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Moonridge is an affordable housing community of 160 homes for low-income residents and farmworkers just outside of Half Moon Bay. It was built more than 20 years ago.
As Half Moon Bay debates the issue of farmworker housing construction, reporter Sebastian Miño-Bucheli visits Moonridge to see how living there stacks up with negative comments from city residents.
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Episode Transcript
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Ericka Cruz Guevarra: I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra and welcome to the bay. Local news to keep you rooted. If you think the housing crisis is bad, it’s even worse for farm workers whose housing is often tied to their work.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: But just outside of Half Moon Bay is a housing development for farmworkers and low income families that’s been there for decades. It’s an example of housing that farmworkers can actually own and a place to build community.
Giovanni: My neighbors, my best friend, we’ve been friends since we’re born, so everyone’s nice to each other. Everybody knows each other and it’s comfortable here.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: Moonridge which is just south of Half Moon Bay in the unincorporated outskirts. And some in the city say there should be more farmworker housing like it. After a mass shooting last year uncovered just how bad farm worker living conditions can be.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: But some residents also say Moon Ridge is an example of what not to build in Half Moon Bay. They claim it’s overcrowded and unsafe. So today, reporter Sebastian Miño-Bucheli takes us to Moon Ridge to talk with people about what it’s actually like to live there.
Sebastian Miño-Bucheli: Moonridge was developed by Medmen. They’re a nonprofit developer. It’s south of having Bay. It’s an unincorporated area of San Mateo County. 160 homes. Some of the homes are 1 or 2 story townhomes, and it’s all in a 42 acre development spread out when they built it back 20 years ago or so.
Sebastian Miño-Bucheli: The whole point was phase one was going to be for income earners. And then the second phase was for farm workers. And the point was we want to give them affordable housing that they could actually pay rent and they could feel like they own something.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: What were people saying about Moon Ridge before you went there? Where were the kinds of things people were saying about this community that really drove you to eventually go there yourself?
Sebastian Miño-Bucheli: Some residents were saying online or next door or they said it in a public comment setting that a lot of people are living in one room or that they’re renting a hallways, that there’s not even farm workers anymore. At the housing development.
Unknown Speaker If you look at Moon Ridge, what’s going on down there, that is a mess. They ought to be embarrassed. The county and Midwin should be embarrassed that way. That’s being run.
Sebastian Miño-Bucheli: And I think the other thing I heard a lot was that there was that it was unsafe, that a lot of the times that people hear sirens is because it’s probably going to Moon Ridge. They were painting it like we don’t want more affordable housing because it might bring people that we don’t want into our town.
Unknown Speaker The project will cause a density parking problem that is uncomfortable. The residents of this project will have family and friends likely for extended visits, creating an unwanted density and parking problem. Just look to the street parking around Moon Ridge and other similar projects.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: And that, I guess, is what prompted you to actually go to Moon Ridge when you got there. What did it look like for people who may have never been there?
Sebastian Miño-Bucheli: I went for two separate days, just for a couple hours. I got a tour of this site.
Sebastian Miño-Bucheli: Wow. So have the characteristics of, like, a farm town. You know, there’s some space. They have access to a community garden. There are playgrounds spread out even throughout the whole area. There’s a soccer yard. They have access to childcare, free childcare. There’s also a community hub where residents can go and take classes. I attended a graduation of the second Group of eight.
Sebastian Miño-Bucheli: They were taking ESL online classes and it was great to be amongst them because then I could just care for myself that these are residents who are are happy to be there, that they are taking advantage of all the programing that’s being offered to them. I mean, to me it was like. A mini town with a hub, and it was more community focus.
Giovanni: Actually, my neighbors, my best friend. We’ve been friends since we’re born, so.
Sebastian Miño-Bucheli: So I met Giovanni. He’s a 16 year old who lives there in Moon Ridge. He attends Huffman Bay High and is in the soccer team. He was there to watch his dad graduate from one of those ESL programs. And you’ve been here all your life?
Giovanni: Yes. All 16 years of my life I’ve been here.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: I mean, how does he feel about living there? What does he tell you about that?
