Even Mobile Homes are Getting too Expensive in Silicon Valley

As Silicon Valley continues to thrive economically, its residents are starting to feel the pain of the rising amount of rent that they have to pay in order to remain in the area. Even mobile homes are starting to get too expensive for the residents and many of them happen to be older residents. One Sunnyvale mobile home resident, 70-year-old Judy Pavlick, has been going around collecting empty plastic bottles and empty drink cans to raise around $10,000 in order to campaign for a rent control measure in the city. Very few cities in Silicon Valley have rent control, which includes Sunnyvale, and rising rent prices may displace many residents, particularly elderly people, out of Silicon Valley. In response to why Sunnyvale does not have rent control, Sunnyvale Councilman Michael Goldman stated,

The problem I have is there are a lot of loopholes in rent control, and we’re going to have a lot of lawsuits the moment it goes through.

Pavlick had originally purchased her mobile home in the Plaza Del Rey mobile home park in 1989 for $65,000 and only paid $356 in monthly space rent, which included garbage, water, sewage and cable. Pavlick now pays $1,004 for space rent and now the residents of the mobile home park, including her, have to also pay the cost of all utilities, personal property taxes, and the costs associated with maintaining their homes, patios and yards. New residents to the mobile home park have to pay $1,600 for space rent, which is almost 40 percent more than the mobile home park average. Hopefully a solution can be created to aid the elder so that the rising housing and rent costs do not harm them.

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