Some of the tenants gather before April 29 hearing.
How is this even possible?
How can this be allowed, and legal, in 2026 California, for the owner of a mobile home park to evict tenants on the flimsiest pretexts – mobile HOMEOWNERS who’ve worked and saved all their lives to buy their homes – then 1) not allow them to sell their own homes, and then 2) SEIZE AND SELL THOSE HOMES? And do it en masse?
We’ve seen this Home Theft before in other parks around the county – Huntington Beach, Anaheim, SJC – but never on the scale that Utah-based Kingsley Management has been doing at Santa Ana’s Coach Royal Park. Over the last two decades but ESPECIALLY over the last few months, Kingsley has evicted and STOLEN THE HOMES OF OVER 100 homeowners – at least 30 this year so far, for a profit of MANY MILLIONS to the park. Home theft seems to be Kingsley’s endgame.
HOME THEFT IS KINGSLEY’S BUSINESS PLAN.
First know this: These are good responsible tenants AND homeowners. By definition they own their mobile homes, worth 50k to 200k, generally representing their life savings; they pay property taxes like any homeowner; and they pay rent for the few square yards of “dirt” on which they’re allowed to park – about $1700 a month now for the folks who’ve been there a while ($2250 for NEW tenants, adding more incentive for Kingsley to clear out the rabble.)
So how does Kingsley do this, how do they evict and swindle these fine tenants, and reduce their families to homelessness? These are the steps:
- Issue three “VIOLATIONS” which can be as petty and pretextual as not picking up a package quickly enough, or demanding that a storage structure be removed (no matter if that structure was approved by the same management years ago)
- Once a tenant has got THREE violations (even if they addressed them) they can be issued a 60-day eviction notice
- After 60 days if they’re not gone the sheriffs will make them leave, and they are allowed (but only THEORETICALLY) to sell their mobile home (which even though it’s called “mobile” is impossibly difficult to move)
- Here’s the fiendish part – as the owner tries to sell their home, the management (Kingsley) has the right to VETO any sale for any reason, which Kingsley ALWAYS DOES
- And finally after 60 days of blocking any sale (sometimes less depending on the contract) the home is Kingsley’s to sell or auction off (Their gruesome attorney Ariel Bedell clarifies “We don’t own those homes, we sell them to INVESTORS.”)
In Santa Ana’s Coach Royal Park, Kingsley is aided greatly by the fact that most of these tenants are Mexican-American, many don’t speak English, know what their rights are, or have easy access to an attorney. And over the past year, Kingsley has made frequent use of deportation threats and calls to ICE, for anyone who doesn’t submit to their wishes. Don’t believe me? Well, mira nomas:
Shockingly, most of this is perfectly legal under state law… but does Santa Ana’s fabled Rent Control Ordinance protect these tenants at all? We’re going to find out this month, but first we gotta go back a few years:
2022: Coach Royal starts to Fight Back
In 2022, having had enough of this abuse – about one Home Theft per month for years and years – 110 residents of Coach Royal decided to sue Kingsley. So they reached out to San Diego law firm Allen Semelsberger & Kaelin (ASK), who market themselves as master “mobile home lawyers.” These lawyers convinced the residents that it would somehow be easier to file this as a “failure to maintain” case and treat Kingsley’s evictions, home thefts, fraud and civil rights violations as additional items, and they reluctantly agreed. As one disarmingly told me, “What do WE know, we’re Mexicans, we never sued anybody.”
This brought down California’s HCD (Housing & Community Development) for extensive inspections, and it seemed the agency spent all their time inspecting residents’ homes rather than the park itself. But still the residents made whatever fixes HCD ordered. The suit dragged on from 2022 to 2025, and Kingsley’s evictions and home thefts never stopped.
Some of the plaintiffs began to suspect their attorneys were “bought off” or colluding with the other side. For example, when Kingsley first tried punitively to evict Karla Alvarado (left), this was at first forbidden as “retaliatory” as the lawsuit was a “protected action.” But then inexplicably and without Karla’s permission, ASK allowed the two actions two be bifurcated and her eviction proceeded smoothly.
Last year, ASK suddenly insisted their clients “settle,” and had them sign blank sheets of paper. Many of them did end up getting payments of from $30k to $50k. But then the retaliatory evictions began in earnest – Kingsley found flimsy pretexts to evict (and take the homes of) EVERY RESIDENT who had joined in the lawsuit against them, and that’s what’s been going on since the beginning of this year.
But before we proceed, let’s take a moment for…
Maria Pedraza: Kingsley takes its first life.
Beloved by all, Maria “Lucy” Pedraza was a single mom who usually had to work two jobs, the main one being at the Taqueria Tapatia on South Bristol – since the 1990’s! Fifteen years ago she bought a mobile home at Coach Royal for $35,000, where she lived with her son Luis and his wife until she tragically took her own life this past February.
The complaints or “violations” leading up to their eviction began in 2022, same time as the residents’ lawsuit (although Maria and her family were not involved in the lawsuit.) The manager at the time was one Mirna Nath, who told them they needed a new fence, a new paint job, new fascia, and Luis got to work on these improvements. (STRIKE ONE!) But Mirna got fired in early 2024 and was replaced with a new manager, one Mario.
