Devo Brown began renting land at Camarillo Mobile Estates, a mobile home park for residents 55 and older, about five years ago after he lost his Malibu home in the Woolsey fire.
Although his rent has increased 20% during his time at the park, he considers himself one of the lucky homeowners. Since 2020, he said, rents for residents newly moved in have risen from $1,250 to $2,050 per month—a nearly 65% increase.
This year, the rent increases have already prompted at least three of Brown’s neighbors to move out. Two of them abandoned their homes because they could not find any buyers who were willing to pay the rent and one of the two now lives in their car, he said.
Devo Brown, a resident of Camarillo Mobile Estates who has faced rent increases, urged the city to adopt a rent control ordinance. He walked through his mobile home park to the top of a hill overlooking the city on Aug. 26.
Based on his and others’ pleas, the city of Camarillo is now considering joining other Ventura County cities in implementing rent control measures for mobile home parks.
Brown is among the many Ventura County residents and advocates who are concerned by the frequency of exorbitant rent increases and believe that mobile homes, long regarded as one of the most affordable sources of housing, should remain affordable.
“It’s a precarious and vulnerable position to be in, and the vulnerability is that the landowners, if not regulated, can charge whatever they want,” Brown said. “I would like to be able to own a home that I can afford in the future and that can provide a growing equity like everyone else who owns a home in Ventura County.”
California has the fifth highest number of mobile home parks in the country, yet fewer than 20% of its cities have adopted rent control policies, according to the Mobile Home Park Home Owners Allegiance.
Of the 10 cities in Ventura County, five have mobile home rent stabilization ordinances: Santa Paula, Thousand Oaks, Ventura, Oxnard and Moorpark.
Santa Paula vetoes 45% increase
Santa Paula adopted its ordinance in 1989. Under the current policy, mobile home parks cannot increase rent by more than 12% over a 12-month period unless they can demonstrate that the standard prevents them from maintaining their net operating income.
On June 11, after extensive community input, the city’s rent review commission voted unanimously against a 45% rent increase at Four Hundred Mobile Estates. The commissioners said the company did not provide the data needed to justify the increase. The company has since resubmitted an increase request, though the hearing is not yet scheduled.
Nick Ubaldi, a partner at the estate’s management company Harmony Communities, said adhering to the increases permitted under the ordinance as expenses inflate has placed the park at risk of closure. In 1984, the park’s net income was $305,000, or more than $1 million today if adjusted for inflation; in 2023, however, the park’s net income was only $572,000, he said.
Rent control measures, he said, do not reduce the financial burden for residents but rather drive up the sales price of homes and divert revenue away from parks.”Affordable housing has never been more critical in California, yet these policies, while claiming to protect it, are actually destroying it,” he wrote in an email. “It’s easy to vilify park owners without understanding the real dynamics at play.”
James Mason, Santa Paula’s community and economic development director, said the department has received only one other rent increase application in the nearly decade he has worked there.
“It’s not something that comes up often, but the landscape could be changing,” he said.Pushback from park owners regarding the ordinance is also rare. Most of the city’s seven mobile home parks are family owned and fair, he said.
Though it is difficult for the limited staff to manage the rents, Mason said, he believes it is a critical responsibility.
“It’s the one way we have an opportunity to maintain affordability,” he said, adding that the average rent at a Santa Paula mobile home is $450 per month. “The folks you see in a lot of these are young families, farmworkers and seniors. It’s one of the few places where people on limited incomes are able to afford something that’s less than 50% of their income, and that’s really important.”
Gladys Valdovinos moved into Four Hundred Mobile Estates as a child and now, two decades later, she owns her own home there with her husband and children. She said she has experienced rent increases regularly, but because of the ordinance, they have always been fair.
“The ordinance has really helped protect the residents,” she said. “It has established effective regulations and helped prevent abuse from greedy landlords who seek to maximize their profit at the cost of low-income, vulnerable communities.”
When she and her neighbors learned of the proposed 45% increase, they formed a residents association to advocate for themselves. President of the group, Valdovinos encourages residents at other parks to form their own organization if they haven’t already.
“It has given us the chance to have a voice,” she said. “The community is asking us to keep fighting and share their concerns.”
Thousand Oaks staff say rent increases not common
In 1980, Thousand Oaks adopted its rent stabilization ordinance for mobile home parks.
Generally, the city’s eight parks cannot increase rent more than the annual percentage change of the consumer price index, which measures the change in prices paid by consumers for goods and services. Between Nov. 1, 2025 and Oct. 31, 2026, rent increases cannot exceed 3%.
