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Residents from 17 Mobile Home Parks in Huntington Beach Rally Against Skyrocketing Rents and Plummeting Values
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OF MOBILE HOME PARK OWNERS WITHIN OUR PARKS!Otherwise your Grandma and Grandpa might be moving in with you! Save The Date - Dec 15, 2022
Join us at the California Pizza Kitchen at Bella Terra in Huntington Beach for our first restaurant fundraiser. CPK has generously agreed to donate 20% of your food purchase to our cause. Be sure to give your coupon code BACK20% at checkout for catering, takeout or in restaurant orders. We hope to see you there! See more! Rent Control vs Rent Stabilization OrdinanceMobile home owners are NOT asking for Rent Control. We are asking for a Rent Stabilization Ordinance (RSO) for mobile home park residents only. Rent Control freezes rent. A Rent Stabilization Ordinance allows rents to increase by a specific amount and benefits both the park owner and resident. MHETManufactured Housing Educational Trust Manufactured Housing Educational Trust (MHET) publicly boasts that they are a California non-profit association dedicated to promoting mobile home parks and the manufactured housing industry through the education of its members, community leaders, manufactured home owners and the public about mobile home parks and manufactured housing community issues. MHET acts as a resource to provide vision and protect property rights, and leads in the resolution of public policy issues affecting mobile home communities. It is one sided, acting on the behalf of mobile home park owners. Between the lines, MHET really stands for Mobile Home Park owners with huge financial backing to obtain their agenda of power. Through education behind the scenes of political allies and park staff, MHET is able to “re-educate” and promote extreme property right fallacies. The Executive Director, Vickie Talley, appears and sits on many boards to promote an agenda of park assistance while in reality has a history of mobile home park conversions. The MHET rent subsidy program has extreme limited guidelines that require a resident to own no more than $25,000 in personal property, including autos, furniture, assets, jewelry, etc. There are only a select few number of residents in each park that will be awarded a subsidy and, once given, can be taken away at any time. Millions of dollars have been and are currently being spent to sway politicians against implementing a rent stabilization ordinance. In 2002, MHET was a key player in revising HB City Charter 803 by blocking rent control for any renter in the city. In 2014, MHET bragged that they were instrumental in obtaining Measure EE in Huntington Beach. When put into place, they underhandedly helped the Rancho Huntington mobile home park owner back date legal documents so that he was able to turn his park from a senior to an all family park. MHET’s statement of preserving and maintaining the Mobile Home Community lifestyle on the surface seems benign but when one delves deeper into the history of MHET, one finds a darker more erosive mission. Vickie Talley currently sits on the HB City Council appointed Mobile Home Advisory Board, even though she does not live in Huntington Beach. Chris Hauser, Director of MHET and co-owner of the HB Rancho del Rey Mobile Home Park, also sits on the Mobile Home Advisory Board. The Mobile Home Advisory Board has requested numerous times from Vickie Talley to get a copy of its’ application for rent subsidies and to be given the statistics of how many residents in HB having been helped with rent subsidies but Vickie Talley refuses to comply. WMAWestern Manufactured Housing Communities Association (WMA) has represented owners of mobile home and manufactured communities since 1945 and remains the largest organization of its kind in the nation. They fight tooth and nail and spend hundreds or thousands of dollars fighting against organizations who are working to implement rent stabilization ordinances in their city. WMA continuously strives to help the mobile home park owner in many ways. Here are just a few: - Discounts on services ( ie. 75% off on office supplies at Office Depot Office Max) - Tenant screening - Lawyers - Accounting services - Park Management Training There appears to be no stone unturned in relation to help for a Mobile Home Park owner for links and references in community operations. There is even a checklist of requirements to run the park from cleaning fire hydrants to handing out Mobile Home Residency Law (MRL) handbooks. WMA donates large sums money to candidates in many city