Saulo Londoño
Regional Representative – Bay Area and Northern California Western Manufactured Housing Communities Association
455 Capitol Mall, Suite 800 | Sacramento, CA 95814
714.227.4009
email | map | wma.org
From: Saulo Londono
To: City Council Public Comments
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Re: Agenda Item 11.2.1 - Senior Overlay for Mobilehome Parks Date: Monday, May 6, 2024 2:15:25 PM
Attachments: Outlook-r1rywbr2
Dear Mayor and Councilmembers-
I’m writing on behalf of WMA (Western Manufactured Housing Communities Association) and mobile home parkowners in the City of Santa Rosa. I urge you not to agendize a discussion on a senior overlay for mobilehome parks. This policy amounts to age discrimination.
There are no good reasons to prohibit local housing providers from accepting residents of all ages and from all backgrounds. Do working single moms and their kids not deserve access to affordable housing in the City of Santa Rosa? If a mobile home park decides to transition to all ages, doing so does not remove any seniors from their homes. An all age community simply allows spaces, when they become vacant, to be made available to Santa Rosa residents of all ages. Seniors are not negatively impacted, in any way, by this transition.
Further, I would advise that the precedence in the courts is to give parkowners the ability to provide housing to residents of all ages. In fact there is federal regulation that prohibits housing providers from discriminating against applicants by age.
By taking this vote you will be actively discriminating against that young family trying to purchase their first home. You will be actively discriminating against a working class single mom trying to provide her kids a roof over their heads.
I urge you not to move in this direction. This council continues to enact policies that will be directly harmful for the residents of these parks. The policy changes you have made in the past year and a half have placed the entire burden of subsidizing this type of affordable housing on the backs of owners and operators of these communities. You’re fostering an environment that will only result in unpredictable rent increases due to fair return hearings, and displacement of families who cannot plan their finances accordingly as a result of poorly drafted public policy. This is already happening in nearby Petaluma.
I again, urge you not to move forward with discussion of a discriminatory policy. Young families of all backgrounds deserve the opportunity to find affordable housing in Santa Rosa.
Sincerely,
Saulo Londoño
Western Manufactured Housing Communities Association