“I wake up every day in fear – fear that I will lose my home … Along with my fear, I also have a prayer and my prayer is that someone will help us, someone will help us save our homes. City council members, I’m hoping that you will be that someone.”  Jeanne Farrens

NEWS

View our recent presentation by Public Law regarding your rights as a mobile homeowner.
After reviewing this presentation you will know many more reasons to join MHRC today.
Let's get our rights back!

12/04/2023

Mobile Home Lot Owners Accused of Rent Fixing

Multiple real estate companies have artificially inflated mobile and manufactured home lot rents across the country for years, a plaintiff claims in a class action filed in federal court in Chicago on December 4, 2023. The antitrust suit names ten companies as defendants, including the nation's largest mobile home appraisal service provider Datacomp. By internally sharing Datacomp's market reports, the plaintiff claims, the other nine defendant companies — Equity LifeStyle Properties, Inc., Hometown America Management LLC, Lakeshore Communities, Inc., Sun Communities, Inc., RHP Properties, Inc., YES! Communities, Inc., Inspire Communities LLC, Kingsley Management Corp. and Cal-Am Properties, Inc. — coordinated rent increases that resulted in tenants paying "significant overcharges on manufactured home lot rents throughout the United States." The class action seeks not only to enjoin the defendant companies from carrying on the alleged rent-fixing conspiracy, but also damages commensurate to class members' rent overpayments.
Read more

11/09/2023

Lawmakers Introduce Affordable Manufactured Housing Community Bill in House, Senate​

Democratic lawmakers in the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives, spearheaded by U.S. Senators Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and Tina Smith (D-Minn.), and U.S. Rep. Suzanne Bonamici (D-Ore.)  introduced a new bill to the legislature designed to both “preserve” and “revitalize” manufactured home communities across the United States. Cortez Masto’s bill would make the PRICE program permanent and provide funding for home improvements and neighborhood upgrades for eligible Americans on an annual basis.                 
If enacted, the bill would ask the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to implement “a competitive grant program to award funds to eligible recipients to carry out eligible projects for improvements in eligible manufactured home communities.”
Read more

11/03/2023

You're Killing Us

In Castro Valley mobilehome residents were told their rent will double. "I’m ready to have a heart attack over it," said Judy Espinosa who has lived at Avalon Mobile Home Park for more than seven years. "This is our home. This is all we have."                       
Alameda County has a rent stabilization ordinance for mobile home parks in unincorporated areas like Castro Valley. But it states owners are entitled to a fair return. Owners of the park told residents planned improvements and rising expenses including property taxes, insurance, and maintenance make the increase necessary.
Now some mobile home residents fear they’ll soon be homeless.
Read more

10/25/2023

Sonoma County Passes Ordinance Limiting Rent Increases at Mobile Home Parks

The Sonoma County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday voted to limit annual rent increases at mobile home parks in unincorporated areas to no more than 4 percent or 70 percent of the Consumer Price Index, whichever is less. The amendments to the mobile home ordinance bring Sonoma County’s policy in line with recent updates passed by cities in the county.
Read more

10/16/2023

New California Bill AB12 Limits Amount of Security Deposits

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 12 into law, which states that security deposits canʼt be any larger than one monthʼs rent, on Oct. 11. The law is slated to take effect on July 1, 2024.
Assembly Bill 12 was introduced by San Francisco Democratic Assemblymember Matt Haney and aimed to cap the cost of security deposits as part of a broader effort to make housing units more affordable statewide.
Read more
I nearly emptied my bank account
New California Law to Limit Security Deposits

10/16/2023

Class Action: Lawsuit Filed Against MHP Conglomerates Accuses big companies of buying up mobile home parks, driving up rents, pricing out seniors

