>> >>: One thing to get straight up is that mobile homes are not
really mobile.
>> >>: Priced out.
Last year the Oceanside city council passed an ordinance to phase out rent control in
the parks.
That means park owners could raise rents from a few hundred dollars a month to a thousand
or more.
Her home lost value like any other house in San Diego, but without rent control the value
has plummeted.
If they can raise the rent without limit, then no other buyer is going to want this
house.
I've invested my life savings in this house.
I've already lost a great deal of money since I move under to it, and this will take the
rest.
If I lose this home, I lose everything.
>> >>: So who would gain the mobile home park owners whose profits have been gradually eroded
over the years, immobilized back in 1984.
city councilman Jerry Kern who is running for Mayor this year thinks it's time to overturn
rent control.
He says no one will be forced from their homes because prop E is vacancy decontrol which
means the rent can only change after a home owner sells.
>> >>: The existing residents do not lose rent control.
They get to keep rent control as long as they live in their coach.
Only after they move does it go to market rate.
>> >>: Oceanside past rent control provided affordable housing to its Sr.s, kern says
there's no way of knowing if low income people are buying mobile homes.
Kern says some people use mobile homes as their second home.
He argues the city has spent nearly aightd million dollars administering the program.
City staff reports suggest that number is closer to 4Êmillion.
Kern says the city should not be supporting a program that interferes with the mark expt
private properties rights.
>> >>: We cannot have the city paying for a program that in essence is taking away property
rights from the land own expr transferring to somebody else.
>> >>: It's a tricky situation, balancing the rights of it land owners with the rights
of the home owner.
Mobile home owners have rallied and put the issue on the ballot.
Bob ranked a retired Veteran is fighting to save rent vl.
>> >>: There are people in here that live on social security.
That's all they live on.
They get 900 dollars a month, it pays the rent and utilities.
It's sad that those people are going to be impacted by this.
If they're not im pablghted immediately, they will be within a year or two.
>> >>: Ryan says there are people who have tried to sell, perhaps to finance their transition
to assisted living, but couldn't find a buyer.
They ended up selling to the park owner for pennies on the dollar.
Ryan says the park owners could raise rent as a way to force people out.
On a recent forum KOCT, Amy epstein says that's not going to happen.
Epstein is part of a family owned mobile home business.
>> >>: We're in the mobile home park business.
>> >>: Epson's grand father built some of the first mobile home parks decades ago.
>> >>: When vairn vacancy control rent passes, the owners will have a pride of ownership,
create more amenities in the park, redo the streets, and up grade the electric, fix the
pools and the decks.
I mean, that stuff costs money and right now there's not money to do it.
With vacancy they can control that money would be there.
>> >>: Several of those parks are family operations but most are run by large corporations, some
from out of town.
Park owners pour almost 300,000 dollars into the campaign to pass proposition E.
The Oceanside city council woman who originally brought rept control into the parks says this
has brought a significant shift in Oceanside's politics.
>> >>: Remember that this issue is about your mom and your dad who are living inÊ can live
in a place where they can take care of themselves or come and live with you.
>> >>: The vote in June does pit one kind of property owner against another and it will
be a bell weather of the changing political climate in Oceanside.