HUNTINGTON BEACH CIVIC CENTER (Orange County Tribune photo).

By Huw Pickering/Orange County Tribune

A total of $574,654 in rental assistance to senior mobile home owners was approved by the Huntington Beach City Council on Tuesday night. The measure will offer some financial relief to those who feared that rising rental costs might make them homeless.

Thirty households in the city will receive monthly installments over a period of two years, which will total $391,654, and will have the cost of repairs to their homes covered over the same period, those repairs costing a total of $183,000. In order to qualify, these 30 households had to be putting 50% of their annual income towards their rent, or have a total income which is less than 30% of the Huntington Beach average.

Given that more than 30 households in the city fit these criteria, applicants will be chosen by lottery. Those wishing to receive installments from the program will have a one-month period to submit their applications, although when this period begins is yet to be decided.

Senior mobile home owners in Huntington Beach have ceaselessly petitioned their city council representatives to help them stay in their homes, ever since a local ordinance banned the capping of rents in 2002.

“I didn’t think I would have to get a second job at this stage of my life,” one mobile home owner said during the public comments section at Tuesday’s meeting. “I don’t want to be another homeless person statistic.”