent control ordinances, some have weak ones.  Most local governments have none at all.

In a nutshell:  Rent control has a different impact on different groups.  For space-renters, it keeps housing costs in line with their other monthly expenses.  For park managers, it keeps the tenant population steady, limits move-ins and move-outs, and even keeps evictions at a minimum.  For property owners, rent control limits their business income and also restricts them from saving enough money for costly infrastructure upgrades.  For cities and counties, rent control ordinances can drive investors away, which makes it hard for local jurisdictions to raise money from property taxes, construction permit fees, and sales taxes.

· Residents in Orange County seemed to be impacted the most by unregulated rent increases.  A frantic man called me one day.  He said, “I just got a notice that my rent is increasing by $800.  How can they do this to us?”  He explained that he and his wife could not afford the increase along with food and medications.  And even if they sold their mobilehome, they couldn’t afford apartment rents either.  There was nothing I could do other than explain how to apply for housing assistance and food subsidies.  None of my advice helped.  He broke down in tears anyway.  Then he hung up because he couldn’t talk anymore.  I never heard from him again.  To this day, I feel awful about that.

· One elderly woman called me numerous times trying to figure out a way to get out of the park she and her husband were living in before the rising rents caused them to be homeless.  “We need to get out of this park because the rent is getting too much for us.  How do we do this?”  She took my advice and applied for a spot on the county’s low-income senior housing list.  When I didn’t hear from this positive, tenacious lady again, I assumed she and her husband moved to better housing.  This is how I explained to residents how this important process works:  A senior who is low income contacts their county housing authority and asks to be put on the waiting list.  The definition of “low income” is different in every county.  Almost all counties have a housing authority agency, and the popular counties’ waiting lists are very long.  At one time, I heard that Orange County is so impacted that their list only opens every 5 years, and is 10 years long.  Keep in mind that baby boomers are making that waiting list longer every day.  I tell seniors, “Get your name on the list now even if you don’t think you’ll need it.  You might need it by the time they call your name.”

· A recently retired woman in Los Angeles county called me and said she was trapped in a park where the rents were going up regularly and she wouldn’t be able to stay there.  She said, “I guess I’ll have to move.  What do I do?”  I advised her to apply for a Section 8 housing voucher through the local housing authority agency.  I cautioned her that landlords are not required to take Section 8, and in Los Angeles, the waiting list to get into Section 8 housing was very long.  She said her income was so low that she won’t be able to afford to stay in L.A.  I explained that since Section 8 is a federal program, this housing voucher is good anywhere in the U.S.

· A MHP resident from Southern California called me to report that as the rents were spiking in his park, maintenance and order were disappearing.  The park was getting dirty, trash was only being picked up periodically, and trailers were being brought in and squeezed onto random open spaces.  “I don’t feel safe in this park anymore.  What do I do?”  I told him that it appeared that his park was on a serious downslide, and that an upswing, if it came at all, could be years away.  I told him I couldn’t tell him what to do, but that if I was in his position, I would prepare to sell and move out before the park gets so unattractive and the rents are so high that no one would want to buy my home.  Before he hung up, he shared one more bleak observation:  The park was getting so unaffordable that the tenants in the mobilehome next door to him were stripping the metal siding off their unit and selling it for scrap to make the rent payments. 

· Rents have been on a wild streak for years in California but an increase is still relative, depending on where a person lives.  A woman called me from a rural eastern county where she and her neighbors were furious over the newest rent increase.  She said, “We just got another rent increase notice.  They are raising our rent five dollars again!  How can they do this?”  I told her that rent is going up everywhere because all of California is prime real estate.  And tenants in coastal counties (I call that area “The Riviera”) are being hit harder than the rest.  I explained that just that morning I had heard from an angry MHP resident in Orange County who said that his rent went up five hundred dollars.  She didn’t feel so bad anymore knowing what others were going through.  The man with the $500 increase didn’t know it, but he was an important example for residents from rural areas.  The rent increases in the country may be difficult, but they are not nearly as stiff as rent increases in the city.

---Stephanie Reid, formerly on staff with the Senate Select Committee for Manufactured Homes and Communities