Help on Way at Mobile Home Park

The city has agreed to provide a $390,000 loan to a nonprofit corporation that will rehabilitate and operate an aging mobile home park.

The city’s Redevelopment Agency will also help the Caritas Corp., a Costa Mesa-based group, obtain tax-exempt revenue bonds to purchase the Rancho Brea Mobile Home Park, at Central Avenue and Puente Street.

The city’s loan will provide a slight rent reduction for the highest-paying tenants and pay for such improvements as landscaping and street repair at the 36-year-old park.

In return, Caritas will maintain at least half of the park’s 100 units as low-income housing, said Sue Georgino, the city’s redevelopment director. Caritas will hire a management company to run the day-to-day operations, she said.

“We’re trying to bring down rents and improve the park,” Georgino said. “It has a high vacancy rate, in part because the rents [the current owners] are charging are high when you add the cost of the coach itself.”

The combined costs, Georgino said, “are too expensive for low- and moderate-income families, and the majority of families there now are low income.”

The City Council approved the arrangement by a 5-0 vote Tuesday.