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PREVIOUSLY

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The Fortuna City Council will likely establish a moratorium on rent increases on mobile home residences at a special meeting this Monday, September 29, to give them time to develop a Rent Stabilization Ordinance for the city.

Though it’s not a set-in-stone RSO, the Fortuna-based group Save Our Seniors (SOS) is calling it a win after months of advocacy. 

Announced after a closed session of the Fortuna City Council on Monday, the moratorium pauses all rent increases on mobile home lots within city limits until April 30, 2026, or until it’s repealed. It’ll likely be replaced by an RSO, which will establish some limits on how much owners of mobile home parks can raise the lot rent on their residents. 

Increases are usually tied to increases in the Consumer Price Index; SOS spokesperson Hilary Mosher said they’d like them to be around 75% of the CPI. They’re also asking that rents won’t be bumped up more than 5% when the houses are sold.

Mosher said that they were thrilled when they heard the news.

“There was a shocked silence as we all looked at each other and thought, ‘Wait, did you just hear what we just heard?’” Mosher said in a phone call with the Outpost. 

If the council hadn’t decided to enact a moratorium, the SOS was planning on switching tactics to trying to pass a citizen’s initiative, which requires a lot more effort, especially for a group mostly made up of the elderly.

“We were despondent,” Mosher said. “We really thought, ‘Oh man, we gotta go around these folks and do the right thing.’ And then when they came out and announced that they had done the right thing, we just felt such a wave of relief and support.”

Mosher, who has helped to pass several RSOs over the last decade in Humboldt County, said that during previous campaigns owners had increased rents on residents while government officials were working to create them — the moratorium prohibits that possibility, a reason also mentioned in the document.

The owners of the Royal Crest Mobile Home Park, the park at the center of the movement, have hinted through their lawyer that they’d be willing to sue if an RSO is enacted. They’d prefer a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the city, but the SOS don’t want the city to enter an agreement that’s mostly dictated by one side and isn’t written into law. According to Mosher, there are also over 100 cities in California with an RSO and only four with an MOU. 

City Manager Amy Nilsen said in a voicemail that the moratorium was the result of “significant public comment” from the SOS. 

Fortuna Mayor Mike Johnson declined to speak at length about the ordinance.