![]() Improvements indeed were made, such as putting in speed bumps and repainting and revamping the laundry room and common bathrooms and showers, said Flaherty Ward, the housing authority’s assistant director. ![]() Two years later, the federally-funded Santa Clara County Housing Authority announced plans to revitalize the property.Ĭaritas Corporation, a nonprofit that specializes in improving and preserving 20 or so California mobile home communities, was brought in by the housing authority to “stabilize” the park’s operation and make needed improvements to security and some aging facilities. In 2017 the park was finally saved when the Jisser family accepted the $40 million price offered by the city and county. #The last bastion affordability seriesGroup members and allies often packed a series of meetings held to discuss the park’s fate, and their efforts snowballed into a campaign that attracted national attention. (Dai Sugano/Bay Area News Group)įearing they’d be forced out of the one of the few affordable pockets of Silicon Valley’s most expensive real estate, park residents gathered forces and were eventually joined by neighbors, who together created the group Friends of Buena Vista. PALO ALTO, CALIFORNIA – May 14: An interior view of Clara Maupin’s trailer is seen at Buena Vista Mobile Home Park in Palo Alto, Calif., on May 14, 2021. But that would have displaced about 400 residents - mostly low-income Latino individuals and families - and following lengthy appeals and legal maneuverings, a judge in December 2016 told the city it needed to calculate relocation costs for each tenant before the park could ever close. The Jisser family as early as 2012 wanted to sell their property in Palo Alto’s Barron Park neighborhood to any residential developer interested in the prime location, a move the city initially authorized. The purchase preserved the last bastion of housing affordability in Palo Alto, one of the few remaining mobile homes parks left on the Peninsula where most houses fetch well over $1 million. The future seemed bright when Santa Clara County and Palo Alto chipped in $14.5 million each and the Santa Clara County Housing Authority $11 million to buy and revitalize the 4.5-acre park and its 117 homes in 2017. “It’s like people are giving me hints to get out of here, and now I’m packing up my stuff. “How can they go ahead and put all these new houses around me and I’m stuck with the rats?” Maupin said. ![]() PALO ALTO, CALIFORNIA – May 14: Some construction wastes are seen from Clara Maupin’s trailer at Buena Vista Mobile Home Park in Palo Alto, Calif., on May 14, 2021. And try as they have, her family and friends can’t get her moved into one of the few prefabricated homes being installed in the park today because they’re only available to renters and a few dislocated trailer owners. Maupin still lives in the same run down, rat-infested trailer she’s owned in the mobile home park for 15 years. PALO ALTO - Four years after dozens of Buena Vista Mobile Home Park residents gleefully applauded the news that a deal had been approved to save their haven from being closed and redeveloped, 94-year-old Clara Maupin has long stopped celebrating. ![]()
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