A new class action lawsuit accuses some of the country’s largest owners and operators of trailer parks and so-called “manufactured home communities” of jacking up rents within those communities and pricing out senior citizens and other vulnerable tenants by conspiring to use shared industry information to corner the market and gobble up supply.
The lawsuit asserts the companies named as defendants improperly used industry information, known as JLT Market Reports, supplied by a company known as Datacomp, described in the complaint as “the nation’s largest provider of manufactured mobile home data.”
According to the complaint, this then allegedly allowed many of the largest owners of manufactured home communities to coordinate when setting rents, allegedly charging more than they could have with true competition “for what used to be affordable housing.”
Read More​

10/13/2023

Corporate Thievery in Mobile Home Parks

Over time, words with beautiful meanings occasionally get degraded into ugliness. “Gentle,” for example.
Originally meaning good natured and kindly, it was twisted into “gentry” in the Middle Ages by very un-gentle land barons seeking a patina of refinement. Then it became a pretentious verb — to “gentrify” — meaning to make something common appear upscale.
And now the word has devolved to “gentrification,” describing the greed of developers and speculators who oust middle-and-low-income families from their communities to create trendy enclaves for the rich. The latest move by these profiteers is their meanest yet, targeting families with the most tenuous hold on affordable shelter: People living in mobile home parks.
Read More​

10/05/2023

Two Petaluma Parks: A Premonition for the Perilous Future of MHP Across the State and Nation

With the national trend toward rent control and rent stabilization growing, alarmed real estate conglomerates are trying to find any and all ways to block cities and communities from establishing any limits on their ability to increase rents with impunity and collect their egregious profits. Among these greedy conglomerates are mobile home park owners. Over the summer two parks in Petaluma, Little Woods Mobile Villa and Youngstown MHPs, became victims of the latest scheme by park owners to subvert the protections provided by the city’s rent stabilization ordinance. In spite of being a rent controlled property, after Youngstown MHP was sold to new owners in 2020, residents received a notice of rent increases of up to 40 percent. They fought against the rent hike in arbitration and won and then lobbied the city for stronger ordinances to strengthen the rules around rent control and won again.

But then notices started coming. First there was an advisory that Youngstown might change its senior-only status, followed by a letters from owners of both parks saying they would close altogether, citing that the owners could no longer operate the parks ‘based on measures taken by the state and local government”, a clear reference to the city council’s decision to lower its cap on annual rent increases for mobile home parks. Then in August residents received in the mail a 200 page notice of a rent increase as high as 159%! This all in spite of the city’s rent stabilization ordinance. Petaluma owners are following suit with other conglomerates across the country by claiming that rent control is unconstitutional. “Petaluma’s mobile home rent control ordinance cannot act as an unconstitutional taking of private property, because all property owners in the U.S. are constitutionally entitled to earn a fair and reasonable return on the capital they invested to buy their property."

Even though the proposed rent hikes are clearly above the cap, the issue must still go to arbitration. In the meantime, in response to the rent hikes and the fear of park closures, Petaluma park residents have organized. Their struggle is not just about rent increases. They’re fighting for their homes.
​
What’s happening in Petaluma may be shaping up as a much larger legal challenge to the concept of rent control in general. And it may represent a premonition of the perilous future of MH communities across the entire nation. Read the saga of Petaluma in the following articles.

Click the following to read the articles
- Petaluma mobile home parks threaten closure over rent ordinance 7/19/23
- Petaluma mobile home residents fear eviction by property owners - CBS San Francisco 7/31/23
- Petaluma mobile home residents panicked by massive proposed rent increases - CBS San Francisco 8/10/23
- Petaluma Mobile Home Residents Organize in Fight Against Park Closure 9/7/23
- Petaluma mobile home park residents facing 300% rent increase 10/05/23

10/02/2023

SCOTUS Refuses to Hear NY Anti-Rent Control Case

Great news! For now.                            
Landlords had argued that a rent-stabilization law that covers about a million units in NY is an unconstitutional government taking of private property. While the Court announced on Oct 2 that it would not hear the challenge, other petitions asking the Supreme Court to rule on aspects of the regulations are pending. Keep on alert for further decisions on a case that could impact the future of rent stabilization nationally.

