Grant to Continue Water Distribution for Oasis Mobile Home Park Residents

NEWS RELEASE

OASIS – Riverside County has received a grant from the State Water Resources Control Board, in the amount of $144,276, that will extend the county’s distribution of bottled water to the residents of Oasis Mobile Home Park through the end of the year.

Riverside County and community partners have been providing supplemental bottled water to families at the mobile home park since late July, following notice residents received that the water from the park’s water system is unsafe to use for any purpose.

At a valley-wide event last week, Supervisor V. Manuel Perez called attention to the ongoing water crisis and the conditions that are taking place at Oasis Mobile Home Park:

“What keeps me awake on a nightly basis are the conditions of infrastructure and housing in the eastern Coachella Valley. To the point where folks, over 1,200 individuals just from one mobile home park, Oasis Mobile Home Park, and there are many others, do not even have access to clean drinking water. And, at times, the electricity is shut off. And then all of a sudden, their rents go up and they don’t know why, and are not getting proper notice. We had a conversation with the community as to what can be done and, for me, that is my number one priority right now. It is ensuring we build out the infrastructure that’s needed specifically in the eastern Coachella Valley because of the dilapidated conditions that folks live within and ensuring that we improve the conditions so that people have an opportunity to improve their quality of life.”

Supervisor Perez is grateful for the state’s partnership and financial assistance, which provides three months of water supply for Oasis Mobile Home Park. He thanks the State Water Resources Control Board as well as Coachella Valley Water District Board Vice President and engineer Cástulo Estrada, who linked the county to the grant funding opportunity of the state water board.

Coachella Valley Water District Board Vice President Cástulo Estrada states, “CVWD would like to acknowledge the commitment of our partners at the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) and the County of Riverside in meeting the critical need for clean drinking water faced by residents of Oasis Mobile Home Park. As CVWD Vice President and member of the SAFER Advisory Group, I am proud of the collaborative efforts of CVWD, the SWRCB and Riverside County Supervisor V. Manuel Perez to ensure residents of Oasis Mobile Home Park receive safe, adequate and affordable drinking water.”

The county will partner with TODEC Legal Center volunteers to distribute the bottled water to the Oasis Mobile Home Park community.

“It is our moral responsibility as an organization to support our vulnerable farmworker community that continues to experience hardship,” said Luz Gallegos, Executive Director of TODEC Legal Center. “We thank the County of Riverside and the State Water Resources Control Board for responding to the immediate water crisis that our Oasis Mobile Home Park residents continue to experience.”