By Mike Harris | Source |
Seniors at the Ventu Estates-Ventu Villas mobile home park in Newbury Park are reeling from an 8.5% rent hike that takes effect Nov. 1.
Many say they can’t afford it and are worried they will lose their homes and perhaps even wind up on the street. The sharp increase is allowed under Thousand Oaks’ mobile home park rent control ordinance.
“This is too much,” said Maria Fahey, 86, who lives at the park by herself, on Friday.
Like many other residents, her only source of income is Social Security.
“I live alone and I’m afraid I won’t be able to make it,” Fahey said. “I want to keep living in my house.”
She currently pays about $870 in monthly rent. The 8.5% hike will increase it to about $944.
Residents of the approximately 300-unit park at 26 S. Ventu Park Road own their homes. They pay rent for the land the homes sit on. If they can’t afford the rent hike, the park will evict them.
They would then sell their homes and find somewhere else to live that they can afford. With soaring rents, that would be no easy task, said park resident George Rosenthal, who is trying to rally his fellow homeowners to get the 8.5% increase reduced.
“Many people live here by themselves and will be out of their homes and on the street if the rents are not controlled,” Rosenthal, 75, said.
He said he and his wife, Bonnie, can afford the hike, though it will be difficult. They both have Social Security plus some supplemental income.
Their rent will increase from $755.15 to $817.96.
Park residents were notified of the rent increase by the owners of the complex, Thompson-Allen Co., a few weeks ago, Rosenthal said. It will be in effect for 12 months, through Oct. 31, 2023.
Since the notification, Rosenthal has spoken to many of the park’s residents about the hike.
“It’s mainly older females living by themselves on Social Security and they tell me, ‘I sit at my kitchen table and I have to decide am I going to buy my diabetic medicine, am I going to buy food, or I am going to pay rent?'” he said.
“It’s crushing because there is no possible way for them to be able to afford this increase,” he said.
Susan O’Driscoll, Thompson-Allen’s managing partner, did not return a call Friday seeking comment.
Under the city’s mobile home park ordinance, annual rent increases are tied to the consumer price index, which measures the change in prices paid by consumers for goods and services.
The index increased 8.5% for the year which ended in March, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. The increase was the largest in 12 months since December 1981, the bureau said.
Prices have been driven up by bottlenecked supply chains, robust consumer demand and disruptions to global food and energy markets worsened by Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Rent increases at Ventu Estates-Ventu Villas, one of five senior mobile home parks in the city, have been much lower in previous years.
“They’ve always ranged between 1.5% to 2%, sometimes 3%,” Thousand Oaks Assistant City Attorney Patrick Hehir said Friday. “The 8.5% jump was a shock to everybody. It’s a major jump.”
He noted that landlords don’t have to increase rents by the full 8.5%, but they can under the ordinance.
Rosenthal said the ordinance should be amended to differentiate between senior mobile home parks and family mobile home parks. It should put a 3% or 4% rent increase cap for the senior parks, he said.
Unlike the senior parks, homes at family parks typically have several residents who are still working and thus can more easily afford an 8.5% increase, he said.
Rosenthal is trying to get as many park residents as possible to show up at Tuesday night’s City Council meeting to appeal for help during public comments.
[ED. NOTE: GSMOL leaders in Ventura County have heard from residents in these and other Thousand Oaks parks and will be investigating.]
