Smart Government Spending

Old # 26: next door to a neighborhood shopping center

The high cost of housing has caused some Peninsula job holders, even a few who make over $100,000 per year, to live out of their cars.

Related: some who live more than an hour away also sleep overnight in their vehicles on working days; they choose to sacrifice personal hygiene and comfort in favor of more productivity and more sleep. (Gym memberships and/or showers at their workplaces make it a little easier.)

As a small step in alleviating the conditions of police officers who are forced to make this choice, the City of San Mateo is converting a closed fire station into a sleeping barracks. [bold added]

The $520,000 project will provide bunks and showers for up to 12 officers at a time at Fire Station 26 at 1812 S. Norfolk St. In addition to the barracks, the building will be a police substation and vehicle storage site....Of San Mateo’s 125 officers, 68% live outside of San Mateo County, many as far as Tracy or Mountain House in San Joaquin County or Gilroy in south Santa Clara County

Of the officers commuting from other counties, the average distance is 50 miles each way, according to a staff report on the barracks proposal. A San Mateo Police Officers’ Association survey found the average round-trip commute of those traveling from outside the county is two hours and 17 minutes.

The project is relatively cheap at $43,000 per bed because land, the scarce resource, is being provided "free" by San Mateo.

It's easy to deplore the current situation as being caused by government no-development policies and poor planning ("San Mateo County has a population of roughly 750,000, but has about 12 jobs for every one housing unit") but at least the current City leadership is trying to do something positive. And they're doing it at a fraction of the cost of the average middle-class home in San Mateo.