The Caritas Corporation is putting together plan to buy Palo Alto’s sole mobile-home park
by Gennady Sheyner / Palo Alto Weekly Thu, May 6, 2015
The Caritas corporation, a nonprofit organization that manages 20 mobile-home parks throughout California, has joined the last-ditch effort by Santa Clara county and Palo Alto officials to avert the closure of Buena Vista Mobile Home Park.
Caritas, a company based in Irvine, has entered into a contract with Santa Clara County that, in its first phase, requires the company to put together a purchase and sale agreement with the Jisser family, which owns the 4.5-acre mobile park.
The Jissers have been moving ahead with a closure application for Buena Vista since the fall of 2012, a process that could conclude on May 26, when the City Council is expected to formally approve the application. After the vote, the Jisser family will be able to launch the six-month process of evicting the park’s roughly 400 residents.
While the future of Buena Vista remains uncertain, the entry of Caritas into the preservation process has offered another shred of hope to the residents of the predominantly Hispanic and low-income community in Barron Park.