Mobile home residents are feeling stuck

Beatrice Prentice and Florence Cotton didn't intend to become affordable-housing activists in their late 70s.

But when the battle came to them, the Los Angeles grandmothers say, they decided to fight back.

Seven months ago, the landlord of Palisades Bowl, a 170-space mobile home park overlooking the Pacific Ocean near Santa Monica, told the two women and their neighbors that he planned to subdivide the park and sell each space.

No one would be evicted, lawyers for landlord Eddie Biggs told the tenants. Those who chose not to buy the land under their coaches could continue to rent.

But after a single lot was sold, anyone not qualified as low-income would lose the protection of rent control. The law allows landlords to raise rents to market rates over four years.

At Palisades Bowl, that means spaces that cost about $600 a month now could more than double in a few years, said Cotton, 78.

Tenants were so anxious and shaken after the August meeting explaining the conversion that they decided to try to stop it, Prentice and Cotton said.

They formed their first homeowners association, hired a lawyer and set up committees to divide up the work. Prentice is in charge of publicity and Cotton is rounding up political support.

Even though many tenants would be transferred to a state rent-control program, the residents remained suspicious. The state program would be available in Los Angeles County to any single person with an annual income of less than $38,000 (less than $44,000 for two people), for example.

Senior residents in particular are fearful about what switching to private ownership would mean. They worry about making mortgage payments and the added cost of property taxes and homeowners association dues, Prentice said.

"When you get older, you want peace of mind, and that's what affordable housing means," said Prentice, 76, a retired preschool teacher.

Similar confrontations are underway across California. An estimated 30 mobile home parks are converting to tenant ownership or have done so. They include parks in Carson, Ojai, Santa Paula, Palm Springs, Vallejo and Buellton as well as in San Luis Obispo and Sonoma counties.

Though it's a small number compared to the 5,000 mobile home parks scattered across the state, critics say it is the start of a wave of conversions that, if left unchecked, could wipe out a significant stock of affordable housing.