FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: For media inquiries, please contact Lina Blanco, North Bay Organizing Project • (253) 347-5130 • lblanco@northbayop.org
Sonoma County, California. – Mobile home residents from two Sonoma County mobile home parks and the North Bay Organizing Project will host two press conferences to speak out against retaliatory and displacement tactics by their respective property owners on Monday, August 28 at 6:30 PM at 890 Rockwell Road in Cloverdale, and Tuesday, August 29 at 6:30 PM at Littlewoods Mobile Villas at 1821 Lakeville Hwy in Petaluma.
Residents from a Cloverdale-based mobile home park received a 60-day eviction notice in August after longtime owner Gary Gerdes sold the property to a new owner Rebecca Clemmer. The park is home to a dozen families, many of whom have resided at the park for over 20 years, live on fixed incomes, and suffer chronic illnesses. Since receiving their eviction notice, the families have banded together to form a new tenant association – 890 Rockwell Tenants United – to fight the eviction. Six representatives will share their stories in a public press conference on Monday, August 28 at 6:30 PM at 890 Rockwell in Cloverdale.
According to recent reports, moving a typical mobile home costs between $3,000 to $10,000 – an exorbitant amount for residents living on limited incomes, with little guarantee of finding a new location to park their home. A clear pattern has recently emerged, where mobile-home park investors commodify the last most affordable housing option in the state, and abuse situations where tenants can’t afford to move by raising the rents on households who would otherwise be pushed into homelessness.
In Petaluma, residents of Littlewoods Mobile Home Villa – home to over 75 mostly Spanish-speaking and Latino families – are fighting the threat of park closure by property owner Harmony Communities LLC. Harmony Communities, based in Stockton, has used similar tactics in San Rafael and Fresno to turn a profit and raise the rents on households. The closure would immediately oust longtime residents and push many of them into homelessness.Residents of the park have since formed their independent tenant association, Littlewoods Vecinos Unidos. Five tenants, spanning the ages of 13 to 70, will offer public testimony alongside their neighbors on Tuesday, August 29 at 6:30 PM at 1821 Lakeville Hwy in Petaluma.
These press conferences will be accompanied by elected officials, leaders of faith, and community-based organizations in Sonoma County. This event is organized by the North Bay Organizing Project and Sonoma County Tenants Union.
The North Bay Organizing Project – The North Bay Organizing Project (NBOP) is a multiracial, multi-issue, grassroots organization of more than twenty-two religious, environmental, labor, student, and community organizations in Sonoma County. NBOP seeks to build a regional power organization rooted in the working class and communities of color in the North Bay.
Sonoma County Tenants Union – The Sonoma County Tenants Union (SCTU) builds tenant power through embedding anti-racist, anti-capitalist, and intersectional feminist principles in our work in solidarity with other movements for collective organizing. We strive for transformative change around housing rights, practices, and policies, and thus elevate the experiences, knowledge, and needs of those most affected by our current systems: low-income people of color, people with disabilities, trans and queer people, undocumented people and unhoused people.
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