Riverside County will begin demolishing or removing some trailers at Oasis Mobile Home Park, as well as putting up barriers to prevent new tenants from moving in, under an agreement approved Tuesday by the board of supervisors. It’s part of an effort to ultimately close the park, which has been beset for decades by health and safety hazards, including high arsenic levels in the water system.
Supervisors voted 5-0 to approve a memorandum of understanding with the Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians that will enable county authorities to establish the new measures at Oasis Mobile Home Park. The park is within the Torres-Martinez Reservation.
These include the “installation of physical k-rails; removal of trailers; demolition of uninhabitable trailers; and removal, abandonment or disconnection of unauthorized or unlawful utilities, including unpermitted water connections, septic connections (and) electrical connections,” according to the agreement .
While the county has made efforts to help residents relocate to safer living conditions in the eastern Coachella Valley, the lack of affordable housing options in the area has caused new tenants to move into the mobile home park almost as quickly as people move out, according to Riverside County Housing Authority Deputy Director Mike Walsh and Fourth District Supervisor V. Manuel Perez.
The Thermal area, along with the rest of the Coachella Valley, is part of Perez’s district.
In the last three years, the county has been able to help 78 families relocate from the park, said Greg Rodriguez, the county’s deputy director of government affairs and community engagement. The park is home to over 200 families.
Relocation efforts have been backed by different funding, including $6.25 million in federal grants, almost $8 million in state Project Homekey funds.
In 2021, at the petition of 49 organizations made up of mostly local nonprofits, Assemblymember Eduardo Garcia, D-Coachella, requested $30 million be included in the 2021-22 California budget also for relocation from Oasis Mobile Home Park. Gov. Gavin Newsom authorized the request in July 2021.
Since the approval, the board of supervisors has authorized use of the funds on two occasions: First, $7 million to advance development of an affordable housing complex in the town of Oasis, and in November, $279,000 to upgrade the Maria y Jose Mobile Home Park , in the same area.
While the new affordable housing complex would not only house Oasis Mobile Home Park residents, the county board said it would have preference. All 12 spaces at Maria y Jose Mobile Home Park will go to Oasis families.
The lack of proper infrastructure in the area, including for water safety, has made it difficult to build new homes for Oasis residents to relocate to, Perez has said.
“It’s really bad,” said Third District Supervisor Chuck Washington during the board of supervisors meeting. “It is just unconscionable that on the front end of that the managers of that home park allowed people to move in as we vacated some. And so finally, it looks like we have a real resolution in hand that we are just removing, demolishing, blocking off access to anyone else moving in to that very deplorable condition.”
Washington credited Perez with leading the MOU efforts. “It’s been a long time coming,” Perez said in the meeting.
The new policy could impact the dozen other tribal reservations within the county, although the tribes must generally consent to the county’s presence on sovereign land first.
In August, Perez had announced that the county, the Torres-Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians and Bureau of Indian Affairs had collectively agreed that Oasis needs to eventually close down, “due to unresolvable health and safety issues that continue to cause exceptional hardship to residents. “
This is a developing story and will be updated.
Eliana Perez covers the eastern Coachella Valley. Reach hear at [email protected] or on Twitter @ElianaPress.