Mobile Park Residents Facing Massive Rent Increase
The Avalon Mobile Home Park at 3970 Castro Valley Bouelvard, where residents are fighting a big rent increase.
Dozens of Castro Valley mobile home park residents say they face big—and illegal—rent increases that might result in their evictions early next year.
Tenants at the Avalon Mobile Home Park at 3970 Castro Valley Boulevard who own their homes but not the land under them got notices on October 31 from a relatively new owner, Three Pillars Communities. According to the notice, rents on most of the 46 units are expected to rise sharply, for some units roughly doubling, on February 1, 2024.
Three Pillars, headed by Daniel Weisfield, bought the park from the former family owners in February 2023. On its website, Three Pillars says it owns 70 mobile home parks in 13 states and is seeking investors to buy more.
“Where are we supposed to go?” said one resident who declined to give her name, fearing retaliation. “There’s a homeless encampment we can see right across the street to remind us of a possible way this could turn out.”
Alameda County mobile home ordinances limit rent increases to 4 percent a year, but Weisfield told residents that the ordinance doesn’t apply to residents of Avalon. He says they occupy recreational vehicles (RVs), not mobile homes, and should be covered instead by laws governing temporary stays.
County housing officials contacted by the residents just last week said the mobile home ordinance does apply and rents should only increase by 4 percent annually. Residents also point out that the sign on the street identifies the property as a “mobile home park.”
“These are real people living in real homes,” said resident Tara Clancy. “Most of them are low-income or seniors, or both, and they’ve lived in their homes for years.”
Those homes, which she said are all considered mobile homes legally, are variously manufactured homes, modular homes, and RVs that long ago lost their wheels and have been affixed to foundations and upgraded to meet earthquake protection standards.
“There’s a big difference between a family vacationing in an RV and staying only a few days in any one place and living in one in a mobile home park and attached to a foundation,” Clancy said. “It cost my mother over $10,000 to set up her home here to the required standards,” adding that her mother lives in a separate unit at the park.
“She can’t just pick up and leave. None of us can,” Clancy added. “It costs thousands and thousands of dollars to disconnect and move on. And we don’t just pay rent on our space, but many of us have mortgages or loans to pay off on our homes, too.”
Avalon Park resident Bill Danenhower is 87 years old and worries management’s real plan is to evict everybody then find some other use for the land. He can’t imagine where he could live if he had to move out.
He has a neat and carefully decorated three-bedroom, two-bath unit that he says would cost $700,000 to $800,000 if he bought a similar house in Castro Valley. As it is, he can afford the rent at its current level and gets to live in a comfortable home.
“They’re always talking about building affordable housing in Castro Valley, but this is the affordable housing they already have. They ought to think more about keeping it,” Danenhower said.
Efforts to reach Weisfield were unsuccessful, as were efforts to reach the park manager. Residents say that the manager is only there for part of the day on Tuesdays and that contacting the owners was difficult, even to pay rent.
Weisfield has been visible where disputes have arisen at other parks he owns or co-owns. In Petaluma, he defended large rent increases at Youngstown Senior Mobile Park that also exceeded what Petaluma’s mobile home ordinance allowed.