Trailer Dwellers Want to Put Brakes on Rent Hikes

Mobile home residents here have little going for them in a David-and-Goliath struggle to hold down escalating rents in their mobile home parks. Despite a successful petition campaign to place a citywide mobile home rent control initiative on the ballot, local backers find themselves up against a statewide organization of park owners who are outspending them 100 to 1.

Robert Flaugher, a retired minister and ex-Navy man, heads the campaign for passage of the city charter amendment, which would limit mobile home park rent increases to 30% of the cost-of-living increases granted Social Security recipients. The proposed measure also would initially roll back mobile home rents to their levels of Dec. 1, 1985, and prevent park owners from passing on a variety of other costs to their tenants.

Proponents admit that the law is a tough one, but point to the success of Proposition 13 in 1978, which put a lid on property taxes and rolled back assessed values to a level of prior years, as a model.

“I know these people (in mobile home parks) and I know more than one family that is going to lose their home with the next big rent increase,” Flaugher said.

Opposing Flaugher and his small corps of volunteers is a statewide mobile home park owners association, which has raised nearly $200,000 to fight the Dec. 16 mail election ballot measure. The park owners group is backed by popular Chula Vista Mayor Greg Cox and by City Atty. Tom Harron, who ruled that “under existing law this initiative is invalid and unconstitutional.”

Opponents to the measure--Proposition A, the only issue on the mail ballot--argue that the stringent lid on mobile home rents “instead of making life easier for mobile home park residents . . . could begin the demise of mobile home life in the City of Chula Vista.”

The city’s mobile home rent mediation ordinance, “which allows park owners and residents to resolve rent disputes through negotiation and cooperation without government interference,” has been revised and strengthened, opponents to Proposition A contend, and is a much more rational way to resolve rent disputes.

The local newspaper, The Star-News, also turned thumbs down on the rent control measure. Most mobile home dwellers are senior citizens who are on fixed incomes and are at the mercy of park owners, a Dec. 4 Star-News editorial conceded. But, the Star-News argued, the revised city ordinance that provides for automatic mediation if rent hikes exceed the cost-of-living index increases is sufficient to protect the immobile mobile home dwellers.

The editorial called the provisions of Proposition A “unreasonable and probably illegal” and urged a “no” vote.

Flaugher has raised $2,364.77 to support Proposition A and has spent all but $5.38 in printing a circular and hiring five youths to distribute it to the city’s apartment dwellers.

“That’s all the money we have and, except for speaking at local meetings, I guess that’s all we will be able to do,” he said. “But, I’m very optimistic that the measure will pass,” he added, explaining that there are growing indications that the measure will pass because of the backlash effect of the massive opposition campaign.

“People are saying that if their cause is so very good, why are they spending all that money on convincing us,” Flaugher said of the opposition campaign.

Flaugher, himself a mobile home resident, said that he had tried to use the city’s ordinance to settle a mobile home rent increase dispute two years ago and had failed when the park owner “simply walked away” and refused to discuss the issue with tenants. He then went to the city attorney to find out what was the next step in the procedure and was told to return to talk with the park owner, he said.

Flaugher contends that mobile home park owners have increased rents 350% in the past 10 years, both through direct rent hikes and by passing on charges formerly paid by the park, such as utilities and insurance, to the mobile home tenants. A decade ago, he said, mobile home park rent averaged about $84 a month including utilities. “Today, they range from $236 to $260 plus utilities,” he said.

Mail ballots already have been sent out to voters, according to City Clerk Jennie Fulasz, and must be returned to City Hall by Dec. 16, not just postmarked by that date. Counting will begin at 9 a.m. Dec. 17 by county Registrar of Voters employees, she said.