County demands Oasis Mobile Home Park operators stop moving new residents into hazardous conditions
Riverside County is demanding that the operators of troubled Oasis Mobile Home Park immediately cease and desist accepting new tenants and occupants.
The park has been a fixture of controversy for years, most recently due to high levels of arsenic in drinking water, resulting in three emergency administrative orders issued by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency between 2019 and 2021, barring use of the underground reservoir there.
In August, the Department of Justice filed a civil complaint against the park's operators.
County officials said there are currently approximately 202 of the park’s 346 spaces are occupied. Officials expressed there concerns that, by placing new families into vacated spaces, the operators of Oasis Mobile Home Park are prolonging a cycle that puts residents’ health and safety at risk.
“Our goal is to relocate families from Oasis Mobile Home Park into affordable housing opportunities and to communities that have infrastructure, such as safe drinking water, sanitation systems, safe electricity,” said Supervisor V. Manuel Perez. “Riverside County is exercising its options to prevent residents from being deprived of their human rights and dignified living conditions.”
On Wednesday, the Riverside County Office of County Counsel sent a cease and desist letter. It's the latest step by Riverside County and numerous other agencies to move families from Oasis Mobile Home Park.
Riverside County is currently in the process of relocating residents from Oasis Mobile Home Park, utilizing a $30 million grant of state funding secured in the California state budget by State Assemblymember Eduardo Garcia.
Officials said to date, the county has helped 74 families relocate from Oasis Mobile Home Park.
Earlier this year, the Riverside County Board of Supervisors approved a new program, the Oasis Housing Opportunity Program or OHOP, utilizing $15 million of the grant funds, that can provide flexible housing opportunities to families to help them move and secure home ownership. The OHOP program has received completed applications from another 78 families.
Riverside County has also long been involved in providing supplies of safe and clean water for the residents of Oasis Mobile Home Park. Since July 2022, in partnership with the State Water Resources Control Board and TODEC Legal Center, the county has continuously distributed bottled water twice weekly.
"Yet while the county and its partners at all levels of government are working to address the ongoing water crisis and move families out of uninhabitable conditions such as lack of clean drinking water, chronic sewage system issues and power outages, the Oasis Mobile Home Park operators continue to accept new tenants. When the county first became involved, 241 spaces were occupied in the park. 62 mobile homes were demolished after the families moved out, only to see 23 mobile homes brought into the vacated spaces."
- Riverside County