and state elections. Julie Pauley, WMA Regional Representative, was placed on the HB City Council appointed Mobile Home Advisory Board in 2022. Huntington Beach Overlay Ordinance 4019In 2014, Huntington Beach adopted Ordinance 4019 called an Overlay which prevents a Senior Mobile Home (MH) Park from being converted into a Family Park. If the park management/owner rents to residents who are under the age requirement and the number of residents under the age requirement totals more than 20% of your park, the MH Park would automatically turn into a Family Park. The City does not actively monitor the Senior Residential Overlay. The provisions of the Overlay provide that each park with the Overlay have procedures to verify and document compliance. The park management/owner must make the documents available to the City if requested. |
FACTS TO CONSIDER
A Mobile Home (MH) park owner owns the land, collects rents, and is responsible for the upkeep of the common areas with the park and respecting resident rights. A Mobile Home (MH) resident owner acquires their home for either cash or with the help of a mortgage loan. The owner is 100% responsible for space rent, utilities, taxes, insurance, maintenance, upkeep and any improvements both inside and outside the home. MH’s are extremely costly to move and can be damaged easily in a move. Finding a nearby location in which to move the MH is nearly impossible as well. Huntington Beach Mobile Home Park HistoryHuntington Beach has 17 Mobile Home (MH) Parks (9 are senior parks) with 2,865 spaces = approx. 7,000 people, most of whom are registered voters. All of the parks are potentially at risk due to conglomerate buyouts and predatory practices. In the last 10 years, 8 out of 17 mobile home parks in Huntington Beach have been purchased by investment firms who immediately raised rents, causing many residents to either sell or abandon their homes, some becoming homeless. In the last few years, the purchase of MH Parks by investment firms have become a national emergency, per U.S. Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee testimony of March 31, 2022. Huntington Beach MH residents have asked City Council to adopt the recommendation of its Mobile Home Advisory Board to place a measure on the ballot to amend the City Charter Section 803 to allow a Rent Stabilization Ordinance for MH Parks. California Statewide Assembly Bill 1482Rent Stabilization for renters of apartments, condos and homes
Skandia Country Club Senior Mobile Home ParkAugust 2021, Kort & Scott and Fitterer purchased family-owned Skandia Country Club Senior Mobile Home Park for $58 million. IPG Management (owned by Fitterer) is the park management company. IPG immediately raised rents for new home buyers from $1,445/month to $2,195/month. This caused home values of current residents to plummet $75,000 and more. Residents have lost most, if not all of their equity and some will become homeless. A study of homes sales from 8/18 – 8/21 shows that prior to the purchase of Skandia by Kort, Scott & Fitterer the average sales price of mobile homes was 213,403. 1 year after the purchase of Skandia the average sales price of a mobile home is $144,798. Assemblywoman Sharon Quirk-Silva stated “The industry estimates that for every $10 per month space rent increase, the Mobile Home owner loses $1,000 in equity.” In order to justify the increase in new home buyer’s rents, IPG provided what they called a Manufacture Home Community Rent Comparison which only included rents from 7 out of 17 MH Parks in Huntington. These rents were the highest rents from 17 MH Parks. It also included a MH Park in Fountain Valley and rents from a HB apartment building – which we all know cannot be compared with a MH Park. IPG also claimed their 6.7% increase is near the 5.9% Social Security cost of living increase for 2022 even though the average Social Security benefit increase since 1982 is only 2.57%. Under terms of the IPG lease, a resident agrees that IPG may close the MH Park and/or terminate or change, at any time, any terms provisions, rules, or regulations contained the lease but the resident can only terminate the lease by selling, dying, or abandoning their home. IPG originally offered in writing to existing Skandia residents that their increase in rents for 2022, 2023 and 2024 would be an annual increase of $75/year. They then tried to say that the increase was no longer being offered unless a long term lease was signed although no mention of having to sign a lease was stated in IPG’s original offering. Through lengthy discussions, IPG is now saying they will honor their original commitment. |
