A Lesson in Controlling One’s Destiny : Lake Forest Mobile Home Residents Marshal Resources Toward Long-Term Security

A number of communities in Orange County have wrestled with rising rents at mobile home parks. For those on fixed incomes, increases can squeeze an already tight budget or prompt longtime residents to pick up and move elsewhere.

For many senior citizens, these are not happy stories. But a group of residents in Lake Forest has turned this issue to their favor by working together and with federal housing officials. Residents of the Kimberly Gardens Mobile Home Estates negotiated to buy their 150-space park after a long battle with their landlord and the City Council over rent stability.

Kimberly Gardens was one of four mobile home parks in the city that battled for several years to get a rent control law passed. But rent control did not pass muster with the City Council, which turned it down by one vote. The residents did not give up, and turned their battle into a determined push for self-determination.

Working with federal Housing and Urban Development authorities, and with the park leaseholder, the residents managed to come up with financing for a $6-million takeover of the park. The federal government helped come up with 30% of the purchase price.

Almost half the park’s population was made up of senior citizens. The residents were in a particular bind because so many were on fixed incomes. One resident said that for some, the question became whether to buy medicine or to pay the rent. The purchase, he said, meant that “We can now control our own destiny.”

The purchase was the result of lobbying of city, county, state and federal authorities for assistance in financing a loan to purchase the 30-year-lease on their property. After several tense years, these residents have shown how it is possible to take charge of their own destinies and to invest in securing their own futures.