Mailbag: Mobile home issue reveals true colors of H.B. council

The mantra of the conservative majority of the Huntington Beach City Council has been “local control.” This has been ostensibly to prevent the citizenry from being preyed upon by housing mandates and legislative arm-twisting from the state. But what of cases being the other way around? The case of manufactured housing homeowners in Surf City is a perfect example. The local mobile home community has been preyed upon by mobile home park owners for some time. Outside corporations and investment groups have bought several mobile home parks over the past few years and arbitrarily jacked the space rents up beyond the ability of many senior, fixed income and young residents to pay. These predatory park owners have funneled many thousands of dollars into the campaign coffers of the council majority members and own these politicians as surely as they own their properties.

Local control here means that mobile home owners are at the mercy of local leaders who will show them none. As outlined in the Daily Pilot, our leaders refuse to act with local remedies such as a “carve-out” to Section 803 of the City Charter to exempt mobile home parks from the same rent control bans as other forms of investment property. In fact, they refuse to act at all to protect the thousands of mobile home park residents, estimated at 3 to 4% of our population, from park owner abuses. Worse, these leaders are actively opposing state legislation to help do what they won’t. The park owners and their industry allies, like MHET (Manufactured Housing Educational Trust) and WMA (Western Manufactured Housing Communities Assn.), are also attempting to block legislative relief in Sacramento through lobbying efforts. It’s been a no-win situation for those mobile home park residents under the thumb of our “local control.”

The council majority members have also ignored recommendations from the city’s Mobile Home Advisory Board to provide common sense relief measures and data collection efforts to help stabilize the mobile home market, claiming it smacks of rent control. In reality, it is siding with special interests at the expense of homeowner constituents.

In Huntington Beach, the term “local control” is a double-edged sword that is cutting mobile home park residents deeply.

Tim Geddes
Huntington Beach

Note: Tim Geddes is the former chair of the Huntington Beach Mobile Home Advisory Board.

SEL method is about success

In her May 7 commentary (“Rethinking how schools address the mental health epidemic,” Daily Pilot, May 7), Rebeka Sinclair seems to lay the blame on SEL (Social and Emotional Learning) for the rise in mental health illness among young people. If one reads the SEL literature (as found on Teachers First), the goals and purposes are “to provide a process ... to acquire and apply the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to develop healthy identities, manage emotions and achieve personal and collective goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain supportive relationships, and make responsible and caring decisions.” Nowhere is there evidence of “dogmatism, social justice indoctrination, identity politics,” as stated by Sinclair. The RULER Approach, an evidence-based method developed by Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, recognizes that emotions are an integral part of one’s identity and mental health. The program trains educators and leaders first to understand the importance of emotional intelligence so they can model those qualities to students. It collaborates with parents and the community in applying that knowledge to help young people succeed in school and life beyond.

Jean Toh
Newport Beach

Tents pop up in Newport Beach

Homelessness now has a very public face and location in Newport Beach. The bus terminal off to the right of Avocado Avenue is becoming an encampment for a growing number of tents along the sidewalk. The number is literally growing daily, and went from six to 10 overnight — from Thursday, May 4, to Friday morning.

A Newport Police Department representative told me that state law allows this kind of encampment in cities where there is no suitable facility designated for the homeless and that as long as they allow 3 feet between their tents and the sidewalk, it is legally permissible. I can predict that word will spread quickly by the homeless that Newport Beach is hospitable to their coming and setting up their tents without interference. All they have to do is take a bus to the terminal and conveniently set up shelter along the sidewalk.

Not only is allowing the encampment going to create safety and hygiene problems for the transit station, but it also means office and medical buildings, shops and residences in Irvine Terrace are going to be subject to wandering homeless people when they decide to leave their tents and go looking for financial assistance.

Although I have not believed up to now that homelessness was a significant issue here, it now is going to escalate into a complicated problem if no alternate solution to permitting a tent city can be found. Here comes everybody.

Steven Hendlin
Newport Beach