Windsor considering tighter rent control for mobile home park residents

Windsor officials weighed whether to change a local rent control ordinance governing mobile home parks at a town council meeting Wednesday night.

The hour-plus long discussion echoed increasing demands by mobile homeowners in other parts of the county and California to rein in rent hikes as residents, who are often older and reliant on a fixed income, struggle to keep up.

“We live from month to month on a fixed income, which we totally exhaust every month,” said Robert Windus, a 75-year-old veteran with disabilities and one of many residents of the Windsor Mobile Country Club mobile home park to speak.

Faced with high rent increases, he told the council, “Somewhere during the next four years we will become financially insolvent. Please don’t put us on the street.”

Indeed, mobile homes have been a rare affordable housing option, especially for older people who have become California’s fastest-growing homeless population.

Governed by different laws than other housing, rent increases on the land beneath a mobile home are a local control issue. Roughly 100 California cities and counties have some form of rent control with yearly increases mostly tied to a percentage of the Consumer Price Index (CPI), the measure of prices for goods and services paid by consumers in an area.

While that figure fluctuates year to year, Social Security payments have overall failed to keep pace, putting some residents at risk of being pushed out, especially now as they face soaring utility bills and record inflation.

Like most other jurisdictions in Sonoma County, Windsor, which has four mobile home parks, restricts rent hikes to 100% of the CPI with a 6% cap.

That means Windsor mobile home residents are facing up to a 5.7% rent bump next year.

Nearby Rohnert Park limits increases to 75% of CPI with a 4% cap.

Calistoga in Napa, Ukiah in Mendocino and San Rafael and Novato in Marin are the only cities in their respective counties with mobile home rent control.

At a September meeting on Windsor’s affordable housing plans, mobile homeowners requested a change to 50% of CPI with a 3% cap, cutting the current allowable increase in half.

The request spurred town staff to investigate updating the 30-year-old ordinance.

In the interim, mobile homeowners — retirees, former public schoolteachers, Walmart workers, veterans, parents and grandparents, Windsor natives and transplants — sent dozens of letters to officials.

“My children help supplement for my groceries, and I’ve been to the food bank a time or two,” a 76-year-old mobile home park resident wrote in one letter. “I am being priced out of my home. I currently spend half of my income at least for housing with all the fees. ... I have little left but my dignity.”

“Even though I am not one paycheck from living on the street, I am finding it hard financially,” an 83-year-old wrote in another letter. “I am not retired due to the high cost of life, and I don't believe I will have enough money to retire. The truth is everything goes up except my income.”

According to a staff report prepared for the town council, more than half of mobile home park residents are over 65 years old and almost three-quarters rely on Social Security as a primary source of income. The analysis noted, too, the low 1% vacancy rate at mobile home parks and the “exorbitant” cost of moving a mobile home.

“This is true affordable housing and needs to be preserved,” the report said. “There is a great need to prevent excessive space rent increases, which could result in threats to health and safety and possible economic eviction.”

Recognizing mobile homes as one of the few affordable options left in a state in housing crisis, several cities have been reexamining their often decades-old rent ordinances, and state legislators have moved to strengthen resident rights and close loopholes affecting affordability.

Santa Rosa, which also uses 100% of CPI, will decide on a change later this month, following months, and even years, of organizing and advocacy by local park residents.

Maurice Priest, president of the nonprofit corporation that owns the Mobile Country Club park in Windsor, told the town council that while the upcoming rent hike will be nearly 6%, in other years where CPI limited increases to under 2%, the park had to dip into reserves to cover expenses.

“I don’t even consider the term fair return on investment,” Priest said. “What I’m concerned about is making sure that at least the CPI increases that we receive are adequate to keep up with the rising costs of maintaining the mobile home park, maintaining the streets, paying for insurance, all of those things that are required for the proper maintenance of a first-class community like we have.”

Priest pointed to recent costs like $200,000 to repave the park this year and insurance jumping from $45,000 last year to nearly $70,000 as examples. (Mobile homeowners are also facing increased insurance costs.)

Still, in letters and testimony, residents described the untenable situation of rents that have continued to rise 20 to 30% over the years and spaces that went for approximately $584 in 2011 going for almost $846* now.

“We want the 50% of CPI or 3% maximum because at this point, our rent is so high that even that percentage increase is much more dramatic than it was when rent was only $500 or $600,” said Patti Restaino, a Mobile Country Club resident.

Restaino cast doubt on Priest’s contention of financial hardship. She calculated rents, without other fees, generate more than $3 million in annual revenue for the park.

She pointed, too, to past promises by Priest.

When purchasing the park in 2007, Priest said that after an initial rental adjustment to cover acquisition costs, the owner planned to limit future rent increases to no more than 3% a year, according to previous Press Democrat reporting.

The town council did not make a ruling at the Wednesday hearing but discussed a moratorium on any rent increases during deliberations.

Ninety-day notices of rent increases are expected to go out to park residents near the end of December, which means the 5.7% rent hike would go into effect in April.

Windsor Mayor Sam Salmon proposed the park owner voluntarily share information on costs. “It would be nice if we could get all cards on the table,” he added.

Salmon told attendees the council would continue to research and meet with park owners and more residents to make a decision. Any change to the law would apply to 2023’s upcoming rent increase.

“Maybe we could make some headway ... and come to some sort of agreement,” Salmon said. “It’s always possible. Sometimes it’s not all that probable ... but we’ll give it a go.”

In the meantime, Restaino will keep pushing forward.

“We’re not going to stop,” she said.

*This value has been updated to reflect a rent increase that took place this year.

“In Your Corner” is a new column that puts watchdog reporting to work for the community. If you have a concern, a tip, or a hunch, you can reach “In Your Corner” Columnist Marisa Endicott at 707-521-5470 or marisa.endicott@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @InYourCornerTPD and Facebook @InYourCornerTPD.