Here’s Where the Going Gets Tough
Lourdes N. Carrillo and her five grandchildren have no idea where they will be living in three weeks.
For the last seven years, Carrillo and the children -- the oldest of whom is 13 -- have occupied her remodeled four-bedroom mobile home in Dana Point. Recently, however, the family was given a deadline: Move out by Sept. 7 or face eviction.
Even though they’ve known for more than a year that the day to leave would come, they are desperate.
“We’re in a very tough spot,” said Carrillo, 49, a hair stylist who receives $1,300 a month in state child support and earns about $400 a week. “No one will accept my mobile home and I have no money to move out, [so] where am I supposed to go? I don’t know what’s going to happen. We might move into a friend’s garage or something.”
Carrillo and her brood are among a handful of residents who remain at the 40-year-old Dana Point Marina Mobile Home Estates.
“I’m just going to wait,” said Jim Seitz, 66, a retired elementary school principal who moved into the park just three months before last year’s announcement that it would be closing. “If I have to move,” he said, “I’d rather have a judge tell me to move. The way they’ve done this is draconian.”
Bonny Pitkin, 45, a special education teacher who lives in the park with her 12-year-old son, had similar sentiments: “This is the bitter end and I’m staying. I really don’t have an option at this point.”
Opened in 1965 and host to mobile homes ever since, the 8.9-acre, 90-space park less than a quarter of a mile from the beach was sold in February 2004 for $17.6 million to Makar Properties, a development company. Four months later, it announced the park would close in June 2005, a deadline that has since been extended.
One of the last enclaves of affordable housing on the southern Orange County coast, the park has been a haven for low- and middle-income working families and retirees, whose monthly rents averaged about $1,400. Since the mid-1980s, according to some estimates, coastal Orange County has lost more than a third of its mobile home parks as property owners look to more profitable residential development.
Michael Gagnet, a Makar spokesman, did not return phone calls to discuss his company’s plans for the property.
In documents submitted to -- and ultimately approved by -- the city, Makar described the park as a facility that “has come to the end of its useful life,” in part due to aging facilities that could jeopardize residents’ health and safety.
Although the company has not stated publicly what it intends to do with the property, an environmental site assessment commissioned before the purchase refers to residential development.
“It’s a terrible situation ... and I have great empathy for the residents,” said Mayor Wayne Rayfield who, as a city councilman, voted against the closure but, as mayor, has tried to implement it smoothly. “They’re very good people and you hate to see any human being go through the kind of trauma that many there have gone through.”
Residents have filed several unsuccessful lawsuits against the city and park’s new owner alleging various improper procedures in ordering the park closed, including the violation of state affordable-housing laws. An unresolved lawsuit alleges that, in violation of fair disclosure laws, residents who recently purchased mobile homes were not informed of the park’s impending closure.
“It’s not fair to pay $50,000 to $100,000 for a mobile home and then get kicked out,” said Patrick Evans, an attorney representing the residents. “It’s just plain wrong to treat people this way.”
Though Makar has agreed to pay each displaced resident $9,000 to $15,000 in relocation expenses, some say it’s too little too late. Many of their mobile homes -- including Carrillo’s -- are too old to readily find acceptance elsewhere, they say, and there is a dearth of vacancies at area mobile home parks.
As a result, homeowners have had to undertake costly relocations or walk away from equities that could have financed new homes. For those on fixed or low incomes with little or no savings, the situation is potentially catastrophic. “We expected to be able to live here forever,” said Fran Mulligan, 56, who, with her 83-year-old father, spent more than $60,000 last year to purchase, remodel and move into their mobile home. Five weeks later they learned the park would close.
“We will probably lose everything,” she said. “Coming up with moving money is a chore. We could end up being homeless.”
All but about eight homeowners have found new living quarters, leaving the once-thriving park pocked with wide-open spaces and piles of debris.
“I’m going to chain myself to my mobile home,” said Charles Huffer, 57, a freelance mechanic who has lived at the park for six years. “The marshals are going to have to physically remove me.”
