A mobile home park in Salinas is now resident owned, providing security to families in a region marked by a limited supply of affordable housing.
Residents of the 82-unit Alisal Country Estates Mobile Home Park in Salinas have officially become its owners after recently closing escrow.
“This purchase means so much for my family, our entire community,” Leticia Castro Martinez, treasurer of the community’s board of directors said in a statement. “This is much more than just a purchase; it’s about hardworking people who make our community stronger every day.”
The $12 million purchase was funded with a $4.5 million forgivable loan from the Joe Cerna Jr. Farmworker Housing Grant Program and financing from ROC Capital, the CDFI arm of ROC USA.
The Alisal Country Estates Mobile Home Park is the third such resident owned community mobile home park financed by ROC Capital in the state since 2021, joining The Woods in Mendocino and Comunidad Nuevo Lago in Fresno.
“In a time when families are working harder than ever to create a better future for the next generation — this represents hope, security and a continued commitment to our community’s future,” said Martinez.
The road to ownership
The road to ownership began in 2024 when the Salinas mobile home park was put up for sale. The listing caught the attention of the California Center for Cooperative Development, which reached out to the sellers — described, though not identified, as a “mom-and-pop” family-owned business — and began working with park residents to form a cooperative and pursue the purchase.
“They formed a cooperative, applied for grants and worked with the lender,” said Liliana Lomeli of the California Center for Cooperative Development, which organized the residents and guided them through the process of setting up the cooperative and board of directors. The University of Irvine law school Economic Development Clinic represented the cooperative for free in the financing and purchasing of the park.
“We had quite a patient seller as well as we were waiting for the grant funds to come in,” said Lomeli.
Program offers hope amid California’s housing crunch
The Joe Cerna Jr. Farmworker Housing program is designed to help farmworker households and required at least 30 households in the community to qualify for the full amount, said Lomeli. The resident makeup of Alisal Country Estates Mobile Home Park exceeded that, with many residents either working in the fields or other agricultural jobs.
“The residents really pulled this together,” said Lomeli. “They have full-time jobs and then came home to work on this, which is like a second job.”
The residents had to select a board of directors and establish rules and bylaws. The California Center for Cooperative Development provides training on governance, such as how to create an agenda, run a meeting and take minutes. Going forward, the park’s board of directors will continue to meet monthly, update the community on park issues and vote annually on a park budget.
“They only need to generate enough income to cover park maintenance and operations, set aside some funds for reserves and make their monthly loan payments — if they want to increase fees to cover a new parking lot or other project they can vote on that,” said Lomeli. “Long term this means stability, rent stabilization and housing security.”
In a resident owned community, residents still own their mobile homes, but if they want to sell and the buyer wants to live in the park, they will be screened to ensure the park stays majority low-income and pay a one-time membership fee (currently $100), which is returned when they leave the mobile home park.
A bill currently making its way through the state Legislature would create a stronger pathway for residents to preserve mobile home parks as an affordable home ownership opportunity in California.
Senate Bill 1092, the Mobile home Community Stability and Preservation Act, would “require mobile home park owners who receive an offer to sell, lease or transfer the park to provide residents or their designated representative the opportunity to offer a competitive bid to purchase the park instead,” as introduced by Senator Ben Allen, representative of Pacific Palisades.
Increasing rents at mobile home parks
Mobile home parks, once considered a bastion of affordable housing, have in recent years become a target of real estate investors, said Lomeli.
“Unfortunately, there are a lot of investors after the land the parks are on,” said Lomeli. “We are seeing more investors come in, increase the rents to a level that is not doable for residents — many are working families or seniors on fixed incomes, and then we see a lot of displacement.”
In tradition land-lease mobile home parks, residents own their home and rent the land it sits on. These space rents vary across California—$750 to $1,400 in northern California, rising to $1,200 to over $2,000 in coastal cities, according to mobile home sellers HomeQuest,
In usual circumstances, Lomeli said one can expect to see annual space rent increases, of 3 to 6%, with no rent control, they can go much higher, which is what they were noticing in Fresno.
In a resident owned community those annual increases can be even lower. “It definitely brings a lot more security for everyone in the park,” said Lomeli.
Reporter Roseann Cattani covers community news in Salinas and the Monterey Bay. She can be reached at rcattani@usatodayco.com.
This article originally appeared on Salinas Californian: The road to ownership: Salinas residents buy their mobile home park
Reporting by Roseann Cattani, Salinas Californian / Salinas Californian
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Roseann Cattani, Salinas Californian | USA TODAY Network
