Alameda Board of Supervisors offer rent to former racetrack employees

ALAMEDA, Calif. - The Alameda County Board of Supervisors voted on Tuesday to pay the rents of multiple families with children living at the RV Park at the Alameda County Fairgrounds.

Those families had until recently lived on subsidized rent due to their work with the stables and horses that participated in the races at the fairgrounds. However, the Fair Board of Directors voted at a closed session on Jan. 20 to end horse racing at the Alameda County Fairgrounds, and asked for the removal of the horses by March 25.

With the horses now gone, the families who had previously relied on the races for their income were left with few options. Many have children enrolled in Pleasanton Schools.

Ticking clock

By the numbers:

The exact amount the board will provide is currently unclear, but the county will be working with Centro Legal de la Raza to utilize emergency financial assistance funding through Housing and Community Development's Alameda County Housing Secure program to pay negotiated rents for families with children.

The goal is to provide funding for three months of rents, to get the recipients through the end of the school year, but the funding may come through one month at a time.

"We've been monitoring this situation for some time. We were happy the board made the decision to subsidize these rents so no one will be displaced and people can go on living their lives knowing they won't have to worry about rent for a couple months," Shawn Wilson, chief of staff for Alameda County Supervisor David Haubert, said.

Storied past

The backstory:

The Alameda County racetrack was the oldest one-mile track in the United States before it closed earlier this year.

The fairgrounds' stables and horse training facility closed on March 25. The County Fair Board reportedly wanted to revive the horse racing that had been hosted on the property for at least five generations, but money and regulatory issues prevented that from happening.

An assistant trainer at the time told KTVU that "at least 500 people" had lost their jobs as a result of the closure.