16 Apr Some San Pablo Mobile Home Park Residents Ineligible for City Support Amid Rising Rents

(Image courtesy of city of San Pablo via Bay City News)

By Samantha Kennedy

San Pablo seniors living in mobile home parks hoped they would benefit from a one-time city grant to stave off rising rents, but not all of them were eligible to receive the support because of the type of residence they live in.

Some residents living in mobile home parks owned by Harmony Communities — Willow Mobile Home Community and Creekside Village Mobile Home Park — were told they might be eligible to receive a $1,000 city-funded grant to help with their recent rent increases.

But Paul Frank, who resides in a trailer at one of the mobile home parks, said he was not eligible for the grant because he did not live in a mobile home. Frank told council members he would not have applied for the grant if he had known he was going to be denied.

“I don’t understand. [The application was] so ambiguous, and it’s very insulting,” he said at the April 6 City Council meeting.

Frank said that he was denied because only manufactured homes were eligible for the grant, and that eligibility “did not extend to trailers.”

Only those who were living in owner-occupied mobile homes were eligible for the grant, known as the Mobile Home Assistance Program, according to guidelines posted by the city. Those guidelines say the grant is meant to pay for the rental space a residence sits on in a mobile home park, but adds that an applicant must own and occupy “a mobile home.”

Under state law, mobile homes are defined differently than residences like motor homes, truck campers and, in some cases, manufactured homes. Mobile homes and manufactured homes are the least different, with the two largely only being split by manufacturer date.

However, motor homes and truck campers are considered recreational vehicles by state law, meaning they have to meet a set of criteria that includes a smaller size allowance than that of a mobile or manufactured home.

City Manager Matt Rodriguez and economic development and housing manager Kieron Slaughter, whose department administered the grant program, did not respond to a request for comment.

Linda Jackson, who has been at the forefront of advocating for mobile home assistance since the rent increases, said that many residents were denied the grant because of application information that was “not forthright.”

“Those that were not approved need to either be reexamined and given the grant or given the money they had to spend to get whatever documents they were told to get after they had submitted their application,” said Jackson on April 6.

The grant fund itself — $150,000 — only had the capacity to be paid out to 150 residents, according to the city, meaning it was possible it would not have covered all who applied if they had been eligible.

Around 450 people live in seven mobile home parks across the city, but residents in the Willow and Creekside communities received large rent hikes that were set to begin this year. Saying that many of them are seniors on fixed incomes, Jackson and other residents then asked for council members to enact a rent stabilization ordinance for mobile homes,

Current state law does not extend annual rent increase caps to mobile homes. A majority of council members also said they would not support rent stabilization or control for any type of residence.

That led officials to instead approve the grant program, though council member Abel Pineda, who was absent from the April 6 meeting, said it was a temporary solution.