Lana Craig is 80 years old. Her house, a coral-green mobile home in Fortuna with a view of the Ferndale Bluffs, is stuffed with colorful books, plants and religious ephemera she’s had so long she can’t remember where it all came from. She fell in love with that house the first time she saw it; she told her realtor she wanted it without even going inside it first. It reminds her of the home in Hayfork she lived in for 20 years after she retired with her brother before he died. She thought her new home would be an excellent place to live out her last years; it was beautiful, but also affordable on her fixed income. 

Then the rent went up shortly, from $745 every month to $914. Utilities are another $200. She earns $1,900 a month from Social Security. 

The math is relentless, the subtraction endless. She estimates she can afford it for another three years until her savings have totally evaporated. 

Craig is looking for a job. She’s applied for work at the Dollar General and the Walgreens in Fortuna. She wouldn’t have to leave town to get there, and she’s sure she’d do a good job.

“As you can see, I’m pretty adequate,” Craig said. “I’ve done everything from cleaning toilets, I’ve owned businesses, and I’ve managed businesses, so I’d be a good employee…I’m hoping that I’ll get a chance for a one-on-one interview with someone. If they see me, and see that I can work, and that I can talk with people, and I’m customer oriented — that’s what I’ve had to do. So…”

She trailed off.

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Craig lives at Royal Crest Mobile Estates, a 205-unit seniors-only mobile home park in a little corner of Fortuna. There, the rent has gone up over and over again in the last few years, up over 21% from what it was four years ago, higher than the 15% increase in the Consumer Price Index. (Although the residents own the homes they live in, they have to pay rent on the land the houses sit on.) 

It’s owned by the Storz Management Company, a real-estate management firm in Orangevale that specializes in mobile home parks. They own 25 of them and claim over $200 million has been invested with their company. 

Craig believes herself to be blessed with impressive mental alacrity and physical strength for a woman her age, but not everyone at Royal Crest is that lucky. Many are too old to work, or rely on a working partner that’s likely nearing retirement themselves. 

Lane Moon, 59, another resident of Royal Crest, said she’s seen three or four people move out in the last year alone because they couldn’t afford to pay the rent, and another five moved out because they were about to reach that point. Moon has a neighbor in her late 70s who walks four miles round-trip to get to her part-time job because she can’t both pay the rent and get her car fixed. Some bundle up in sweaters because they can’t afford to turn on the heat. Others have had to get rid of their pets.

On Monday, July 21, a number of them will petition the Fortuna City Council to add an item to a future agenda (they’d like it to be sometime in August) that they hope would alleviate things somewhat: a Rent Stabilization Ordinance (RSO) that will limit how much mobile home owners in Fortuna are legally able to raise the rent on their tenants. Three councilmembers will have to approve of the idea to put it on an agenda. 

Save Our Seniors (SOS), the group that Moon and Craig are in that is responsible for the petition, hope a future RSO passed in August would tie the rent to the Consumer Price Index. Landlords wouldn’t be able to raise the rent more than 50% of the CPI annually. It’s currently legal in California to increase rent on mobile homes every 90 days. It would also have measures to prevent landowners from letting the grounds and public spaces rot. 

If the city council ends up passing the RSO, it won’t be the first in Humboldt County. Voters passed Measure V by 5,000 votes in 2016, an RSO battled by almost $150,000 in out-of-town donations from real estate millionaires, and Arcata’s city council passed one of its own in 2017.

Reached by phone, Fortuna mayor Mike Johnson said he didn’t know enough about the proposed ordinance to comment on it. 

Some Royal Crest residents feel exploited by Storz, who advertise that they can help investors purchase and maintain mobile home parks for consistent profit. Other communities have complained in the past about Storz and their rent hikes, as well as out-of-the-blue eviction notices that Storz later walked back. 

“Mobile home communities offer a combination of steady cash flow, long-term appreciation, and relatively low volatility,” reads their website under the headline “A Hidden Gem in the World of Investing.” “With a growing demand for affordable housing and a fragmented market ripe for consolidation, the potential for returns is significant.”

Moon claimed that just about every time Storz fixed something on the property, her rent would go up. When she moved in four years ago, her total rent with utilities was around $740 every month; it’s now over $1,300. 

Moon and Craig had expected their rents to go up year-over-year when they moved in, but not to the degree that they did. In 2015, the average rent in the park was around $440 (about $600 when adjusted for inflation). 

Leaving isn’t really an option. The phrase “mobile home” is a misnomer except to a privileged few. It would be almost impossible for a financially besieged senior to pick the house up and move somewhere else. It usually costs around $30,000 to move the house, and another $20,000 to hook it up to utilities. 

SOS members say that an RSO won’t have negative effects on the community. The owners of Storz don’t live in the area, the thinking goes, and don’t really invest their profits back into Fortuna. With lower rents, SOS says the Royal Crest dwellers will have more money to spend in Fortuna. 

“[City council’s] job is to protect these 300 seniors, not to protect this one millionaire who’s taking money out of your community and paying [investors] and himself,” said Hilary Mosher, a volunteer with SOS who helped lead the push behind Measure V in 2016. “Your movie theater shuts down, your restaurants are shut down. Nobody has discretionary spending money anymore when their rent is going up.”

Mobile homes are also worth less when the rent is higher. The Mobile Home Park Home Owners Allegiance estimates that for every $10 lot rent goes up, the equity of the house drops $1,000.

Moon and Craig admit they didn’t necessarily ask the right questions or read through all of the fine print when they moved in, a decision they regret but cannot change. 

Many elderly people don’t have the strength to combat practices they see as predatory. 

“As you get older, it’s harder to process things,” Moon said. “There’s more fear and vulnerability. You’re more easily intimidated or taken advantage of. And that’s what it feels like this whole thing is about. I’m still somewhat young. My husband’s 12 years older than me, and we were looking for a place — it’s your last home. It’s where you want to be. It’s just the end of it, right? It’s easy, it’s safe, and then it’s not, after so many years.”

Members of SOS and Mosher said they aren’t trying to totally throttle Storz’s profits. They’re not asking for them to make nothing, they say, but simply a healthy return that doesn’t force people out of their homes. 

“We’re in favor of a fair return,” Mosher said. “We’re just not in favor of an egregious return.”

If Craig can’t afford to stay at Royal Crest, she said she has no idea what she’d do.

“This keeps me up at night,” Craig said. “This keeps me up sleepless at night, thinking about that, wondering about it, but I don’t want to go there and make it real.”

We’re waiting on comment from Storz. This article will be updated when it is received.