I'm the last guy who would ever ask for government controls on private pricing strategies. The free market is a beautiful thing when unencumbered by Uncle Sam and his minions. A good chunk of me is Libertarian (I took a test) and I distrust the government's attempts to meddle in most anything because its track record basically stinks. The folks who want to fix our health care system are the same ones who brought us the wonderful federal housing projects that litter our cities and the notion that everyone should own a home with no money down and no visible signs of income.
At the same time ... I'm a HUGE fan of older people and unless we at least consider some sort of rent control on our local mobile home parks, many of our older people will be homeless soon. For them, it's a race between death and despair.
As most of you know by now, Nevada County is old. You know a community is old when you go to a matinee and it's filled with silver (or bald) heads staring up at the Silver Screen. And ... before you start screaming ... I'm bald and I play senior softball. I also go to matinees and forget where I parked.
What some of you may not know is that there are hundreds of older people trapped inside their so-called “mobile” homes today. After all, most of those homes really aren't mobile. And, if you could move one, it would cost more to do it than the home is worth today.
There are at least three mobile home parks in this area where residents own the home, but not the land it sits on. The land is owned by investors who typically don't live here and seem to care less about the folks who do.
Many of these older mobile home owners purchased their homes when times were good. You think the housing market has been cruel to you, check out the values of mobile homes today. Especially the homes inside the parks where landlords have homeowners in a financial death grip. I know a guy who bought his mobile home five years ago for $26,000 and says if he got $4,000 or $5,000 for it today, he'd be “tickled pink.”
That alone would be enough to make a grown man cry. But when you throw in the fact that rents during the last five years have increased 25 percent or so ($400 to $550 or so), it's enough to bring you to your knees, which is happening more and more each day.
The only ones not crying are the absentee park owners, who have the seniors by the so-called short hairs. The math for them looks REALLY good when you multiply 193 parcels of bare dirt times $500 per month each. That's almost $100,000 per month, or, more than a million dollars a year in rent. I've driven through most of these parks and sure don't see $100,000 per month in improvements, or “tenant perks.”
There are other fringe benefits for park owners as well. Every once in a while they get to take someone's mobile home because the owner can't sell, or pay the escalating rents. They must walk away, which sounds easier said than done when you are 85 and walk with a cane or a walker and have no family to fall back on.
The park owners get to sell the mobile home at a discounted rate, get the back rent and ... sometimes ... keep the profit.
Then there is the intimidation. It's not terribly difficult to intimidate a senior citizen, which is why we have elderly abuse laws. Imagine how frightening it is for an 85-year-old woman to be told she must pay now or lose her home. Or ... be presented with a 96-page long-term “lease” document filled with dozens of “therefores” and “whereins” and “third party of the second party of the first party, etc.” One way around rent control is to get the majority of the seniors to sign long-term (sometimes 25 years) lease agreements.
Fear is a powerful tool, as most of us today are well aware. And some of these mobile home park owners seem to know how to use fear to their advantage. An 85-year-old is no match for a smooth-talking suit from Los Angeles.
Sounds like something out of those old Wild West stories where the land barons would send in hired guns to intimidate squatters. If it weren't for Clint Eastwood, they would have been successful.
But Clint is now a senior citizen himself and no help for these “Older Americans” who are as immobile as the homes they sit trapped inside today.
It's time for our county and city governments to pay a little closer attention to their needs and if that means outright rent control, or at least a moratorium until they have a chance to investigate, so be it.
Jeff Ackerman is the editor/publisher of The Union. His column appears on Tuesdays. Contact him at 477-4299 or jackerman@theunion.com.
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