By Nikki Silverstein | Source
Joe Nagy, 75, pays his rent on time each month. Still, last week, the disabled senior received a 60-day notice to terminate his tenancy at the RV Park of San Rafael, where he has lived for 29 years.
The termination did not come as a surprise.
Since November, Stockton-based Harmony Communities, the park’s owner, has issued Nagy five other notices, each giving him seven days to comply with a laundry list of rules and regulations. In notices reviewed by the Pacific Sun, Harmony’s demands ranged from removing overgrown greenery on his fence to removing a structure added to his home decades ago.
While he owns his home, he rents the lot underneath from Harmony. The company’s seven-day violation notices serve as a precursor to the 60-day notice to vacate. Next up, an eviction notice.
Nagy, who had a heart attack and open heart surgery eight months ago, said that each new notice brings on a round of anxiety and sleepless nights. Recently, his physician prescribed medication for panic attacks.
“These notices are always on my mind,” he explained. “When I see homeless people, I think of my situation. Where am I going to go?”
Other residents have the same concerns. On Feb. 27, the property manager, also a tenant, distributed violation notices to 11 homes. Tenants gathered on the street to discuss the issues confronting them and express their fears. At the same time, heavy equipment noisily demolished a mobile home belonging to a recently evicted family.
In 2024 and 2025, Legal Aid of Marin has represented seven individual households at the RV Park of San Rafael. None of the eviction cases resulted from tenants failing to pay rent. Instead, Harmony is using breach-of-regulation claims to evict residents “in small batches,” according to DeMarco Garcia, Legal Aid of Marin’s housing attorney.
“Many of these tenants have lived in the park for decades and made modifications to their homes with the approval of the previous park owner, only to now face eviction based on alleged unpermitted structures that have existed for years without issue,” Garcia said. “Removing these structures is often impossible without destroying the entire mobile home, leaving tenants facing eviction with no viable options.”
Although Nagy has retained a private attorney, he is in the same boat as the tenants represented by Legal Aid. His neighbors recently helped him remedy all “violations” cited by Harmony, except for removing the additional structure that was approved 29 years ago by a former park owner.
The Pacific Sun obtained a 2022 email from the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD), a state agency responsible for inspecting mobile home parks for health and safety violations. The HCD confirmed that it had inspected and reinspected the RV Park of San Rafael, clearing 44 of the 45 households—including Nagy’s—of all state violations.
It’s rather confusing, especially since Nagy has not modified his additional structure since the HCD’s 2022 inspection. We turned to Harmony for clarification and received a written response.
“All 7-day notices were based on current (not 2022) violations of the Park rules, which include health and safety issues,” said Harmony’s chief operating officer, Sherrie Johnston.
Johnston has not yet responded to follow-up questions on this issue.
With last week’s flurry of seven-day notices to comply with regulations and 60-day termination notices, Harmony is ramping up its eviction efforts. The park has 45 spaces, with about eight unoccupied lots. Some quick math indicates that at least one-third of the current residents are in Harmony’s crosshairs. Most, if not all, have one thing in common: They benefit from a local rent control ordinance capping rent hikes to a rate tied to the cost of living.
This is not Harmony’s first rodeo with an attempted mass eviction at the park. Since it began managing the park in the summer of 2021, the company has also tried to raise rents far more than the max allowed by local rent control law. And it has threatened to shutter the park that provides affordable housing to low-income families, disabled persons, immigrants and seniors.
In December 2021, the City of San Rafael filed a lawsuit against then-owner Donna Chessen to protect the residents. Settled in April 2023, just months after Harmony principals purchased the park, the agreement requires that existing tenants remain covered by the city’s mobile home rent control ordinance.
Another term in the agreement states that the park owner will not seek to close or change the use of the park before Jan. 1, 2033. Despite its name, the State of California currently classifies the RV Park of San Rafael as a mobile home park rather than an RV park—an important distinction.
Mobile homes are single-family dwellings, according to California code. And they aren’t actually very mobile, as it’s extremely expensive to move them, and damage often occurs. Recreational vehicles, as defined by the state, include motor homes, travel trailers, truck campers, camping trailers and park trailers.
“In San Rafael, mobile homes are protected under rent control ordinances, whereas RVs are not, allowing landlords to charge higher rents without restriction,” said Garcia. “Additionally, since California Mobilehome Residency Law provides significantly stronger tenant protections than the RV park laws, the landlord can easily change park rules without tenants’ consent by changing use to an RV park model.”
Johnston claims there are no mobile homes in the park, so it is not a mobile home park. If Harmony continues with its current strategy, there likely won’t be any more mobile homes left. When residents voluntarily leave or are forced out, Harmony replaces the homes with RVs that it rents or sells.
Legal Aid of Marin’s senior housing attorney, Lucie Hollingsworth, said the organization has been unable to prevent Harmony from evicting mobile home residents. Instead, the attorneys are negotiating settlements on behalf of their clients.
“Our office has reached settlements with the RV Park of San Rafael in the form of cash payments [for residents] to vacate their mobile homes and move into recreational vehicles that the park provides,” Hollingsworth said. “Some clients expressed hesitance to move into a unit that is inadequate for their household needs, but recognized this as their only option to remain affordably housed in Marin County.”
Harmony owns and/or manages 33 “manufactured home” parks in California and Oregon, according to its website. Cities, counties and tenants have been embroiled in legal fights with the company, which appears to be buying parks with affordable housing and changing the rules to make a more significant profit.
Although San Rafael had some success with its lawsuit and settlement, Harmony has found a way to defy the spirit of the agreement, which was intended to protect tenants until at least 2033. Long-term residents at the RV Park of San Rafael say they now dread receiving notice after notice from Harmony, which might ultimately lead to their eviction.
