Child Ban at Mobile Home Parks Challenged

The mobile home park--the last type of housing in California where children can still be excluded legally--is under attack by statewide consumer and civil-libertarian groups, which hope that 1985 will be the year that the parks’ exclusionary practices will be banned.

“It is the last loophole in housing discrimination against children,” said Gloria Allred, a Los Angeles attorney who successfully sued an all-adult mobile home park in Malibu last year. “The battle is joined.”

Proponents on both sides of the issue predict that the long-debated question of who may live in mobile home parks could very well be decided this year in the Legislature, the state Supreme Court or both.

Any resolution would affect residents in the San Fernando and Santa Clarita valleys, which contain approximately 100 mobile home parks. Most of these parks are maintained for adults only, said Dorothy Donner, a supervisor with the state Department of Housing and Community Development’s district office in Winnetka.

Rulings Against Other Types

Attention is being focused on mobile home parks because other previous strongholds of all-adult living have been struck down by the courts. In 1982, the state Supreme Court ruled that apartments could no longer legally refuse to rent to families with children because to do so violated anti-discrimination provisions of the state’s Unruh Civil Rights Act. A year later, the court extended the same protection to families wanting to move into condominiums.

A case originating from Los Angeles has provided the Supreme Court with the opportunity to rule on the mobile home issue.

In November, the Appellate Department of the Los Angeles County Superior Court ruled that mobile home parks in the county could no longer ban families with children unless the park qualified as senior citizen housing.

The decision is being appealed by attorneys for the Point Dume Mobile Home Park in Malibu, which tried to evict Steven and Barbara Zipp after their daughter was born in 1980. The state Supreme Court is expected to decide by April 10 whether it will accept the case for review, said Allred, the Zipps’ attorney.

Legislative Battle

Meanwhile, at the state Capitol, the battle lines were drawn this year when two opposing bills dealing with mobile home residency were introduced in the Legislature.

William Craven (R-San Diego), chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Mobile Homes, has introduced a bill that would prohibit mobile home parks from discriminating against children, but would permit senior citizen parks for those age 55 and older. The bill is supported by numerous consumer-advocacy and civil-rights groups, including the Consumers Union, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Gray Panthers and the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation.

To the surprise of consumer groups, the other bill, backed by the mobile home industry, is being carried by Assembly Majority Leader Mike Roos (D-Los Angeles), a previous foe of other adults-only housing. Roos filed his bill last week, just meeting the deadline for bill introductions.

Bill for Status Quo

Roos’ bill would maintain the all-adult status quo and bring Los Angeles County back into the fold. As a result of the Zipp case, Los Angeles County, which has 712 mobile home parks, is the only county in the state in which the all-adult park is illegal. Linda Wilson, an aide to Roos, said the bill was intended to abrogate the Zipp decision so that the laws would be uniform throughout the state.

Roos’ bill is endorsed by the Western Mobile Home Assn., which represents 2,000 park owners. “I hope people understand having Los Angeles County out of step with the rest of the state is not a good policy,” said Denny Amundson, the association’s executive director.

The Zipp decision has caused confusion among park owners, residents and prospective buyers with children in the Valley. Some families are being warned that they could be evicted if the state Supreme Court rules in the park owners’ favor in the Zipp case. Other families apparently still are being turned away from adult mobile home parks, said Kelly Brydon, housing coordinator for the Fair Housing Council of the San Fernando Valley.

At Least 12 Complaints

The Fair Housing Council in Van Nuys has received 12 to 15 calls from families who assert that mobile home parks are still discriminating despite the Zipps’ victory in November, Brydon said.

Randy Couch and Bonnie Talbert are two people caught in the legal confusion. Talbert, who has a preschool-age child, and Couch bought a mobile home in Seminole Springs Mobile Home Park in Agoura in January in preparation for their marriage this summer. Talbert said they received a letter from the park’s attorney informing them that they would be forced to leave if the state Supreme Court accepted the Zipp case for review.

Talbert, a secretary, and Couch, an electrician, said they plan to fight any such action because a mobile home is the only type of housing they can purchase.

“People like us can’t afford to buy a $150,000 to a $200,000 house--$50,000 is about right for us,” Talbert said. “You can’t find a $50,000 house.”

Zipp Ruling Is Key

George Kahabka, owner of L. D. Flickinger Co., which operates Seminole Springs and 12 other mobile home parks, said the couple would have to leave only if the Supreme Court ruled in the mobile home operator’s favor in the Zipp case.

However, Kahabka said all families are being advised that they are taking a risk if they move into the park while litigation is pending.

“It’s a very awkward situation,” and residents are unhappy that families have the opportunity to move into the adult parks now, Kahabka said. “We’re between a rock and a hard place.”

Jim Dunn, who owns mobile home parks in Reseda, Mission Hills and Sylmar, said that it is residents--not owners--who are upset with the possible disappearance of all-adult parks.

Families, Dunn said, are “basically not welcome” by current residents of adults-only mobile home parks.

Compromise Bill

Craven said he introduced a compromise bill to end debate on the issue. The senator said recent court decisions that have gone against mobile home parks make it obvious that the tide has turned away from park owners who want to exclude children.

“To us, it seems to be a logical and equitable solution,” Craven said of his bill. His legislation would allow present residents to remain in parks that in the future could allow only senior citizens. The bill, which will be heard before the Senate Housing and Urban Affairs Committee at an undetermined date, also includes provisions that would allow younger people to live with a senior citizen under certain circumstances.

Experts say that abolishing all-adult mobile home living will be more tricky than outlawing the practice in apartments and condominiums, because in the 1970s the Legislature passed the Mobile Home Residency Law, which allows adult-only mobile home parks. Apartments and condos never had such legal protection.

Two Legal Views

Consequently, while consumer groups insist that the all-adult parks violate the Unruh Civil Rights Act, the mobile home industry says the practice is protected by statute.

In the Zipp case, the appellate court ruled that the Unruh Civil Rights Act and the current mobile home law were not necessarily in conflict. The court interpreted the Legislature’s “adults-only” designation as referring to senior citizens.

Maurice Priest, the lobbyist for the Golden State Mobilehome Owners’s League, which represents 200,000 mobile home residents, said he hopes this year the matter will be resolved. The uncertainty about the residency question, Priest said, has “caused nothing but stress and ulcers to a lot of people.”