County Demands Oasis Mobile Home Park Operators Stop Moving in New Residents into Hazardous Conditions

OASIS – Riverside County is demanding that the operators of Oasis Mobile Home Park and anyone working on their behalf immediately cease and desist accepting new tenants and occupants at Oasis Mobile Home Park.

A cease and desist letter, sent by the Riverside County Office of County Counsel on Wednesday, is the latest step by Riverside County and numerous other agencies to move families from Oasis Mobile Home Park into safer and better housing and living conditions and prevent new people from being subject to the unsafe and deplorable conditions that exist at the mobile home park.

Riverside County is 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. To date, the county has helped 74 families relocate from Oasis Mobile Home Park. The Riverside County Board of Supervisors earlier this year approved a new program, Oasis Housing Opportunity Program, 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.

Currently, approximately 202 of the park’s 346 spaces are occupied. The county is concerned 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.”

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Supervisor V. Manuel Perez represents the Fourth Supervisorial District on the Riverside County Board of Supervisors. The largest district in the county by geography, the 4th District covers eastern Riverside County, from Whitewater, stretching across the entire Coachella Valley south to the Salton Sea, up Highway 74 to Idyllwild and the mountain communities, and heading east of the Coachella Valley to Blythe and the Colorado River.

Supervisor Perez’s office hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.