City's grants helped mobile home owners

The $6,000 grant/loan Mary Malmo received from the city was a godsend to her, she said.

But the Mobile Home Rehabilitation program that helped Malmo hasn't been available recently to other lowincome homeowners who need help making safety and health-related repairs.

But from 1999 until it was discontinued, the program gave out about $1.5 million in redevelopment funds to mobile home owners in need over the past 10 years.

According to Russ Watson, housing and redevelopment manager, city staff is working on updating the program to improve its effectiveness. City workers are trying to figure out how to run the program in-house instead of using a contractor as they have in the past, he said.

Each year money goes into the budget for the program. This year about $400,000 is budgeted. If it's unspent, it will be absorbed into a fund with redevelopment money to be used for other housing needs. It does not accumulate, Watson said.

"We've been waiting for years and calling the city regularly asking when they are going to start up the program again," said Vallecito Mobile Estates manager Ron Gellenbeck.

It really helps the mobile home park residents fix up their homes, Gellenbeck said.

"My (late) husband John had Parkinson's disease and could not do the upkeep needed on our mobile home," Malmo, 80, said.

The forgivable loan they received from the city was used to fix their roof and to make their mobile home safer by upgrading their plumbing and electrical systems, she said.

"The improvements they made to our wall sockets kept us safe and could have saved our lives. It was a blessing," Malmo said.

She and her husband moved to Thousand Oaks in the early 1960s. They moved into a mobile home for retirement in the 1990s, and she heard about the program though her mobile home park manager, Malmo said.

Rancho Mobile Home Park resident Celia Workman, 97, also spoke highly of the grant/loan program that served low-income residents in Thousand Oaks like herself who needed help keeping their homes safe through repairs.

"It was a wonderful program that meant a lot to me, and the program should continue for others who need it," Workman said.

Marilyn Ruble of Vallecito Mobile Home Park agreed that low-income people need to be taken care of with such a program, she said.

Redevelopment funds aren't state or federal. They're tax increment funds generated from an increase in local property tax revenues once a redevelopment project area is established. Of those funds, 20 percent are to be used for housing.

Over the past 10 years it appears as if the money allocated for these funds has gone to four of the nine mobile home parks in Thousand Oaks- Ventu, Vallecito, Ranch and Thunderbird Oaks mobile home parks. The majority of the money appears to have gone to Vallecito Mobile Home Park, according to records provided by the city.

Penny Mayou, co-president of Conejo Mobile Home Park, which is scheduled to close in about two years, said she wondered why no one she's talked to at Conejo Mobile Home Park knew about the grants.

"For years we've been going to the city and asking them what we could do to get improvements at our mobile home park, and we were told there was nothing the city could do for us," Mayou said.

Watson said he doesn't recall how the city promoted the program when it first started, but he thought most people learned about it later on by word of mouth.

The program has had a long waiting list, so city staff didn't advertise for more applicants. Even with the program paused for years, there are still dozens on a waiting list, he said.

The list of those who got the 10-year grant/loans includes many people who live next door to each other or on the same street. People would get their roofs, stairs, plumbing, electrical system or other needs paid for and 10 percent of the loan was forgiven each year.

After 10 years, it was completely forgiven.

If someone died or moved before the decade was up, the loan amount that was left or unforgiven would have to be paid. Watson said he didn't know and wouldn't speculate what would happen to such a loan if the mobile home park closed while money was still owed.

The city didn't turn away a qualified applicant, Watson said. After someone applied, they were assessed to see if they qualified by income and what repairs were needed. The waiting list was required because there were more applicants annually than there was staff able to process the loans, bids, work with contractors and monitor the work, Watson said.