photo credit: Noah Abrams/KRCB
Littlewoods resident Rufino Cortes speaks outside Harmony Communities
offices in Stockton, CA. on Tuesday, April 23, 2024.

Residents of a Petaluma mobile home park are facing the threat of large rent hikes and even possible eviction and closure.

They took a protest on the road this week to Stockton.

"The sprinklers are on in the middle of the day, if that gives you any kind of sign," Protestor Angeles Cruz said. "We are very much drenched, but that's not stopping any of us from our freedom of speech."

The roughly two dozen residents are mainly from Petaluma’s Littlewoods Mobile Villa off Lakeville Highway, on the city’s southeast side.

The tenants are protesting outside the office of Stockton-based Harmony Communities.

That's the mobile home - or as Harmony refers to it manufactured home - management company that runs Littlewoods.

Residents there have been locked in a pitched battle over the past year with Harmony and the property's owners, the Ubaldi family.

Nick Ubaldi is listed as the park's agent. He threatened to close the park in July 2023, blaming Petaluma’s at the time, new mobile home renter protections.

In September, residents were served notice of a $1500 a month rent increase.

That triggered a city-mandated arbitration process.

Littlewoods residents like Angeles Cruz, planned their protest outside Harmony’s offices to coincide with the start of the case.

"We actually all pitched in to have a bus to come all the way down here unified and together," Cruz said. "So it, it took a lot for everybody to be here today."

In a written response to questions from KRCB News, Nick Ubaldi said the large rent hikes, higher than 300% for some residents, are “sensationalized” by residents and the media,

But, he said, they are needed to trigger the arbitration process to reach a settled rent hike. Ubaldi credits inflation and the cost of maintenance for the increases.

Even so, Cruz said Harmony’s detractors aren’t only in Petaluma.

"Throughout all this work, we've connected with other organizations, not only in California, but across the nation," Cruz said. "So, Tenants Together is here today, and Trails' End from Fresno is here as well."

The struggle over Fresno’s Trails' End mobile home park - now called La Hacienda, which is registered to Harmony operations manager Sherrie Johnston, has left a trail of litigation and controversy.

As well as a bad taste in the mouth of longtime Trails' End/La Hacienda resident Kim Sands, she said, addressing the small crowd in front of Harmony’s offices Tuesday

"We gotta fight for our rights," Sands said. "Fight, fight, fight, okay? That's what we gotta do."

Besides Littlewoods, locally, Ubaldi and Harmony have threatened to close mobile home parks, or convert senior-only parks to all ages, moving away from those with fixed-incomes, in Santa Rosa, Cotati and San Rafael.