California: Mobile home residents on rent strike against hikes

Residents in Ceres, California launched their strike when Equity LifeStyles Properties increased rents by $85 a month.

Mobile home dwellers own their houses, but rent the land on which they are situated.

Residents first appealed to the city council to apply rent controls to the land - one of nearly 300 mobile home plots owned by ELSP - but they declined, leaving them no option but to take direct action.

The tenants' struggle has already forced the landlord to offer a lower increase of $35 to $545 per month in a deal brokered by Mayor Anthony Cannella. The new offer would have limited rent hikes until 2012, but a resident group said the deal wasn't good enough because it would have allowed the Chicago landlord to adjust rents to market rates on individual lots whenever someone moved out of the park and so it was rejected.

Listen to an interview with a rent striker now:
Download MP3 (7.4Mb)

By libcom, interview from indybay.org