Remember Jimmy McMilian, the NYC activist and perennial candidate who started the Rent Is Too Damn High Party? The Black Vietnam vet had wicked cool whiskers and was mad as hell at the cost of housing. Most of us in California can relate. The rent is too damn high. The cost of buying is too damn high. Everything. Is. Too. Damn. High.
Making housing affordable has been a mostly impossible problem to solve, despite efforts by the state to streamline building processes, provide grants and tax credits, encourage denser development and ADUs (accessory dwelling units), and limit rent increases via the Tenant Protection Act 2019 (AB 1482) to 5 percent plus inflation not to exceed 10 percent.
Then there’s the matter of mobile home parks, which are often the most affordable housing available. A tenant owns the mobile home and pays monthly rent for the land, and many of these parks are limited to residents 55-and-older, often on a fixed income.
You know who has time to howl that the rent is too damn high? Retirees! So, when property management company Harmony Communities California tried to increase rent on two parks it manages in Cambria and Nipomo called Oak Terrace and Buena Vista, respectively, the howl came … and was heard!
SLO County’s Mobilehome Rent Review Board denied the proposed rent increase in May 2025, and after an appeal by Harmony Communities—which claims to be the “leader” in affordable manufactured housing communities throughout the West—the SLO County Board of Supervisors upheld the review board’s decision on Nov. 18.
“Harmony” indeed. More like disharmony. The list of Harmony Communities’ alleged misdeeds is long. Even our own DA settled a civil suit against the company after complaints alleged it didn’t reimburse charged background fees as required by California’s Mobile Residency Law. Bad, Harmony! Bad!
“Harmony doesn’t own any mobile home parks. It’s strictly a third-party property management company that my family hired in 2022 to handle day-to-day operations,” Nick Ubaldi said. “My family has owned the park for over 20 years.”
Um, why are you the representative for so many of these Harmony-“managed” mobile home parks across the state, then, Nick?
Ubaldi offered some fancy math to justify the requested—but failed—rent increase: “From 2002 to 2024, cumulative inflation has been approximately 89 percent.
“Over the same period, the park’s rental revenue increased from $152,216 in 2002 to $274,971 in 2024, an increase of about 80 percent. In other words, revenue has fallen roughly 10 percent behind inflation. Operating expenses, however, have risen from $77,668 in 2002 to $199,661 in 2024, a 157 percent increase, outpacing inflation by more than 7 percent.”
Unfortunately for Ubaldi, he’s not the only one who can do math. If the increase had been approved, Oak Terrace rent would have gone up by $106—about a 20 percent increase per space rental. When the park was purchased in 2002 for $1.6 million, it generated a 6.25 percent rate of return, establishing that figure as the allowable rate of return for future years.
County staff saw through Ubaldi’s math and noted the county doesn’t allow park owners to adjust their initial capital investment for inflation, and that when Ubaldi’s inflation adjustment is removed, the financial return is 7.49 percent, which is higher than the allowed 6.25 percent return.
Harmony Communities has alleged that some tenants use their units as second homes, suggesting they’re undeserving of rent control, but no evidence was provided. And rent controls are in place to prevent unbridled greed and to keep housing—even an alleged second house—affordable. It doesn’t change the fact that Harmony Communities-managed SLO County parks apparently make a reasonable return on investment without rent increases.
Seems like the county made the correct decision because … the rent is too damn high!
You know who’s not high? The Lucia Mar Unified School District board, which rejected community residents Paul Masters’ and Gary Adams’ appeals to ban two books from the Arroyo Grande High School library. The board voted 4-3 to keep Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe and Push by Sapphire in the library. South County Democrats allege Harvest Church is behind the push to band the books.
Democratic spokesperson Virginia Roof said, “I have one child that does identify as part of the LGBTQ-plus community, and one of the titles, Gender Queer, is specifically an inclusive book for that community. I feel really strongly that all of our students should want to learn about others.”
According to Lucia Mar, Push has never been checked out. Gender Queer has only been checked out three times. Shouldn’t high school students have the right to read what they want? Why should activists like Masters and Adams limit what readers can access?
Sapphire’s 1996 debut novel is about an obese, illiterate, HIV-positive 16-year-old who lives in Harlem with her abusive mother and is pregnant with her second child by a rapist father who’s also responsible for her first Down syndrome-afflicted child. The novel was made into the two-time Academy Award-winning film Precious in 2009.
Heaven forbid our high schoolers are exposed to the reality that many young adults don’t share their privileged lives or easy access to education, resources, and support, right? ∆
The Shredder is considering moving into a larger cardboard box. If you’ve had a new refrigerator delivered recently, email shredder@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Holiday Guide 2025.
“Harmony” indeed. More like disharmony. The list of Harmony Communities’ alleged misdeeds is long. Even our own DA settled a civil suit against the company after complaints alleged it didn’t reimburse charged background fees as required by California’s Mobile Residency Law. Bad, Harmony! Bad!”
Last week, The Shredder wrote an entire column eviscerating the very DA who, in this week’s column, he actually notes is reasonable. It’s dizzying. For The Shredder, the office of the DA needs to focus on the issues of vocal boutique identitarians. I’d be willing to bet that the very DA who protected the interests of a presumed aged class of inhabitants of managed mobile home parks includes many people on the opposite aisle of the aisle of this county’s DA. Our county’s DA didn’t ask what political affiliation, religious or sexual orientation the mobile home dwellers subscribed to. No, he took a clear case of exploitation of senior citizens and held those responsible for doing so accountable. The corporation lost, senior citizens won. This is the kind of District Attorney and public official this country desperately needs. For people on fixed incomes, as many senior citizens are, the difference between an unwarranted rent increase and being able to pay for food or medicine, is real. When public officials focus dinner table issues, they win. When they focus on identity politics, as The Shredder and this county’s bleeding heart liberals would have the DA do, they lose. In this case, on behalf of every single senior living in the mobile home parks this county’s DA was able to protect, The Shredder owes a giant apology or should retract all the vile The Shredder has written about this county’s impartial DA, Dan Dow.