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.
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.”