10 ms·

In Facebook’s Hometown, the First Responders Aren’t Local

36 points by nichodges 11y ago

richiezc 11y ago
Not limited to firefighters, Palo Alto is considering housing subsidies for families making between 150-250K: http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2016/03/22/250k-per-year-salary-could-qualify-for-subsidized-housing-under-new-palo-alto-plan/ http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2016/03/22/250k-per-year-sa...
- jldugger 11y ago
  And if you're below 150k? Well, obviously paupers need not apply.
caseyf7 11y ago
The structure of the job makes it very unlikely firefighters will want to live on the peninsula. They spend the night at the station with multi-day shifts on and long stretches off so long commutes don't grind them down the way they do daily commuters. It just makes sense to live out where you can afford a much more comfortable life.
- bsimpson 11y ago
  A friend of mine did the opposite - living in SF and firefighting somewhere near Sacramento. He bunked at the station during his shift, and would come back to SF for his days off. I've also known people who have a similar arrangement at the Forest Service (living in nearby cities during their days off).
zootam 11y ago
paywall
- adaml_623 11y ago
  Use the 'Web' link at the top of the page
  - alexc05 11y ago
    Oh! Look at that! Thanks :) I've never noticed that before.
Animats 11y ago
From the article: "Menlo Park fire district workers will earn an average $147,000 this year."
- URSpider94 11y ago
  ... Which is nowhere near enough money to buy a family home there. Maybe if your spouse is earning a similar wage, you could get your foot in the door.
joshAg 11y ago
just. build. more. housing. units.
- lisper 11y ago
  Restricted development is one of the reasons the peninsula is such a desirable place to live. There's a lot of open space, and expensive housing helps keep out the riff-raff. (Note to downvoters: the reference to riff-raff was intended to be ironically humorous in the context of a story about how the people being kept out are firefighters and teachers.)
  - scurvy 11y ago
    Wait, if the bad influence of riff raff is kept out, what's to explain the staggering teen suicide rate in Palo Alto? It's the best place in the world! Our high cost of living dictates it!
    - lisper 11y ago
      I was being a little bit ironic about the riff-raff. (I was hoping this would be obvious in the context of a discussion of how firefighters and teachers can't afford to live here, but HN tends to be a little humor-impaired.) But I don't see why you would think that the teen suicide rate would have anything to do with how desirable it is to live in Palo Alto. People get depressed for all kinds of reasons, but how nice your neighborhood is is very rarely one of them. The high suicide rate in PA is tragic. But it doesn't change the fact that PA is a nice place to live if you can afford it, and one of the things that makes it a nice place to live is that the density is low but the wealth concentration is high.
      - scurvy 11y ago
        And all the money in the world can't buy you happiness, so stop turning communities into country clubs.
        11y ago
msoad 11y ago
Public workers are the last in the list of "low income people who commute to Sillicon Valley for work". There are many many more people who earn much less than $140k working in Menlo Park. There is that sweet lady in Starbucks near Facebook that told me she has two sons or people who work in cleaning services. Those are the ones who deserve media attention first.
- URSpider94 11y ago
  While you are right in raw numerical terms, there is a rich tradition in America of public servants (police, fire, teachers) living where they work. People are generally ok with baristas commuting to work, but are much more likely to be concerned when their firemen live halfway across the state. EDIT -- just looked it up to confirm, NYC fire and police must live in the city or one of 6 surrounding NY State counties.
  - ZanyProgrammer 11y ago
    Despite the fact that people like baristas make much, much less money than a lot of public servants.
    - gdilla 11y ago
      Being a barista tends to be much more transient of a job than being a teacher or other public servant - which have traditionally spanned one's entire working career. Seniority is rewarded, and career switching is often limited.
chvid 11y ago
From the comments section: Richard Rider 8 hours ago Before you get all mushy about the Menlo Park firefighters with their pittance of a salary, go to this link to see how much these typical CA "public servants" are paid (and these are old figures that have since risen): http://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/menlo-park-fire-protection-district/?page=1 http://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/menlo-park-fire-pr... Scroll through the 8 pages of employees. With benefits, the top guys make over $300K a year. Scores of these firefighters receive well over $100K in cash annually -- plus benefits, which includes a pension for 30 years' service that is usually HIGHER than their regular salary. And remember this: 72% of America's firefighters are VOLUNTEERS. In CA, we've all but outlawed volunteer fire departments in all but a few rural enclaves. --- In global perspective these salaries are very high and it is probably also contributing to high house prices. I don't live in the US so I don't really have any opinions on this but I suspect those getting the short end of the stick more likely are the people working in Starbucks than these guys.
- ubernostrum 11y ago
  It's a bit tricky because the issue here is absolute vs. relative. The comment you link wants us to think: $100k/year? That's a lot of money! How could anyone be in trouble with that much money? Let's not do anything else for those greedy bastards, they've already got enough! And in absolute terms, it is a lot of money. But then you consider the relative value: $100k in Menlo Park is not actually very much money at all, given how expensive it is to live in or near Menlo Park in the first place. And while it's true that there are other people who have it worse, the idea is not to say "how dare you focus on this person, that person over there has it worse", because that leads to never doing anything for anyone (there will always be someone, somewhere who has it worse at any given moment, and thus it'll always be possible to distract effort by shaming anyone who looks at anyone else). The idea is to ask why it is that such a large amount of money (absolute) terms has such low (relative) value, and whether that's something we should fix, and how to fix it.
  - ZanyProgrammer 11y ago
    100K a year I could certainly find a place to live in Santa Clara County if I'm single. Many, many people make do with less, and being single and making high five figures should not be a problem to finding housing (and it doesn't have to be out in fucking Gilroy either). Its not as if San Jose to Menlo Park is the worst commute in the world either.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
throwaway_xx9 11y ago
Public servants have a union to protect them. Hold your pity until Facebook's own programmers can't afford to live in the area. Meanwhile, Zuck buys up the surrounding houses for a "buffer zone." How tone-deaf can you get?
jrnichols 11y ago
This isn't unique to Menlo Park either, oddly enough. I remember reading about some San Jose guys that lived in Idaho. But they managed to trade schedules around to where they were on duty for enough consecutive days that it worked out just fine. We see that here in north Texas, although the salaries aren't near as high. Often times we (I'm a firefighter/paramedic, but work as a paramedic only for a 911 contract) will have some long commutes. And often times it's because our family members work closer to home. I drive 150 miles each way to my job where we work 2 days on and 4 days off. it's just over 2 hours each way. My other half is a high school teacher with a daughter in elementary school, so they're close to home and I commute. It's common in this line of work.

