Fallbrook Immigrants Become Homeowners

For Eduardo Delgadillo, home 20 years ago used to be a small mattress in the barracks of a Fallbrook citrus labor camp.

Sleeping side-by-side among other fruit pickers crowded into the small hall during harvest seasons, Delgadillo always dreamed he would someday have his own home, but it was a dream he never expected to realize because of his meager income.

But today, as the 60-year-old janitor sits in his two-bedroom mobile home in Fallbrook, he can look back on the hard times with a smile.

That’s because Delgadillo and about 20 other low-income families at Fallbrook Mobile Home Park on East Aviation Road--including farmhands and domestics all originally from Mexico--recently went from being tenants to homeowners.

“I feel much better now because my family and (four) children have a good place to live,� Delgadillo said. “Right now everything looks good to us, and we are looking forward to the future.�

The transformations from rent to mortgage is due to the efforts of the former owner of the park and others who wanted to give low-income people a chance at homeownership.

It was 1987 when landlord Ann Zucker, who had owned the mobile home park for 11 years, spotted a magazine article about retired professionals who were able to purchase their mobile home park from the owner rather than letting a developer take over and eventually move them out.

The idea appealed to Zucker, who wanted to sell her property but still allow the tenants--many of whom had become her friends--to keep their homes.

“I figured that here was a small group of families and children who I really get along with, and it might be a wonderful project to allow young families to get such a good start and know that their land will never be taken away from them,� Zucker said.

She contacted the author of the article, San Diego consultant Jerry Stirnkorb, who told her more about the state-sponsored Mobile Home Park Resident Ownership Program, which would help her tenants buy the park for $1.1 million.

Zucker, Stirnkorb and San Diego lawyer Dale Hawley helped the excited tenants form a nonprofit, mutual-benefit group called Hacienda Family Park Inc.

It seemed like smooth sailing from there. The group got a $250,000 loan from La Jolla Bank and, in late 1990, obtained a $460,000 loan from the state Department of Housing and Community. San Diego County loaned another $250,000.

At that point, however, the seemingly simple process became a roller coaster of legal wrangling.

The first problem surfaced when state law changed in 1991 to prohibit state money from being used for loans of more than 95% of the value of the property, Hawley said. The group managed to get around that by obtaining a $300,000 grant from the State Farm Workers Program.

The next glitch came in August, 1991, when the farm workers program decided to rewrite its loan and grant programs and to do an environmental study on the mobile home park land.

The new formalities meant two things: First, each farm worker had to produce tax returns, verifications of employment and other forms to prove that at least 16 of the 33 units would house farm workers. The environmental check meant the state would have to check ground water and soil samples to make sure all was well.

Last month, the group learned that the state would allow it to avoid further tests provided no one in the park drilled a well.

With the help of a San Diego finance company, the group managed to get documentation showing that at least 16 of the units were occupied by farm workers.

Finally, word came from the state that all was well, that the escrow agreement could be lifted and that the eager tenants had achieved homeowner status. The tenants’ $240 or so in monthly rent will now go toward paying off the mobile home park mortgage.

Dusty paths will be paved, fences will be erected, volleyball and basketball courts are to be set up, and, to celebrate, a carnival is scheduled for May.

“I am so happy because it took us a long time to do this,� said three-year resident Nacho Molina, 33, president of the park’s homeowners association. “This was the No. 1 goal in my life, and now I have achieved it.