Click to Read

09/24/2023

Organizing Mobile-Home Owners as Investors - Like IPG - Gobble Up Parks
Case study gathers resident sentiments about rents, rules, legislative remedies

IPG first entered the area real estate market in January 2019 when it purchased the 79-space Aspen-Basalt Mobile Home Park, on Willits Lane in Basalt, for $11.2 million, according to Eagle County property transaction records.
The company’s portfolio now includes more than 150 properties across 13 states, including 114 mobile home parks – some in Huntington Beach – offering more than 19,000 spaces, according to the Mobile Home Park Home Owners Allegiance’s online database.

Click to Read

09/16/2023

Corporate Mobile Home Park Owners Sued in U.S. Court for Rental Price-Fixing

A group of the country's largest corporate managers of mobile home communities and a market data provider were sued in U.S. court on August 31st for allegedly conspiring to inflate rental prices for older and low-income residents.

Click to Read

08/28/2023

Gateway Cities Enact Rent Control to Keep Residents Housed

“These are Latino immigrant communities, and they leave their homeland to come here to make community, and then all of a sudden they have to do it all over again,” said Martha Pineda, an activist with Las Vecinas Unidas who worked to pass rent control in Bell Gardens.     
​In February, Maywood issued a 60-day rent freeze, then extended it through September. On July 26, the City Council approved a rent stabilization ordinance to take effect when the rent freeze ends, limiting annual rent increases on all units to 4%

Click to Read

08/24/2023

Rent Control Is
Not a Bad Thing!

Opinion: Rent Control Works - A dozen arguments for why rent control is effective and necessary in the current housing crisis. By Diana Ionescu  @aworkoffiction

Click to Read the Article!

08/10/2023

Rent Control Is as American as Apple Pie

Since World War I, rent control has been a key tool to protect middle- and working-class Americans against predatory landlords and skyrocketing rents. That was especially true during World War II and rampant inflation in the 1970s. In the big scheme of things, protecting tenants through rent control is as American as apple pie.

Click to Read

08/09/2023

Opinion: A Rallying Cry for National Rent Control by Tram Hoang*

“Our primary demand is simple: If you’re borrowing from a government-backed enterprise, you can’t increase the rent more than 3 percent year-over-year. This may not be a panacea for the housing crisis, but it is the antidote we need in an increasingly financialized market where the concentration of ownership of our livelihoods is growing in the hands of the private sector. It’s time to stop asking for the wolves’ advice on how to protect the sheep when it comes to our housing crisis.” 
Following a wave of historic tenant organizing, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) — which oversees government-sponsored enterprises that provide home loans and mortgages to landlords — is exploring ways to enact and enforce tenant protections in government-backed housing. Critical among them are limits on rent increases, with the potential to benefit a third of renting households. The federal government should take this historic action, because regulating rents is one of the most effective tools to alleviate our housing crisis, immediately. 
*Tram Hoang is a senior housing associate at PolicyLink, a research and action institute that works to advance racial and economic equity.

Click to Read

08/07/2023

MHRC Rallies at City Hall
Don't disband the MHRC

It is with sadness we report the death of a 27 year old HB Board, the Mobile Home Advisory Board. This entity has been around since 1993 and was formed to encourage healthy communication between MH Park owners and MH Homeowners.
As with any passing, we remember the good times and the bad. 

Click for more!

​RALLY TO SAVE OUR VOICES!
DEMOCRACY IN HUNTINGTON BEACH IS ON THE LINE!

Join our Rally to Save Our Voices
Tuesday, Aug 1 at City Hall
(lower level entrance)

Email [email protected] if you plan on coming to the rally and/or meeting so we have a sign for you!

Please sign our electronic letter to alert the HB City Council and the MHAB and to express your dissatisfaction with any potential disbanding of the MHAB.

