Three of the 47 manufactured houses planned for a new affordable housing community for agricultural workers on the Coast of the County of San Mateo arrived in Stone Pine Cove Tuesday, county officials said.
Stone Pine Cove is a development of housing aimed at providing permanent housing to agricultural workers and their families. The first families are expected to move in by June, according to a county spokesperson.
The concerns concerning lower quality agricultural housing intensified after a mass shooting in 2023 in Half Moon Bay drew attention to the dangerous and often neglected living conditions of the agricultural workforce in the region.
“We made a promise – to honor the hands that nourish us with dignity and safe refuge,” said the San Mateo County supervisor Ray Mueller in a statement. “And now, with urgency and humanity as a guide, the community, the state of California, the county of San Mateo and the city of Half Moon Bay gathered to make this promise in the creation of this new district.”
The county hired $ 11.5 million last year for construction and an additional $ 6 million for the purchase and installation of manufactured houses.
The houses made of one to three bedrooms are completely electric certified and Energy Star. The units have walls external to wooden frame with insulation, as well as plumbing and coding wiring, officials said.
Qualified families will be able to rent houses at prices lower than the market, with the possibility of buying later as part of a state program for low -income agricultural workers.
In the County of San Mateo, a family of four winners up to $ 156,650 is considered a “low income”, according to federal data. Meanwhile, a 2023 UC Merced study found that agricultural workers earned an average of $ 24,871 per year in 2022. According to a 2024 report from Silicon Valley Community Foundation, between 1,300 and 1,600 agricultural workers live in the County of San Mateo.
To achieve its 2031 housing objectives, Half Moon Bay plans to build 480 units, including 285 reserved for low -income residents.
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