San Jose's mayor is among the local leaders pushing for new protections to keep mobile home park residents from facing eviction.
The city has 58 mobile home parks -- the most of any city in the state. And on Tuesday, city officials could vote to add another layer of protection for them.
The new proposal would add a new land use designation that would make it more difficult to redevelop mobile home parks.
“Mobile homes are the last bastion of affordable housing in the state of California,” said Martha O’Connell, the regional manager of the Golden State Manufactured-home Owners League (GSMOL).
She has lived in her mobile for nearly two decades. She owns the home, but does not own the land that it’s on, and that means there has been constant fear of the future if that land is ever sold.
“I am delighted that the end is coming,” said O’Connell.
“It really calls out in a very clear way that the intention of the city is for these sites to be used as mobile home parks. So it makes clear what the land use designation is today, making it that much harder to change it in the future,” said Mayor Matt Mahan.
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That protection will first include 13 of the 58 mobile home parks.
The rest will be voted on in the coming months, and the mayor has included it as part of his budget.
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“We’ve got to protect these vulnerable residents who tend to be working families and seniors and we’ve got to make sure that they’re protected from displacement,” said Mahan.
People in San Jose may remember the fight over a mobile home park next to Santana Row.
A developer wanted to turn it into luxury condos. After years of back and forth many of the residents signed agreements as long as they could move into one of those new homes.
While there’s no projects in the works to tear down another San Jose mobile home park, the residents say this next step would certainly help them.
“This level of protection is going to let mobile home residents sleep just a little better at night,” said O’Connell.