This Tuesday, the Huntington Beach City Council will vote to eliminate two important Advisory Boards that have been in existence for 27 years – the Mobile Home Advisory Board (MHAB) and the Human Relations Committee (HRC). The elimination of the MHAB, the city’s only voice for over 3000 mobile home (MH) residents in HB would leave mobile homeowners with nowhere to address issues of continuing exorbitant rent increases, failure by park owners to service issues of maintenance, unfair evictions, and other concerns. The HRC promotes mutual understanding, respect, safety and the well-being of all in our community through education and engagement. It also works with the police department to monitor hate crimes.

To our horror, the City Council will also propose to remove reliance on the State Elections Code for all aspects of elections and to maintain local control over voter verification, polling locations and monitoring of ballot drop boxes. They propose to house these provisions within the City Charter, meaning any changes would have to go through city petitions and a vote. 

The Council majority has shown their disdain for the thousands of MH residents who are veterans, seniors, disabled, and low-income families as well as LGBTQ members and residents of various ethnicities who are experiencing incidents of verbal and physical abuse. 

Now is the time to SHOW UP prior to the Tuesday, Aug. 1 Council meeting at 4 p.m. for our Rally to Save Our Voices or 6 p.m. for the meeting at the lower level entrance of City Hall. Wear a red shirt to show that we’re a group of concerned citizens. We hope you will speak. You can also submit an email to City Hall by 9 a.m. on Tuesday morning with your comments to be part of the public record. Send to [email protected].
​Silence is complicity.
​
Link To Our Electronic Letter

Check out the article in the July 29 article in the Daily Pilot.

05/18/2023

USA Today Exclusive: Biden Administration Unveils Initiative to Combat Homelessness in 5 US Cities, California.

  The new initiative, which the administration is calling “ALL INside”, aims to speed up local efforts to get unsheltered people into homes. It’s a key part of Biden’s goal to reduce homelessness by 25% by 2025.

Click for more from USA Today

05/17/2023

MHRC Joins Housing Groups to Lobby for SB567 at Senator Umberg's District Office

Click the pic for more

05/03/2023 - Daily Pilot/LA Times

Frustrated Huntington Beach mobile home owners continue to
seek answers.

Click the pic for the Voice of OC article

04/26/2023 - Voice of OC

OC Activists Went to Sacramento to Push for
Rent Control; Cops Were Called Instead

Capital Police Called on Activists Who Went to Sacramento to Lobby for Rent Control 
When rent-burdened activists from around the state went to Sacramento to lobby Senators Min and Umberg for passage of SB567, Senator Min refused to meet them. He sent his scheduling secretary to listen but she took no notes. Predominantly Spanish-speakers and those new to the legislative process were shocked when the Capital police surrounded them. While the bill passed to the Appropriations Committee, it was gutted of all provisions that would have helped renters, including inclusion of mobile homeowners. Legislators decided to remove the proposed 5% rent cap. We’re unclear who demanded the removal, but Senator Umberg did voice his hesitation to approve the 5%, reverting protections for other renters (not mobile homeowners) back to the 10% cap of AB1482, passed in 2021, leaving many of the state’s renters still desperate for relief and at risk for homelessness. Mobile homeowners once again, are without any rental increase protections.

Click the pic for the Voice of OC article

04/25/2023 Orange County Register

OC mobile home residents, who looked to legislature
for rent relief, will have to wait​

Click the pic for the article

04/13/2023 Daily Pilot/LATimes

Huntington Beach mobile home owners seek relief with state
Assembly bill

Click the pic for the article

09/08/2022 The Epoch Times

Huntington Beach to Provide Rental Assistance to Senior Mobile Home Residents.

Click the pic

09/08/2022 Voice of OC

Click the pic

03/30/2022

The Owners Behind Skandia
​and Political Donations from Landlord Associations

Channel 33 News, Huntington Beach
Skandia Mobile Home Residents prepare to take on the owners behind their Mobile Home Park by petitioning a cut-out from city... Click to Watch

03/08/2022 Fox News LA

Huntington Beach seniors worried over rising rents

Seniors living in Huntington Beach mobile homes say they're worried about losing their homes, since corporations bought the complexes and started raising rents.

