What Works, What’s at Risk: San Mateo County Leaders Spotlight Progress and Pressures

Redwood City - For years, a patch of land along a bay slough in Redwood City was the kind of place where few people lingered, at least by choice. Its neighbors included a jail, a homeless shelter and a dusty road crowded with heavy trucks, just east of Highway 101.

Now the Navigation Center stands there, with 240 rooms and on-site services designed to break the cycle of homelessness. On Tuesday, San Mateo County Supervisor Noelia Corzo led a van tour of the Navigation Center and other County initiatives for Jeff Griffiths, president of the California Association of Counties, which advocates in Sacramento on behalf of counties, and also a supervisor in Inyo County.

In the dining hall, a culinary training team topped individual salads with croutons, olives and tomatoes. Outside, a gray dog stretched out in the sun at the center's dog run (unlike traditional shelters, the center allows people to bring pets). Each room comes furnished, along with a lock and a doorbell.

The tour highlighted how San Mateo County is confronting persistent inequities.

"We have a lot of wealth. We also have a lot of people in need," Corzo said. "We're all different counties, but we face many of the same challenges, housing affordability among them."

Corzo, who serves on the association's board, guided Griffiths from Redwood City to the Coastside and back. The stops traced a common thread: a county known for its biotech and technology firms faces budget pressures and sharp divides between wealth and need.

The tour began at 500 County Center, the County's new headquarters that brings many offices under one roof and cuts spending on leased space. Designed to meet the highest environmental standards, the building uses solar power, efficient water systems and other features that earned it LEED Platinum certification.

"Where you are right now is the greenest civic building in the United States," Board of Supervisors President David Canepa said to a group that included staff from the state association and the County. "This building really speaks to the Renaissance of San Mateo County."

He said that while the county added about 150,000 jobs in the past decade, housing has not kept pace, driving up housing costs and pushing workers into ever-longer commutes from more affordable areas. Canepa's remarks helped set the theme for the day - prosperity alongside challenges - as the group moved to the Navigation Center, which replaced the former congregate shelter and its shared dormitories.

Next to a bright mural, Supervisor Lisa Gauthier said, "This is District 4, and it is my district. Many of the clients we've seen this morning are from my city, which makes me excited to see them making progress. I am encouraged to know that they have the potential to find housing."

Griffiths said the Navigation Center offers a model other counties could follow.

"You're a county that both has resources and a forward-looking leadership and administration," he said. "You're doing new things and paving the way for what the rest of the counties in California can do in the future."

By midday, the group took Highway 92 to Half Moon Bay to see new housing for low-income farmworkers, a project made urgent after the 2023 mass shootings exposed unsafe conditions on two local farms.

The visit also included lunch with local city leaders and representatives from Ayudando Latinos A Soñar, commonly known as ALAS, a community-based nonprofit that advocates for farmworkers and other Coastside residents.

Supervisor Ray Mueller, who represents the coast as part of his District 3, said the visit helped put coastal priorities in front of statewide advocates. "For them to have a real good understanding of the things we're trying to accomplish on the coast, as well as what our concerns are, serves the county long term and allows them to come back and share opportunities with us," he said.

The final stop was San Mateo Medical Center, where a new entry plaza is nearing completion as part of a major renovation. The hospital is one of only a handful in California operated directly by a county and serves primarily low-income and uninsured patients.

Ending the day there showed the interaction between housing, homelessness and health care - pressures that fall most heavily on the county's safety-net system.

Corzo noted that the initiatives on display all depend on stable revenue, both local and state. For their part, San Mateo County voters approved the half-cent Measure K sales tax to support housing, health and other priorities, demonstrating the local will to provide services. But revenue is not guaranteed. In August, the County sued the state over what officials say is a $38 million shortfall in vehicle license fee revenues that affects both the County and local cities and is expected to grow.

"We are well resourced in this county, and yet we know we need tools like Measure K and critical funding owed to the County from the state to make this possible," Corzo said. "We're creating solutions, but we need the community's backing and the resources to keep going."

County officials also pointed to the high cost of child care, which is driving some parents out of the workforce. The County is developing proposals to relieve some of that financial pressure through an initiative led by Supervisor Jackie Speier to expand access and affordability.

The day was not all talk of grim budgets. Representing Bishop - population about 4,000 - Griffiths joked that back home he's considered the big-city supervisor. Inyo County, which stretches from the Sierra Nevada to Death Valley, has fewer than 20,000 residents, compared with San Mateo County's 750,000.

Griffiths said the visit gave him the chance to build closer ties with San Mateo County supervisors, relationships he said matter for counties working together.

"I'm really impressed with the way San Mateo County is tackling some of the deepest problems in our communities with innovative solutions," he said. "I hope to take those examples back and use them as a model for other counties."

Michelle Durand
Chief Communications Officer
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