Mobile home residents form coalition in response to closure ordinance
By Nancy Needham nancy@theacorn.com

When three little boys stood in front of the City Council, the youngest one had to stand on his tiptoes to be seen from behind a small podium. Martin Paras, 8, and his brothers, Stephen, 7, and Casimir, 4, asked only if they could please keep their home.

Sitting behind them were about 200 other mobile home residents, from mobile home parks throughout the city, who have recently united hoping for a "yes" answer to that same question.

"I strongly urge you to honor the terms of your mobile home closure ordinance and to ensure that all residents that are displaced upon sale of the property receive in-place fair market value for their homes. I also urge you to designate all mobile home parks as mediumdensity residential," Albert Feldman, Vallecito Mobile Home Park resident, told the City Council last Tuesday.

Those words were echoed by most of the other speakers, all from the city's mobile home parks, who followed him to the podium.

"The people who reside in mobile home parks are not wealthy or powerful, yet we are the people who literally built this community and this country. We are combat veterans from World War II and the Korean conflict; we are retired school teachers, nurses, firefighters and police officers. We are also the disabled and the hardworking poor," said Brenda Mahr Feldman.

She said mobile home residents deserve protection and respect.

"To this end we have formed the Thousand Oaks Mobile Home Action Coalition, a coalition of all mobile home parks in Thousand Oaks," Feldman said.

"Right now buying and selling a mobile home in a park in the city is on hold," said Ed Savage. "I talk to people who are looking- and there's a lot of people looking because this is the most affordable living in town for seniors- but people are of the opinion they want to see this situation resolved."

Prospective buyers want to see if those being relocated get fair market value or not, Savage said.