36 points by nichodges 11y ago

Not limited to firefighters, Palo Alto is considering housing subsidies for families making between 150-250K: http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2016/03/22/250k-per-year-salary-could-qualify-for-subsidized-housing-under-new-palo-alto-plan/ http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2016/03/22/250k-per-year-sa...

jldugger 11y ago
And if you're below 150k? Well, obviously paupers need not apply.

caseyf7 11y ago

The structure of the job makes it very unlikely firefighters will want to live on the peninsula. They spend the night at the station with multi-day shifts on and long stretches off so long commutes don't grind them down the way they do daily commuters. It just makes sense to live out where you can afford a much more comfortable life.

bsimpson 11y ago
A friend of mine did the opposite - living in SF and firefighting somewhere near Sacramento. He bunked at the station during his shift, and would come back to SF for his days off. I've also known people who have a similar arrangement at the Forest Service (living in nearby cities during their days off).

zootam 11y ago

paywall

adaml_623 11y ago
Use the 'Web' link at the top of the page
- alexc05 11y ago
  Oh! Look at that! Thanks :) I've never noticed that before.

Animats 11y ago

From the article: "Menlo Park fire district workers will earn an average $147,000 this year."

URSpider94 11y ago
... Which is nowhere near enough money to buy a family home there. Maybe if your spouse is earning a similar wage, you could get your foot in the door.

joshAg 11y ago

just. build. more. housing. units.

lisper 11y ago
Restricted development is one of the reasons the peninsula is such a desirable place to live. There's a lot of open space, and expensive housing helps keep out the riff-raff. (Note to downvoters: the reference to riff-raff was intended to be ironically humorous in the context of a story about how the people being kept out are firefighters and teachers.)
- scurvy 11y ago
  Wait, if the bad influence of riff raff is kept out, what's to explain the staggering teen suicide rate in Palo Alto? It's the best place in the world! Our high cost of living dictates it!
  - lisper 11y ago
    I was being a little bit ironic about the riff-raff. (I was hoping this would be obvious in the context of a discussion of how firefighters and teachers can't afford to live here, but HN tends to be a little humor-impaired.) But I don't see why you would think that the teen suicide rate would have anything to do with how desirable it is to live in Palo Alto. People get depressed for all kinds of reasons, but how nice your neighborhood is is very rarely one of them. The high suicide rate in PA is tragic. But it doesn't change the fact that PA is a nice place to live if you can afford it, and one of the things that makes it a nice place to live is that the density is low but the wealth concentration is high.
    - scurvy 11y ago
      And all the money in the world can't buy you happiness, so stop turning communities into country clubs.
      - 11y ago