“The rent stabilization program has the purpose of safeguarding residents from excessive rent increases, and at the same time, providing landlords with a just and reasonable return on their property investment,” city spokesperson Alexandra South said.In the summer of 2022, after outcry from senior residents, the City Council asked six mobile home park owners to lower the allowable 8.5% rent increases they planned to impose. The majority refused.
While owners can apply to the city for an increase beyond the permitted amount, South said requests for more significant increases are not common. The city has only received one application in the past 10 years, and it cited the need for site improvements.
The County of Ventura also has an ordinance for the roughly 25 mobile home parks in unincorporated areas.
First adopted in 1983, the ordinance allows rent increases in accordance with the Social Security cost of living adjustment between 2% and 8% each year. This year’s COLA, based on the consumer price index, is 2.5%, meaning that is the maximum allowable rent increase.
Camarillo, Simi Valley and Fillmore do not have ordinances. Port Hueneme and Ojai do not have any mobile home parks.
Camarillo considers rent control
On May 14, after residents expressed concern over rent increases at the three rental-based mobile home parks, the Camarillo City Council formed a committee to analyze the possible creation of a stabilization ordinance. It’s the second time the city has explored such a policy.
“We’re looking at what other cities in Ventura County are doing with their mobile home rent stabilization ordinances,” said David Moe, the city’s assistant director of community development. “They’re all a little bit different, and we’re just seeing what’s out there right now.Moe said he does not know when the committee will make a decision about implementing rent control measures.
He recalls only one other time in his 10 years at the city when residents expressed concerns but said they became more frequent this year.
Brown, the mobile home park renter, said that based on his research, Camarillo Mobile Estates has the highest rent of all the parks in the county. That has caused the value of the homes to plummet.
According to the Mobile Home Park Home Owners Allegiance, for every $10 monthly rent increase, homeowners lose $1,000 in equity.
The average mobile home in Ventura County, he said, sells for around $250,000, but the average home in his park sells for around $100,000, according to documents Brown shared with the city and the Star; as of last month, three Camarillo Mobile Estates homes were for sale for less than $50,000, his documents indicate.
“For the company to practice predatory business practices with a vulnerable population is profiteering, plain and simple,” Brown said. “Their tactics have mined the equity out of our homes and into their own pockets.”
Management for Camarillo Mobile Estates did not respond to interview requests.
The case for ordinances
Assemblymember Steve Bennett, who advocated for mobile home rent control while on the Ventura County Board of Supervisors, said it’s much more difficult to pass legislation at the state level because park owners are more organized and legislators are less willing to engage.
Given that there are no enforced state guidelines, the Ventura Democrat said it is unfortunate that not all cities will control rent prices at the local level.
“Mobile homes represent probably the most affordable housing stock that we have in Ventura County and much of California. It is the last bastion of affordable housing, and it deserves to stay that way,” he said. “The way you do that is with mobile home rent stabilization ordinances.”
Advocating for affordable rent at mobile home parks in Ventura County is an important mission for the Central Coast Alliance United for a Sustainable Economy because of how many working families live in the spaces, Chris Gabriele said.
The nonprofit’s associate organizing director for Ventura County, Gabriele helped the tenants of Santa Paula’s Four Hundred Mobile Estates oppose the rent increase earlier this year. He said the commission’s initial vote was critical because it only takes the success of one bold park owner to influence others to also raise rents.
Dramatic rent increases at mobile home parks, he said, are becoming increasingly the norm in Ventura County, and park owners are at an advantage.
“You’re going to see it used more frequently as a viable business model,” Gabriele said. “If you can continue to creep up rent where it’s past the affordability zone for people because they are a captive audience, they are going to pay more and more until they break.”
Mobile home tenants cannot afford other housing options, and contrary to the term, mobile homes cannot easily be moved to other parks.
CAUSE, Gabriele said, believes that each municipality should create a rental registry that requires owners to report rent prices and then allows city staff and residents to compare income levels with those prices. CAUSE also advocates for each city to establish stabilization ordinances.
Such ordinances demonstrate a city’s commitment to residents and boost the health of the local economy, he said. Residents spend the money they would have spent on rent increases at local businesses.
“Having rent stabilization ordinances makes Ventura County much stronger because housing security is one of the few things that every resident wants: a safe space they don’t have to be afraid of being kicked out of every month because a rent increase is on the horizon,” Gabriele said. “The fact that we struggle to get that in Ventura County is very disheartening.”
Makena Huey is an investigative and watchdog reporter for the Ventura County Star. Reach her at makena.huey@vcstar.com. This story was made possible by a grant from the Ventura County Community Foundation’s Fund to Support Local Journalism.
This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: Residents advocate to keep Ventura County mobile home rents affordable