In the summer of ’24 they got a violation from new manager Mario – Luis had to move his drums out of the back yard; he’d put solar panels up but only on the back side of the roof so they weren’t visible and Mario said that was okay, he was growing medical cannabis which was also legal, not visible from the front, and okayed by Mario; and he had to get rid of a tortoise which he did; but violations remedied or not they still count as a violation. (STRIKE TWO!) And anyway Mario was also soon fired, and the REAL nightmare of a manager, Olivia, took charge early last year.
And Olivia violated Maria & Luis for the same things her predecessor said were okay – the cannabis (which Luis then got rid of), the solar panels, and even the fence which he had put up to comply with the FIRST violation which still somehow didn’t pass Olivia’s muster. So this was now the THIRD violation (YOU’RE OUT!) and Kingsley & Olivia put the wheels in motion to get rid of the little family.
Manager Olivia is by all accounts a Latina who takes pleasure in persecuting other Latinos for the benefit of her white employers – think the Samuel Jackson character in Django Unchained. She refused to deal with Luis, who is educated and knows his rights, but she came over to harass Maria every day for months. In January of ’26 the family was given 60 days to sell and get out of the park (even though a month earlier they were sent a letter thanking them for fixing their violations.) Maria and Luis were never given proper notice or opportunity to contest this in court, or any kind of chance at mediation. It’s very stressful going through the loss of your home and not be able to do anything about it; many of the Coach Royal folks I met are going to counseling and treatment for depression, but it was too much for Maria “Lucy” Pedraza who slit her wrists on February 12.
Unlike with most of their evicted tenants, Kingsley did allow Luis to sell the home, perhaps in shame for driving Maria to suicide. But still, they took out $10k that they claimed the family owed, from the meager $55k Luis managed to get for the home in the short time allowed.
Karla: Dangerous Woman, Dangerous Family.
What oppressors know how to deal with – whether those oppressors are governments, corporations, individuals – is people who fight back for themselves, who stand up for justice for themselves – the oppressor will give in if they have to, pay them off quietly. What the oppressors CAN’T deal with is the people who fight back for themselves and EVERYBODY ELSE. Such is Karla Alvarado and her family from Coach Royal, especially her mother Guadalupe. Fluently bilingual, tireless and a quick study in the law, Karla took on all her neighbors’ fights as her own and has been punished for it, but will not give up.
As you may have guessed Karla was one of the instigators of the 22-25 lawsuit, and when it was over you can bet Kingsley set right in to retaliating against her, her and her husband and kids and the home they’d had for 30 years. Oh, they came up with “typical pretextual violations,” as she puts it – a storage space that’d been there and approved for 28 years, an addition that’d been there and approved for 15 years. Meanwhile Olivia kept threatening and harassing the family, especially her mom Guadalupe, with ICE, posting on Facebook that she should be deported. And Kingsley began eviction proceedings against the family.
Karla still believes her evictions was illegal (I think most of them were) and she says the judge told her she should take it over to civil court, but she was ready to sell her home of 30 years, she had a buyer for $160k. But Kingsley delayed every way they could, dragging out the 60 days and e-mailing her that “the home cannot be sold to remain onsite.” AND THEN once the 60 days were up, they sold it THEMSELVES on site for 200k without having paid a penny on it! A typical Kingsley story.
There WAS a point a little earlier that she and her family could have stayed and kept their home; she just had to agree to a GAG ORDER entailing no longer giving advice and help to her neighbors and not saying a word about her whole ordeal especially the gag order. Aw hell no! She has moved out but remains a main organizer of the Coach Royal Rebels, and you know what else is cool? Her young daughter has been inspired by these experiences to become a lawyer when she grows up. A lawyer that helps people, not one like Ariel Bedell. Like I said, a dangerous woman, a dangerous family.
And here is Adriana’s mom Guadalupe, at Santa Ana City Council:
The April 29 “Rent Stabilization” Hearing
So, we wonder, in the Golden City of Santa Ana with its fabled Rent Stabilization and Tenants Protection ordinance (which we’re trying to copy in Anaheim right now) how is it possible for Kingsley to abuse its tenants on such a scale? There IS a Renters Board established by the ordinance – can’t it do anything? Well, we are going to see soon, the people of Coach Royal took their first step in that direction with a hearing April 29 in front of an independent “hearing officer” contracted to make sure both sides were heard fairly.
I was able to be there for the first half. Apparently they’d never had a crowd like this in one of these hearings. There were maybe 15 plaintiffs and 20 more of us supporters; meanwhile Kingsley was represented by their ghastly counsel Ariel Bedell. First thing, Ariel wanted all of us thrown out, all of us who hadn’t already signed up to testify, she wanted to witnesses to see what was about to happen. The hearing officer, quite rightly, said forget that noise, but no recording okay? And Ariel had to be happy with that.
(A few hours later, suddenly, word came upstairs that “The press is here! Can they come in?” Ariel threw a fit, “No! No! No! No press! This is already too much of a circus!” (A circus she called us? And we took righteous offense. Plus apparently nobody knew who me and Ben Camacho are, and that we’re better journalists than the couple of professional reporters that showed up hours late with badges on and didn’t end up writing anything anyway. But let the record show that Ariel Bedell and Kingsley prefer to shiv people with as little publicity as possible.)
There’s a lot more to write about that hearing,
and a lot more will be happening soon.
But I want to get this out before the Santa Ana Council meeting tonight at 6,
and the demonstration that’ll be happening right before, in front of chambers.
TO BE CONTINUED.
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