I wish I had the words.

I wish I knew what to say about the fires that have ravaged so much of California. Many older people lived in the Oakridge mobile home park, where this photo was taken.

Such parks have long offered elderly working class residents of limited means a way to maintain independence and dignity while rents and home prices throughout the state rose to unlivable levels. Once a mobile home is paid off (they're cheap), residents pay only space rents, which might come to only a few hundred dollars a month, thanks to California's rent control laws. A comparably-sized apartment might cost $1500 a month or more.

Now Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and others are talking about stricter fire safety codes for mobile homes. That idea may make sense at first. But only new homes can be built to high standards, and the kind of people who found a refuge in a place like Oakridge cannot afford to buy new. It simply isn't feasible to ask all residents of California mobile home parks to upgrade their residences.

A small new single-wide home constructed to a very high standard can run $50,000; the last time I looked, one could still find a double-wide in places like Oakridge for roughly $25,000. Even though the proposed new standards will apply only to new homes, the park owners will discourage or disallow older homes. An upgrade requirement will ruin the lives of many, many thousands of lower-income people, most of whom are past working age. They certainly cannot expect any financial help from our cash-strapped state.

People seem to be under the impression that all Californians are wealthy. Not so. A lot of folks outside the state chuckled at the photo of the escapee on a Segway. But that guy is the exception, not the rule.

What a catastrophe. I wish I had the words.