Filner Proposes Rent Relief for Mobile Home Park Residents

Reacting to a space shortage and rapidly rising rents in San Diego mobile home parks, Councilman Bob Filner proposed Thursday that the City Council adopt some form of rent control for the city’s 10,000 mobile home park residents.

Filner also called on the city to relocate anyone displaced from a mobile home park, to loan residents facing ouster the money to buy the parks, and to lease city land to create new mobile home parks.

“In the past few years, the rent increases have become astronomical,” Filner claimed, though he did not provide statistics to support his assertion. “There is no place for people to move if they like the rents. It’s very expensive to move one of those coaches.”

A lobbyist for the county chapter of the Western Mobilehome Assn. said that his organization would oppose rent control, which he maintained would pass rent increases on to future buyers of mobile home space.

“If you try to benefit one group of people, somebody has to pay for it. Somebody’s got to pay the freight,” said Richard Ybarra, government relations representative for the organization of mobile home park owners.

Ybarra said he had no figures for rents in San Diego mobile home parks but said a survey by his association showed the average rent in El Cajon parks to be $239 a month in 1988. The figure was up $63 from 1984, according to the survey.

Filner said, however, that, at some parks, rents have doubled in the past couple of years, rising from $150 to $250 to the $300-$500 range today. The sharp increases force out residents, who often are senior citizens on fixed incomes. According to a survey, the average age of San Diego mobile home park residents is 69.

Rents have risen with land value, Filner said. At least 10 parks have been sold to developers in recent years, he said. A vacancy rate of less than 1% and the high cost of moving a coach keeps residents from relocating easily, he said.

Filner said he will urge city staff to come up with “rent stabilization” ordinances like those adopted in San Marcos and Oceanside, or consider an arbitration plan now used in Chula Vista.