02/22/2022 Voice of OC

Huntington Beach Mobile Home Residents Rally Against Skyrocketing Rents, Call on City and Voters to Intervene

Skandia Homeowners Association president Carol Rohr

Skandia's Carol Rohr has been a resident inside the Skandia Senior Mobile Home Park for two and a half years and currently is pushing back against rent increases in the park after it was bought by new owners last year. “This is a senior park and this is where we plan to end up,” Rohr said. “How can we afford these rents?”  More...
Credit: (Omar Sanchez / Voice of OC)​

02/04/2022 Daily Pilot/LA Times

Lynn Plumb, 86, a resident at Skandia Mobile Home Park

Having lived at Skandia Mobile Home Park for 33 years, (Lynn sits) ...in her home in Huntington Beach.
New owners as of August 2021 have raised rent for new home buyers from $1,445 a month to $2,195 a month. As a result, not only affecting seniors on a fixed income, but home values have plummeted, according to the president of the HOA.  ​(Kevin Chang / Staff Photographer)  MORE...

‘It’s a conspiracy’: 
​Huntington Beach mobile home residents allege rent gouging

by MATT SZABO STAFF writer, Feb. 4, 2022 Click to read.

10/24/2021

Huntington Beach mobile homeowners fear rent increase during the holidays 
​By Vicky Nguyen, PUBLISHED 3:47 PM PT
Oct. 24, 2021 Spectrum News Video

Click the pic or click HERE to watch...

07/28/2022

Huntington Beach mobile home residents turn ‘carve-out’ hopes to 2024

Big huge thanks go out to those who are willing to speak up and be noticed!  Without you, our efforts to get rent stabilization for all HB mobile home residents would go unnoticed!  More...

Huntington Beach takes a look at senior mobile home rental assistance program

Los Angeles Times Lilly Nguyen | Staff Writer
​June 24, 2022 6:32 PM PT

CLICK THE PIC

06/18/22 OC Register

Huntington Beach mobile home residents ask for relief as conglomerates buy up parks

MORE...

09/15/2022

"Seniors Call for Rent Stabilization Over Rising Mobile Home Costs"
Click the pic below...

​Proponents of mobile home rent ‘carveout’ in Huntington Beach could be running out of time

LA Times/Daily Pilot article:  They organized a rally outside of City Hall on Tuesday 6/8/22, but the City Council has yet to consider putting a measure...  More...
​

A Plea to
​HB City Council

Michael & Sheila Lugenbeuhl of Skandia Mobile Home Park

Read their statement to Huntington Beach City Council as see for yourself!

Huntington Beach Seniors Hit Roadblocks in Fight For Rent Relief

Seniors living at Skandia Mobile Home Park in Huntington Beach are increasingly worried they won’t be able to afford rent hikes, jeopardizing their ability to keep living in the homes they strategically planned to spend the rest of their days in.  But they’re not giving up on those plans without a fight.  More...

​​Huntington Beach board recommends enabling rent ‘carveout’ for mobile home owners

READ THE ARTICLE

NPR/KCRW Mobile Homes
Radio Broadcast March 1, 2022

When you visit the link, you can also click on the green arrow button to the left of the story headline to listen to the radio version. Click the diagram above...

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The NMHOA is a nation-wide membership based organization representing and advocating for manufactured home owners. Their mission is to promote, represent, preserve, and enhance the rights and interests of manufactured home-owners throughout the United States. Their monthly E-blasts contain important up-to-date information on legislative actions, analyses of bills, and a link to their website where readers can sign up for the newsletter, as well as find further information and articles on state mobile home associations and NMHOA accomplishments and homeowner stories, as well as organizing efforts taking place across the country. Please share these monthly E-blasts with as many home owners and other interested individuals as you can via email. The E-blast is an important way for NMHOA to share exciting news from across the country.

