Trailer Park Residents Protest Big Rent Hikes

Residents of a Gardena trailer park are seeking help from the city’s rent mediation board to fight unexpectedly high rent increases that they said would mean financial hardship for senior citizens at the trailer park.

About 50 residents of the Gardena Trailer Lodge, 16949 S. Western Ave., most of them senior citizens, attended a Gardena City Council meeting on Tuesday to protest the increases after they received notices by mail earlier this week.

Residents said the increases, which would take effect on April 1, ranged from $15 to $129 per month, significantly more than the previous increase at the park, which occurred in November, 1986, and averaged $15 to $20.

Mitzi Allstott, president of the local chapter of Golden State Mobile Homeowners League, spoke to the council on behalf of the park’s senior citizens.

Pay Rent or Eat

“They’re on fixed incomes and they don’t have too terribly much now,” Allstott said. “Many of them are having to make the choice of whether they’re going to continue to own their trailers and starve to death or be out on the street and eat.”

Park residents own their trailers but rent the land on which they sit, Allstott said. About 200 people live at the trailer park.

John Leja, the park’s manager, said the rent increases are self-explanatory. Park owner Charles Goldman could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

“We’re starting to equalize our rent within the total park, and there are some rents that are higher than others,” Leja said. “There are a few who think it’s not just. I think it’s just good business sense.”

Park residents, many of whom live on fixed incomes, disagree.

‘Can’t Afford to Move’

“I can’t afford to move,” resident Laverne Carter told council members, adding that her rent had been raised $65, an increase she could not afford because of medical and other living expenses.

Donald F. Martin, a resident of the park since 1970, told council members that his monthly rent would increase from $235 to $270, not including gas and electricity costs.

Gardena City Atty. Michael Karger said that residents who want arbitration hearings with the rent mediation board have 10 days from the time that notices of the increases were received to file a request.

A move in 1986 to put rent control on the city’s election ballot was unsuccessful. In 1987, Gardena toughened its rent mediation ordinance to make binding the decisions of the city’s nine-member, volunteer rent mediation board.

After a crisis in 1985 at the Village Mobile Home Park, 17100 Gramercy Place, when residents received eviction notices, the city used revenue bonds to purchase the trailer park and transferred ownership to its residents, who in turn are paying off the bonds.