Overview:
Millions of dollars will soon be made available to help the city preserve their mobile homes amid a mounting affordable housing crisis.
Funds will soon be made available for those seeking to safeguard some of the city’s last remaining affordable housing stock – Fresno mobile homes.
The Fresno City Council unanimously approved a resolution allowing the city to initiate a Notice of Funding Availability “for the acquisition, improvement, and preservation of affordable housing in mobile home parks within the City of Fresno” during their Dec. 14 meeting.
The resolution was sponsored by Councilmembers Miguel Arias and Garry Bredefeld. Arias said the NOFA decision illustrates the city’s shift in attitude toward mobile home parks.
“It wasn’t until two years ago that the city of Fresno had the legal ability to even monitor or inspect mobile home parks, right?” Arias said in an interview with Fresnoland. “Two years ago we had no interest in connecting mobile home parks to the city’s water and sewer infrastructures.”
Fresno took control of mobile home park inspections in 2021 following a fire that broke out in La Hacienda Mobile Estates, then called Trails End Mobile Home Park.
“We are now connecting mobile home parks to water and sewer systems to make sure that they have a sustainable water source and have a necessary sewage infrastructure,” Arias continued. “We are taking responsibility to inspect and monitor all mobile home parks within the city’s boundaries, and now we’re actually funding the renovation and preservation of mobile home parks.”
It might be the first time in the city’s history that a NOFA process has been initiated specifically for Fresno mobile homes, according to Arias.
Arias anticipates the NOFA process to make approximately $17.2 million in funding available. About $11 million will be available through the city’s Housing Trust Fund.
What about the other $6.2 million?
The city set aside $6.2 million toward a recent permanent affordable housing project proposal. The proposal’s rejection, however, now frees those funds to be redirected — likely toward the new purpose of mobile home preservation.
The Fresno City Council rejected about $16.4 million in state Project Homekey funding toward a permanent affordable housing project in northeast Fresno during a hearing at their Dec. 7 meeting. The project would have involved the acquisition of the Quality Inn hotel at Bullard Avenue, just east of Freeway 41, which developers said would have created 59 affordable housing units for Fresnans who are homeless or at risk of being homeless.
Council rejected the proposal in a 5-2 vote, with Councilmembers Annalisa Perea and Nelson Esparza providing the dissenting votes.
City Manager Georgeanne White spoke during the hearing about the possible ramifications that come with rejecting the proposal. Among those consequences were the possibility of losing out on future state funding for future projects — including one currently involving a Travelodge hotel.
“We were looking that we would have a very strong likelihood of being awarded a $10 million Homekey award,” White said during the hearing. “Just moving forward, when you do not take a grant award from [California Housing Community and Development] when there has already been a resolution submitted, it will result in future applications being assessed a deduction of 50 points. That means that future proposals…we would most likely, with the 50-point deduction, not score high enough to receive funding.”
The council, however, voted to reject the proposal, citing reasons that included a disapproval of the project’s location.
During public comment, Elizabeth Emory spoke about how unsafe she’d feel if the project was approved. Emery is a medical worker who works in one of the many medical centers neighboring the proposed project’s location.
“I have been physically assaulted by a homeless person,” Emory said. “There are good ones out there, but there are also not good ones. There are a lot of good people who do good things in this district, and there are other solutions that don’t involve it being right here…[homelessness] is a problem that we need to solve but it doesn’t need to be right here.”
UpHoldings and RH Community builders — two of the developers that would have been responsible for completing the project had the proposal been accepted — released a joint statement on Dec. 12 criticizing the council’s comments and verdict.
“Council’s recent decision to reject the Quality Inn Homekey project is not just disappointing from a project development standpoint,” the statement reads. “It’s financially reckless, denies immediate funding for our city, places future state proposals in jeopardy, and will have a direct, negative impact on the lives of those in our community who desperately need housing.”
Councilmembers also acknowledged negative public sentiment toward the project as a reason for their decision to reject it. At least 15 of the 22 people who spoke during the hearing’s hour-long public comment portion spoke in support of the project.
“Affordable housing advocates and developers are not new to fear-based opposition and NIMBYIsm prior to new developments,” the joint statement reads. “The Quality Inn Homekey project received more public support than opposition at the council [hearing], but the council members who voiced their sudden fears of the location opted to side with the voices of the few.”
The statement also called the council’s decision “legally problematic” and a sign of “poor governance.”
A solution for La Hacienda?
The new city funding for mobile home preservation could be what the residents of La Hacienda have been waiting for.
Co-sponsored by Bredefeld, whose district houses the mobile home park, the NOFA could provide funding to a buyer looking to acquire the park with the intention of keeping it open as affordable housing.
“I think, personally, that this would be a great opportunity to come up with a sustainable solution for the Trails End mobile home park that would preserve it for its life as an affordable housing mobile home park,” said Arias.
It would be a big break for some Fresno mobile homes that seems desperate for one. The park and its residents are only one month removed from their recent city hearings involving proposals to raise the rent by more than double and to close down the park.
On Dec.13, another fire broke out in La Hacienda and destroyed a mobile home.
The home belonged to Kim Sands, who says the fire was likely caused by her leaving her gas stove unattended while frying some bacon. Though nobody was inside the home at the time of the fire, several of the cats inside Sands’s home either went missing or were found dead.
Fresno Fire Department Battalion Chief Guadalupe Fernandez said that approximately 25 firefighters arrived at the park to stop the fire. He also acknowledged the extent of the damage it had caused.
“Total loss to the structure,” Fernandez said in an interview with Fresnoland. “They’re not going to be able to occupy it again. There was fire from the front to the back of the structure.”
Though Sands mourned the loss of her home and pets, news of the NOFA and a potential end to the park’s years-long struggle to stay open helped liven her spirit. She even went to the Fresno City Council meeting to thank councilmembers — a meeting that took place just hours after a fire destroyed her home.
“I had a fire…now I’ve lost it. I lost some cats. I lost everything,” Sands said. “I just wanted, on behalf of everybody that’s left in the park, I want to say ‘thank you’ for what you’re doing for us.”
What comes next?
It is not currently known if a party will apply to acquire La Hacienda mobile home park to keep it open as affordable housing.
The funding announcement initiates a competitive process for Fresno mobile homes, meaning a party looking to acquire La Hacienda is not guaranteed funding.
Laura Moreno, Chair of the Fresno-Madera Continuum Of Care, told Fresnoland that the FMCoC is currently weighing in on whether the council’s rejection has grounds for them to get involved. The FMCoC is specifically mulling engaging in advocacy over the matter.
Community Organizer for Faith In The Valley Alexandra Alvarado feels the city has failed the people at La Hacienda, and hopes that their recent actions aren’t a sign of them trying to correct a mistake with another mistake.
“For them to take money out of another affordable housing project…it’s shocking. Because it’s needed everywhere. In all parts of the city,” Alvarado said.
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