Couple to Keep Fighting Ban on Children at Mobile Home Park

In some ways, it has become a familiar story.

The young married couple moves into an adults-only complex. Then the baby arrives--and so does the eviction notice.

George and Cynthia Rosales had been living at Huntington-by-the-Sea Mobilehome Village for almost two years when their daughter, Rachel, was born in August, 1983. But the adults-only park in Huntington Beach prohibits residents younger than 18, and the Rosaleses were told to leave.

“We were scared,” said Cynthia Rosales, 28, a court reporter. “They were going to kick us out, and we would have had to leave here with nothing.”

She and her husband, George, a 30-year-old carpenter, followed the lead of half a dozen other California couples with newborns: The Rosaleses sued to stay put.

Last week, a state Court of Appeal in Santa Ana ruled against them. With one member dissenting, the three-judge panel decided that age restrictions in mobile home parks are legal. But the Rosales family and their lawyer, Stuart M. Parker, hope to take their case to the state Supreme Court.

If the high court agrees to hear it, Rosales vs. Huntington-by-the-Sea will become the fourth appeals case before the justices that challenges such adults-only rules. The cases are the offspring of two Supreme Court rulings finding that the Unruh Civil Rights Act forbids age bias in apartments and condominiums.

But the decisions don’t mention mobile home parks. A Los Angeles appellate court ruled for families with children. A San Bernardino court ruled against another couple with children. A third ruling by a Superior Court panel in Los Angeles struck down a mobile home park’s age restriction.

Until the Supreme Court resolves the issue, management at Huntington-by-the-Sea has given up trying to evict green-eyed, curly haired Rachel, now 4, and her family, or any of the several other residents with children.

To Cynthia Rosales, the issue is clear. “I can’t imagine that in the United States, they would be able to tell you that if you have a child, you have to get out.”

Four years ago, though, her family’s decision to fight wasn’t so much a question of principle as of pocketbook.

Their “mobile estate” community, wedged between sunny shores and a power plant, has homes valued in the $40,000 range. The Rosaleses still owe $30,000 on their mortgage and pay $389 a month for the space their mobile home occupies.

“We would have had to sell our mobile home,” Cynthia Rosales said. “And there are homes here that have been for sale for three, four years.”

In fact, when it opened almost 20 years ago, Huntington-by-the-Sea was a family park, she said. Many of the current residents have grandchildren who visit.

By now, almost everybody in the 306-space park also knows about the Rosales lawsuit.

“Ninety percent of the people I talk with are in favor of us,” she said. “They know Rachel, my daughter, and she’s very popular.”

Some people, of course, don’t always say what they think. And others are outspoken.

“A lot of my senior citizens moved in because this is an adult park,” manager Sandy Shaffar said.

Reasons vary, but several residents mentioned increased noise and a belief in the notion that kids will be kids.

“When you’re living alone, banging car doors are scary,” said Louise, a resident in her 70s, who declined to give her last name. “If it’s all adult, it’s quieter. And you don’t have to worry about teen-agers and drugs.”

“We’ve all already raised our families,” agreed Rose, another resident, who said she is in her 60s. “I don’t understand why (management) lets people in when they know they’re going to get pregnant. . . . It should be one way or the other.”

The park’s lawyer, Robert Coldren, said he’s optimistic the appeal will go his way: “Government shouldn’t be permitted to interfere with the rights of persons to live in housing conditions they desire. That right is of paramount importance.”

Both sides agree that the new conservative majority on the state Supreme Court--resulting from November’s vote to oust Chief Justice Rose Elizabeth Bird and other justices--could help the mobile home park’s case.

The Rosaleses so far have paid $4,000 to $5,000 in attorney’s fees and say they will be in a bind if they lose. But the family hasn’t given up yet.

Cynthia Rosales said: “I can’t understand how anyone expects young people to move into a park and not have children. It just doesn’t make sense to me.”