Sebastian Miño-Bucheli: He tells me that his friends that he’s made at Moon Ridge, they’re like his neighbors. So they’ve grown up together, that they play soccer on their off time.
Giovanni: Where I live, there’s a big, like, yard outside our house. It’s all grass like that. We would build goals. We just play soccer.
Sebastian Miño-Bucheli: He feels very much like happy to be amongst everyone there. Something I picked up in Moon Ridge was that people who pass by, they’re going to do the laundry or something. They strike up a conversation like, Hey, neighbor, it’s been a minute since I seen you.
Sebastian Miño-Bucheli: Or How’s your kid? Some other kids might tell the adults. Hi, Theo. You know, they’re like, We’re not related, but they feel like they’re related because they’ve just grown up together for such a long time.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: Yeah, it’s just very much a tight knit community. It sounds like everyone knows everyone.
Sebastian Miño-Bucheli: Yeah. Yeah.
Giovanni: One thing I really love about living in Moonridge is the peace that we have here. Everyone’s nice to each other. Everybody knows each other, and it’s comfortable here.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: Was he aware of how people talk about his community, this place where he grew up?
Sebastian Miño-Bucheli: Giovanni knows he’s seen some of the comments being spread online.
Giovanni: There’s a lot of stuff about one image that they’ve put on there, like about the shootings and all of this stuff and.
Sebastian Miño-Bucheli: Johnny brought up that, you know, there has been some crime in the past, but he also said it’s just, you know, we should focus on the good.
Giovanni: It’s like if they’re just seeing that our neighborhood is like trash, basically. Right. And it’s really not it’s I think it’s a good neighborhood to live in. It’s peaceful and everything that’s that’s a fence for them to see that. And they’ve never stepped in Wynonna’s ever in their life.
Sebastian Miño-Bucheli: So and you know, when I was there on the tour, we came across a patrol car just driving by, probably under five miles per hour. And it was just waving at us and just went on by.
Sebastian Miño-Bucheli: By the central hub, there’s like a little office for San Mateo County sheriffs who operate in having to talk about it that bring some sort of sadness to his eyes, something that I could I could see not just him with other men, which presents when I asked them, how do these comments make you feel? And they respond like it’s hurtful.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: Over the last few months, a vocal critic of Moon Ridge has been the San Mateo County Farm Bureau, which represents farmers and ranchers in the area. They claim Moon Ridge is mismanaged and that there wouldn’t be a farmworker housing crisis if mid pan housing. The property developer did a better job of tracking whether farm workers actually live in Moon Ridge.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: Middlemen told Sebastian that they do check on this. But either way, it’s clear that the perception of Moon Ridge has big implications for how people talk about building new farmworker housing in Half Moon Bay. How did I guess all the conversation about Moon Ridge stack up with your experience of actually being there?
Sebastian Miño-Bucheli: I left feeling a little heartbroken that it’s like this is a community that they’re not going to respond back online. I’m sure that they don’t want to fight people or they don’t want to argue at a public setting.
Sebastian Miño-Bucheli: This housing talk is not going to go away anytime soon. In San Mateo County in California, cities in California are going to have to deal with needing to build more housing. Now, knowing what I know, what I’ve seen, it’s like this is a great place to live in.
Sebastian Miño-Bucheli: This is a housing project that works. You know, this is something that maybe we see more of this around, that it would solve some of the housing problems that are happening on the coast side.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: Well, Sebastian, thanks so much for sharing your reporting. I appreciate it.
Sebastian Miño-Bucheli: Thank you.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: That was Sebastian Miño-Bucheli, a local news fellow with cosigned news in Half Moon Bay and a reporter for KQED. We’ll leave you a link to his reporting in our notes. This 35 minute conversation with Sebastian was cut down and edited by senior editor Alan Montecillo.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: I produced this episode, scored it, and added all the tape music courtesy of Audio Network. The Bay is made by me and Alan Montecillo with support from Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Maha Sanad, Holly Kernan. We are a production of listeners supported KQED in San Francisco. I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you next time.