Mobile Home Rents

Is government the solution to mobile-home space rent rates? Escondido mayoral candidate Jerry Harmon wants rent control. The city of Poway bought one mobile-home park, presumably so it could charge less-than-market-value rates to its residents. Now Poway may use its power of eminent domain to steal another mobile-home park, whose residents complain that their rents have nearly doubled in the last 10 years.

The residents don’t mention the rate of inflation during the same period. Nor do they mention the effective escalation in property taxes, or the rise in property value in their neighborhood. They just want their neighbors to subsidize their lifestyle.

Has Eastern Europe, New York rent control and the savings-and-loan bail-out taught us nothing? When government tries to provide anything but security from force or fraud, the long-term result is misery for the masses and windfall profits for the friends of government.

The free market provides the best products and services at the lowest cost. It does not discriminate. The Libertarian founders of this country knew this before they wrote the U.S. Constitution. If they were alive today, they would be amazed at our stupidity and sadly disappointed in the usurpations of their fine document.

If lower mobile-home space rents are desired, eliminate government restrictions on mobile-home parks. As soon as there are more spaces than tenants, you can bet that the rental rate will decline.

MARY SZTERPAKIEWICZ

Escondido