msoad 11y ago

Public workers are the last in the list of "low income people who commute to Sillicon Valley for work". There are many many more people who earn much less than $140k working in Menlo Park. There is that sweet lady in Starbucks near Facebook that told me she has two sons or people who work in cleaning services. Those are the ones who deserve media attention first.

URSpider94 11y ago
While you are right in raw numerical terms, there is a rich tradition in America of public servants (police, fire, teachers) living where they work. People are generally ok with baristas commuting to work, but are much more likely to be concerned when their firemen live halfway across the state. EDIT -- just looked it up to confirm, NYC fire and police must live in the city or one of 6 surrounding NY State counties.
- ZanyProgrammer 11y ago
  Despite the fact that people like baristas make much, much less money than a lot of public servants.
  - gdilla 11y ago
    Being a barista tends to be much more transient of a job than being a teacher or other public servant - which have traditionally spanned one's entire working career. Seniority is rewarded, and career switching is often limited.

chvid 11y ago

From the comments section: Richard Rider 8 hours ago Before you get all mushy about the Menlo Park firefighters with their pittance of a salary, go to this link to see how much these typical CA "public servants" are paid (and these are old figures that have since risen): http://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/menlo-park-fire-protection-district/?page=1 http://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/menlo-park-fire-pr... Scroll through the 8 pages of employees. With benefits, the top guys make over $300K a year. Scores of these firefighters receive well over $100K in cash annually -- plus benefits, which includes a pension for 30 years' service that is usually HIGHER than their regular salary. And remember this: 72% of America's firefighters are VOLUNTEERS. In CA, we've all but outlawed volunteer fire departments in all but a few rural enclaves. --- In global perspective these salaries are very high and it is probably also contributing to high house prices. I don't live in the US so I don't really have any opinions on this but I suspect those getting the short end of the stick more likely are the people working in Starbucks than these guys.

ubernostrum 11y ago
It's a bit tricky because the issue here is absolute vs. relative. The comment you link wants us to think: $100k/year? That's a lot of money! How could anyone be in trouble with that much money? Let's not do anything else for those greedy bastards, they've already got enough! And in absolute terms, it is a lot of money. But then you consider the relative value: $100k in Menlo Park is not actually very much money at all, given how expensive it is to live in or near Menlo Park in the first place. And while it's true that there are other people who have it worse, the idea is not to say "how dare you focus on this person, that person over there has it worse", because that leads to never doing anything for anyone (there will always be someone, somewhere who has it worse at any given moment, and thus it'll always be possible to distract effort by shaming anyone who looks at anyone else). The idea is to ask why it is that such a large amount of money (absolute) terms has such low (relative) value, and whether that's something we should fix, and how to fix it.
- ZanyProgrammer 11y ago
  100K a year I could certainly find a place to live in Santa Clara County if I'm single. Many, many people make do with less, and being single and making high five figures should not be a problem to finding housing (and it doesn't have to be out in fucking Gilroy either). Its not as if San Jose to Menlo Park is the worst commute in the world either.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

throwaway_xx9 11y ago

Public servants have a union to protect them. Hold your pity until Facebook's own programmers can't afford to live in the area. Meanwhile, Zuck buys up the surrounding houses for a "buffer zone." How tone-deaf can you get?

jrnichols 11y ago

This isn't unique to Menlo Park either, oddly enough. I remember reading about some San Jose guys that lived in Idaho. But they managed to trade schedules around to where they were on duty for enough consecutive days that it worked out just fine. We see that here in north Texas, although the salaries aren't near as high. Often times we (I'm a firefighter/paramedic, but work as a paramedic only for a 911 contract) will have some long commutes. And often times it's because our family members work closer to home. I drive 150 miles each way to my job where we work 2 days on and 4 days off. it's just over 2 hours each way. My other half is a high school teacher with a daughter in elementary school, so they're close to home and I commute. It's common in this line of work.