For decades, a small RV park on private land in North County has been an oasis for people struggling to make rent, providing affordable spaces on month-to-month leases that have allowed many families, couples and individuals to stay put year after year.

But residents, nearly 70 people including 28 children, learned in late September that they must vacate their spots by Dec. 1 as Vistas Green Oak Ranch comes under new management. While the recreational vehicles they live in can be moved, their owners say they cannot find new parks charging anywhere close to the $1,000 monthly rent theyre currently paying, and social programs they say have thus far been unable to offer other housing options.

The situation is urgent because the 110-acre propertys owners have agreed to lease and eventually sell Green Oak Ranch to Solutions for Change, a Vista-based nonprofit that works with families experiencing homelessness. A letter dated Aug. 15 from Green Oak president Dorinda de Jong to Green Oak Ranch Ministries, a private nonprofit that currently operates multiple programs on the site, directs the organization to vacate the property and make it free and clear of all personal property and subtenants, by Dec. 31.

The entrance to Green Oak Ranch in Vista on Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2024. (Hayne Palmour IV / For The San Diego Union-Tribune)

The letter shows that it is the property owner, not Solutions for Change, that ordered the property cleared. However, de Jong, who could not be reached for comment, states that property owners received notice from Solutions exercising their option to commence their lease January 1, 2025.

While many in the park say they accept the new lease and sale, they object to what they consider abrupt timing, requiring so many to move so quickly after years of living on a patch of ground that takes up about three of the propertys 46 developed acres.

Paddie Morgan, who said she has lived in the park since 2013, struggles with back problems that have required multiple surgeries and now she also faces a cancer diagnosis.

Ive been born and raised here in Southern California; I need to stay here, she said. All my doctors are here, all my insurance is through the state of California.

I need to be here, and theres nowhere to go thats affordable. Spaces in other parks want as much as it costs for a one-bedroom apartment.

In a nutshell, theyre making families homeless, because anywhere weve gone theres years of waiting lists for help, and weve called pretty much every situation or organization, said Gerald Chidowe, a newcomer who has lived in the park with his wife, Colleta, for six months.

Karin Allison shows the eviction notice letters she and other residents at the Green Oak Ranch RV Park received while inside the RV she and her husband live in at Green Oak Ranch in Vista on Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2024. (Hayne Palmour IV / For The San Diego Union-Tribune)

Some, said Karin Allison, a resident since 2016, have found that programs arent set up to help people who technically still have a place to live, even if theyve been told to vacate before Christmas.

Its like yeah, well, you need to call us when youre homeless, when youre living in your car, when youre under the bridge, and shes like, Im trying not to hit that spot, Allison said, recalling a neighbors recent conversation with an organization that works with people experiencing homelessness.

Green Oak Ranch Ministries leases RV spaces to residents and runs several other programs on the site, including a drug and alcohol recovery program for men and special events and camps that have regularly occurred on the property for decades.

Solutions for Change plans to make Green Oak its main base of operations, using the spacious acreage secluded by sage-covered hillsides to expand its 700-day life transformation program for struggling families.

While they acknowledge that it was technically the propertys owners, and not Solutions for Change, that ordered their leases terminated, some RV park residents say they were led to believe that whatever the transition process ended up looking like, they would be given more time to find somewhere else to live that they could afford. After all, many note, Solutions is in the business of helping homeless people. As stated on its website, the organizations mission is solving family homelessness, one family, one community at a time.

A resident walks next to a car at the Green Oak Ranch RV Park in Vista on Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2024. (Hayne Palmour IV / For The San Diego Union-Tribune)

Allison said there must be slower ways to gradually accomplish this task.

If you want to unwind a low-income housing project like this, the way to do it is you give it a few years and you say, well issue a moratorium on new renters, she said. Every time somebody moves out on their own volition, we wont replace them, we wont rent the spot to someone new, and, over time, it unwinds itself naturally.

For a moment this summer it looked like such a move, perhaps with new leases that meet Solutions requirements, would happen. Park residents were encouraged when the organization surveyed current residents asking, among other questions, are you interested in learning more about being a resident of the new RV park at Green Oak Ranch?

But 60-day lease-termination notices, not offers of a new arrangement, arrived, dashing those hopes.

Green Oak Ranch RV Park resident Ben Sweeton, who, like his neighbors, has received an eviction notice, carries his son Reef, 2, at Green Oak Ranch in Vista on Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2024. (Hayne Palmour IV / For The San Diego Union-Tribune)

Asked whether it has or might approach Green Oak Ranch directors about the possibility of a delay to the current lease termination schedule, Solutions for Change executive director Chris Megison said through a spokesperson that the organization is currently exploring options for the RV park and that due diligence requires the organization to ensure the RV park meets all regulatory standards and aligns with the broader programmatic offerings of Solutions for Change.

That language appears to refer to the status of the park itself, which Vista Mayor John Franklin said Friday does not have a city permit. Franklin said that he recently visited the property with the citys housing and homeless programs analyst, letting all residents know that they can work directly with the city to try and find alternate residences. Thus far, the mayor said, only three families have called to start the consultation process; however, an additional effort will be forthcoming.

Were going to go back, and were going to again knock on every door, and were going to offer the services in person for a second time, Franklin said.

It is not clear whether the park might somehow be permitted or whether such a change might alter the current trajectory toward closure.

In an interview with The San Diego Union-Tribune on July 10, shortly after it was announced that Solutions had been selected to take over the ranch, Megison seemed to be dedicated to handling the situation differently.

We, you know, were in the business of solving family homelessness, in ending it forever, so any concerns about us going in there and making people homeless is like, we were the last person or the last entity or organization that would do that, Megison said.

Green Oak Ranch Ministries will continue to operate its recovery program on an adjacent 28-acre plot north of the Green Oak Ranch property. Hannah Gailey, the ministrys executive director, said over the summer that she was not sure how the program would survive given that 60% of the revenue used to operate help men and women beat drug and alcohol addiction comes from camp and event fees and other activities that program enrollees perform on the property.

Green Oak Ranch RV Park resident Frank Harper, who has lived at the RV park for 19 years and has received an eviction notice, loads items into the trunk of his car as he starts to move he and his wife’s belongings to an apartment they were able to get while at Green Oak Ranch in Vista on Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2024. (Hayne Palmour IV / For The San Diego Union-Tribune)

Reached this week, Gailey said that she believes the ministry will be able to raise enough charitable donations to continue operating separately from Green Oak Ranch. She said that serving lease termination notices to RV park residents was not easy. The transition has affected her own family, which has lived in a house on the ranch for many years, and will also have to move.

The hardest thing I have done as an executive director of Green Oak Ranch Ministries was delivering eviction notices to 30 RV park families, Gailey said.