CITY OF HUNTINGTON BEACH
CITY COUNCIL MEETING – COUNCIL MEMBER ITEMS REPORT
TO: THE HONORABLE MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL
FROM: DAN KALMICK, CITY COUNCIL MEMBER
NATALIE MOSER, CITY COUNCIL MEMBER
DATE: JUNE 21, 2022
SUBJECT: SENIOR MOBILE HOME RENTAL ASSISTANCE PROGRAM
Mobile Home living in Huntington Beach has become increasingly difficult. While mobile home owners own their physical home, they do not own the land under their home. If rent becomes unaffordable, picking up and moving, as one might do when renting an apartment, is incredibly difficult. Either it may be cost prohibitive to move a manufactured home or the home may be too old to find a suitable space in a nearby park with more affordable rents.
Furthermore, rents in mobile home parks in Huntington Beach are increasing due to a variety of reasons including: sales of Mobile Home Parks, which trigger property tax reassessments, increasing operating costs and rapid inflation. Additionally, the lack of housing supply in the Southern California region have put upward pricing pressure on all types of housing stock, including mobile homes. That, combined with the decrease in family-owned parks and an increase in corporate owned parks, has made it increasingly difficult for many of our senior mobile home park residents to continue to afford their space rents.
Through the United States Government’s Housing and Urban Development (HUD) HOME program, the City has historically supported a program called Tenant Based Rental Assistance (TBRA). This is a short- term (2 years maximum) rental assistance program for low-income residents that are either about to become homeless or are trying to get rapidly rehoused. With rising rents and rental subsidy caps, the program has struggled to find units that meet HUD’s strict living standard requirements.
The money currently being allocated to our TBRA program (nearly $600,000 annually) could be reallocated to create a Senior Mobile Home Rental Assistance Program (similar to what the City of Fullerton created in 2019, see attached) to help impacted seniors living in mobile homes stay in their homes. The program is federally funded and income qualified (meaning the program would be geared to those residents who make less than $50,000 a year). The subsidy could help 40-100 households at a time for two years, while elected officials at the local, county, state and federal level look for additional resources and alternatives for those experiencing an extreme hardship paying their space rent.
RECOMMENDED ACTION
Direct staff to phase out the current TBRA program with existing nonprofit service providers and come back to Council within 60 days with (a) policies and procedures for a Senior Mobile Home Rental Assistance Program, (b) any amendments required by HUD to redirect the existing TBRA program to senior mobile home residents, and (c) a staffing plan or a potential nonprofit partner to administer the new program.