Reporting on a story we have been following since May 2011, NCTimes says rent control supporters in Oceanside, California have been out in numbers demonstrating against Proposition E, a measure that will phase out rent control in all 17 of the city’s MHCs, to be decided by voters in a special referendum June 5. Although the Oceanside Manufactured Homeowners Alliance has been outspent approximately six to one by the MHC owners and the Western Manufactured Housing Communities Association, Councilman Jerry Kern, who champions Prop. E., says sentiment favors MHC residents. “All the emotions are on their side,” Kern said. “It’s very hard to go against somebody who says, ‘They’re going to take my home away.'” Under “vacancy decontrol”, as Kern calls it, rent control would continue to cover current occupants of rent-controlled sites, but would end when the resident moves or sells their home. The Oceanside City Council had previously voted to end rent control, a policy, MProNews.com has learned, instituted in 1984 to provide affordable housing for veterans and seniors.
