Elderly trailer park residents lose battle against rent hike

http://www.contracostatimes.com/california/ci_15113821?nclick_check=1

Wesley G. Hughes, Staff Writer

Posted: 05/18/2010 08:12:42 PM PDT

YUCAIPA – The aged residents of Grandview West Mobile Home Park here are likely feeling they should have stayed mum after a double whammy of rent hikes hit their rental controlled park.

Owned by the Rudrich Family Trust, it is one of the smaller parks in this city. Thirty percent of Yucaipa residents live in mobile home parks.

Facing a rent increase of $101.79, 44 percent of which is legal costs, many of Grandview’s residents are desperate.

“I haven’t yet figured out how I’m going to do it,” said Bettie Armstrong, 92, adding that one of her son’s in developmentally disabled “and my other son is in a nursing home.”

At 61, Jim Pratt, a former California Highway Patrol officer is in constant pain from a gunshot wound suffered in line of duty.

His income is $875 a month with rent already at $400. The increase will be a serious burden.

“Thank God I don’t have a car anymore,” he said.

Grandview West has 50 spaces, all under rent control. It is limited to residents 55 and older – most much older, with at least two in their 90s. They own their homes and rent the land.

Residents unable to pay the increase have been assured that the property owner will work with them.

Grandview West’s owners filed a request with Yucaipa’s Rent Control Commission for an increase of as much as $144.76 per space. The commission decided to allow a $60.62 per space increase plus $10.03 cents a month for five years to cover administrative costs.

But the commission’s finding failed to satisfy either owners or residents and both sides appealed.

Resident William Wambsganss said the seniors appealed because they believed the property owner had charged costs to Grandview that had been incurred at the trust’s other parks.

The seniors held garage sales and spaghetti dinners to raise funds for an attorney.

When the city council received the appeals of the commission’s ruling, it overturned the commission and gave nothing to the property owners.

The council decision delighted the old folks but angered officials at the trust, which had told the residents in a letter, “if they did not appeal the rent commission’s ruling, Rudrich would not appeal,” Alpert said.

The trust took the city to court in San Bernardino and Superior Court Judge W. Robert Fawke threw out the council’s decision, ordered that Rudrich be compensated for legal costs and told the council to rehear the issue.

On May 3, the council threw out its decision favoring the residents and accepted the commission’s original ruling of $70.65 including administrative costs. On top of that came the court costs ordered by Fawke of $31.14 a month for five years. The rent increase has not yet been billed.

Resident Grace Greco, 97, is also unhappy with the outcome.

“I am disgusted with the City Council,” she said. “Are they leaders of all or leaders of a few?”