Sad to see this idea not pan about, but it was a good idea. Let's find another location. There are dozens of people living in their cars and in need of a safe place to park. We're much better off centralizing it in a place where we can provide services, than having them spread all around the city.

Locating temporary housing facilities right across from a big high school. What could possibly have gone wrong?

I'd love to see our mayor focus on the needs of people who live here already rather than constantly try to bring in more residents, which will only result in a larger population sharing ever-shrinking amenities. We elected you to serve us, not to curry favor with those higher on the political food chain and developers.

With seemingly good intentions, the Mayor pursued this idea. However, what really were the motives? When was this idea explored FIRST with Mueller's Council colleagues? What possibly can go wrong when a leader embarks on efforts that should have the support, or at least a vote, of the rest of the elected City Council?

These comments are really funny.

I agree with Sandrine.

It’s shameful the Mayor would care about people living in cars in our city. He should only care about us homeowners and our multimillion dollar homes. The only problems that matter are privileged problems. It’s shameful how many extra minutes is takes to drive to Draeger’s from Felton Gables these days. We don’t need our City working with the County to try to help poor people. The Mayor clearly did this so lots of people who lived anywhere near USGS, even though they can’t even see the USGS parking lot, would send him grateful emails excited by the fact that a poor family might breathe the same air in their vicinity. The population increase to my neighborhood from this project would have been the feather on the scales of whether Menlo Park would remain liveable. Bah humbug.
Tiny Tim...whatever.

What an awful idea. Create a shanty town to attract California’s finest. If I wanted to live in Oakland or Mumbai I would have purchased there. I can only imagine the fine individuals that would pour into that space if encouraged. We need to take OUT the trash, not house it in parking lots.

These are the same people we all grew up with, who spent their formative years getting high and gaming the system. these are the fools who thought school was a waste of time and they were going to “get by” just fine. Now reality has set in, and they’re parasites on the rest of us. A thousand times ion life they’ve made decisions that got them to living on the street. They’re reaping what they’ve sown, and deserve no pity or handouts. Let them go live somewhere where it’s dirt cheap and the neighbors don’t care about the smell of rotting garbage and using the lawn as a toilet. Let them savor their decisions. Menlo is for the people who actually paid attention and made decent decisions in life.

And clean up Santa Cruz Ave while you’re at it!

To those of you who claim to believe we should focus solely on the needs of others and not care a whit about our own quality of life: how many of you invited homeless people (not relatives or friends) into your home last year? I did. And how many local nonprofits have you donated to? How many local nonprofit boards have you served on? Instead of whining about privileged people, how about you, personally, making an effort to become part of the solution?

Many of us feel compassion for those less fortunate (I gave money to the M-A students at Trader Joe's too!) and there is no shortage of organizations looking out for the interests of the disadvantaged. This area leads the nation in per capita rate of nonprofits!

But looking after underserved non-residents is not the mayor's job. He's supposed to be working on behalf of Menlo Park. Where are his proposals for additional park space for our kids (we do not have enough playing fields)? How about more bike-friendly streets? Improved safety on Santa Cruz? Fewer potholes/uneven sidewalks? It's lovely that he cares about one young couple; perhaps he can offer them a place to stay so that we can move on to real issues that plague our city.