The California Apartment Association (CAA) is funding political committees.

The California Apartment Association (CAA) is funding political committees also funded by big oil, big tobacco, privatized healthcare, and prison guards who are making our communities less stable, safe, sicker, and less able to fight climate change.
In 2018-2020 alone, the CAA spent over $121 million to defeat 2 statewide-ballot measures that would have drastically expanded tenants’ rights statewide.  
The CAA, and the interests they align with in their political contributions, are all deeply rooted in putting profits over people with our communities paying the price. These interests profit from our communities whether we are housed (higher rents, utilities) or if we are unhoused (homelessness to prison pipeline).
​
See More from this article authored by ACCE, Leadership Counsel for Justice & Accountability, PICO California, Tenants Together & Housing NOW! California.

05/23/2023

MHRC Joined MH Action in Sacramento and visited legislators to lobby for
AB 567, AB 1035, AB 318 & ACA 10

Fifteen leaders from California mobile home residents, home/apartment renters, and Latinas for Reproductive Justice attended workshops about housing discrimination, housing equity issues that unite us all, and refining our stories. We learned how to have a successful visit with legislators (and staff). We 
collectively had 25 legislative visits about AB 1035, SB 567, and AB 318. A very  important part of the four days was networking with other passionate advocates on housing affordability.
The team of Teri Williams and Ada Hand of Huntington Beach and Rose Pizano of Santa Ana met with legislative staffers of Assembly members Quirk-Silva, Valencia, D. Dixon, Christopher Ward, Buffy Wicks and Senators Min and Umberg. We will send follow-up letters to each legislator. One thing they are misinformed about is that a rent review board would cost cities lots of money -- not true! The cost to the city is zero to minimal, with park owners and residents bearing the small, occasional costs.

05/13/2023

Opinion: A Right to Housing in the California Constitution Could End the Crisis

If passed, Assembly Constitutional Amendment 10, a bill by Assemblymember Matt Haney, would give California voters the opportunity to enshrine housing as a fundamental right in our state constitution. The constitutional amendment would provide the state with a legal tool — and an ongoing obligation no matter who is in office — to ensure that every person has access to a permanent, stable home.

Click to Read

05/12/2023

California city ordered to pay affordable housing group $3.5 million in legal fees.​

​HB ordered to pay fees related to past lawsuit against affordable housing mandate. But the c c is doing it again. Their nimby mentality is bleeding HB and the taxpayers dry.

Huntington Beach

05/12/2023

"It's hell" Life under the American mobile home king.

Zell has donated big $ to defeat AB 1035​

Tampa, FL

05/02/2023

Another CA park negatively Impacted by Skyrocketing Rents and the Delay of AB 1035

Santa Cruz

04/11/2023

Calls for Rent Caps Reverberate Across the State

Buena Park
Orange County

04/11/2023

Golden Mobile Homeowners Buy Park for Out of State Investors

Golden, CO

06/07/2022

This is VERY good... on Breaking Points

Private Equity JACKS Up Mobile Home Park Rents Hurting Millions

Watch YOUTUBE video HERE

12/19/2022

NPR: How the government helps investors buy mobile home parks, raise rent and evict people

READ...

01/25/2023

Biden Administration moves to create a renters bill of rights

See where they stand on CNBC

Jan 16, 2023 - Applications Open!

01/09/2023

Sen. Bowman and Warren push Biden to protect renters from corporate price gauging

See where they stand

​Huntington Beach Overlay Ordinance 4019

In 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.
​

12/19/2022

Senator Sherrod Brown, Chair of Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, presses manufactured housing investors to halt rent increases and protect seniors and requests review of financing practices from Freddie Mac

See where they stand

10/20/2022

MHRC surveyed all candidates for the 2022 Huntington Beach City Council Election

Here's where they stand

09/15/2022

Blumenthal votes to push mobile home Bill of rights

Here's where they stand

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