Within the Belle Haven neighborhood of Menlo Park, north of U.S. Highway 101, is a sprawling development project that sits incomplete, on indefinite pause. Meta’s new campus, Willow Village, which has been in the works for a decade, promised 1,730 housing units and the only grocery store and pharmacy to supply the food desert. As of May 1, Meta has halted the project, according to the City of Menlo Park’s website.
If any nearby cities illustrate the greater effects of economic development from big tech on residents, it’s Belle Haven’s neighboring city, East Palo Alto. Once a community plagued by murders and gang activity, EPA’s reputation has been changing, according to EPA Police Chief Jeff Liu, who joined the city’s police department more than 25 years ago.
“When I first started in 2000, we used to go to shootings all the time,” Liu said. “People were getting shot left and right, drug dealing was rampant … a lot of violent crimes and robberies. Things have changed tremendously since I started.”
While the explosive economic growth EPA and Belle Haven have experienced over the past two decades from big tech development should be commended, this funding won’t last forever. The pause on Willow Village, as well as the closure of a private school in EPA funded by billionaire Mark Zuckerberg that displaced 400 students, are both warning signs that money from tech companies is not reliable.
It is time we applaud the community and organizations that have strived to uplift the residents of EPA even in the face of tech money drying up.
“East Palo Alto is very unique, and we have a great sense of community here,” Liu said. “Whether it’s investing in the kids, giving them bright futures, or churches giving people entry programs and drug rehabilitation, it’s people working towards a common goal of helping people to fix the things that cause them to create crimes.”
One of these programs is nonprofit College Track, which was founded in 1997 to help send first-generation students in EPA to higher education with the belief that a bachelor’s degree opens doors of opportunity. Today, the EPA site has supported over 1,400 students from the Sequoia Union School District.
Palo Alto High School junior and EPA resident Ethan Avena, who participates in Foundation for a College Education, another local nonprofit with a mission to help first-generation students, said that youth-focused organizations are influential in the area.
“They’ve helped the community a lot, especially because a lot of … kids my age, their parents never went to college,” Avena said. “These programs … help with guiding students on a correct path for their future, so they don’t get lost along the way.”
These educational efforts have created an important cultural change for teens in EPA. Avena said he experienced a shift in the mindset surrounding college.
“If I try hard enough, I’ll have an opportunity to go to college and to be more successful in life,” Avena said. “Before, it [the sentiment] was just ‘Once I’m done with high school, I’ll just go to work.’”
The EPA Police Department has also expanded its community outreach efforts, alongside a shift in how it selects officers. Liu echoed the importance of character in the hiring process.
“I have a philosophy that I can teach a good person how to be a police officer, but I can’t teach an officer how to be a good person,” Liu said.
To Avena, the perception of the police department among the community has shifted.
“The police go to a lot of events that the city or even nonprofits host,” Avena said. “They’ve [gone from] an enforcing thing to ‘We’re your friend. We’re here to help you,’ instead of just to keep everything in order.”
Companies like Meta can pull the plug suddenly on economic developments. But these steady outreach efforts by nonprofits and police are led by locals within the community acting in EPA’s best interests.
EPA’s own community is creating lasting progress in the city, and that’s something that deserves recognition.