The cops who sleep in their cars — and what San Mateo...

For San Mateo police Officer Jeff Brinton, the 85-mile commute from Oakley was so punishing that he decided to pursue the only reasonably affordable solution he could think of: He now sleeps in a van.

Rather than slog back and forth from eastern Contra Costa County between shifts — a trip that can take 2½ hours during rush hour — he crashes in his Roadtrek van, which he parks in the employee lot at the San Mateo police headquarters.

Brinton said he is hardly the only member of the force who slumbers in a vehicle rather than drive several hours after a 12-hour workday.

“A lot of (officers) are sleeping in their cars if they get too tired — it’s dangerous to drive home,” said Brinton.

But Brinton may soon get some relief from his commuting nightmare. On Monday, the San Mateo City Council unanimously approved a plan to convert a portion of an old fire station into a sleeping barracks for far-flung officers who can’t afford the average $1.4 million Peninsula home.

The $520,000 project will provide bunks and showers for up to 12 officers at a time at Fire Station 26 at 1812 S. Norfolk St. In addition to the barracks, the building will be a police substation and vehicle storage site.

While Brinton’s commute may be particularly egregious, it’s not that unusual. Of San Mateo’s 125 officers, 68% live outside of San Mateo County, many as far as Tracy or Mountain House in San Joaquin County or Gilroy in south Santa Clara County.

Of the officers commuting from other counties, the average distance is 50 miles each way, according to a staff report on the barracks proposal. A San Mateo Police Officers’ Association survey found the average round-trip commute of those traveling from outside the county is two hours and 17 minutes.

The barracks plan comes as an increasing number of Bay Area workers are falling into a category known as “super commuters,” people who spend at least 90 minutes commuting to work each day. A March study from the Bay Area Council found more than 160,000 people commute daily to the Bay Area from Central Valley locations, including Sacramento.

Detective Nick Morsilli, who is the union’s welfare officer, said that the barracks will help keep the officers safe. While it won’t help with the deeper problem — the affordable housing crisis on the Peninsula — it will help the city tackle a pressing issue in the short term.

“We are by no means underpaid, but we are basically civil servants,” said Morsilli, who lives in San Ramon and has a round-trip commute of an hour and 45 minutes. “Our wages are competitive but that doesn’t solve for the fact that it’s San Mateo County where a house in Shoreview sells for $1.4 million. That is a fact of life.”

The average mid-career officer in San Mateo makes about $101,000 a year.

The situation came to a head in May 2018 when police Officer Carlos Basurto, a 15-year veteran and father of five, fell asleep at the wheel while driving home to the Central Valley after an 11-hour shift. He was critically injured after he rolled his car east of Tracy.

“After his accident my wife said, ‘You can’t make the commute anymore. We are going to have to figure out a way for you to stay down there,’” said Brinton. “You’d like to think you can do it all, but when something like that happens to someone close to you, you go, ‘I’m as vulnerable as anyone else.’”

The barracks could ultimately save the city money by decreasing the number of officers defecting to other departments, according to Deputy Mayor Maureen Freschet.

Since 2013, the department has lost 21 officers to other departments, mostly in cities closer to where the officers live. It costs $150,000 to recruit and train one officer, meaning that the defections have cost the city about $3 million.

“This is an important issue for the city,” said Freschet. “We have got to find a way to retain our officers.”

Officers have left for departments in Livermore, Tracy and other places, Morsilli said, even though those places pay less than San Mateo.

“The guys leaving are the journeymen, the officers with five to 15 years experience, who are the lifeblood of any police department,” said Morsilli.

Only nine officers live in the city of San Mateo — and those are people “lucky enough to inherit their parents’ house,” said Morsilli.

Rosanne Foust, CEO of the San Mateo County Economic Development Association, said the challenge facing San Mateo — the lack of housing affordable for first responders and other employees — is also confounding communities “up and down the Peninsula.”

San Mateo County has a population of roughly 750,000, but has about 12 jobs for every one housing unit. While cities like Redwood City have done a good job of producing housing in recent years, builders in other communities face stiff resistance from antigrowth neighbors and politicians. Just in the last month state housing officials have warned San Bruno and Cupertino after those cities rejected major housing proposals.

Even at the San Mateo City Council meeting Monday night, pro-housing advocates were upset when the council voted to exclude several single-family-home-dominated neighborhoods from a study of where multifamily development could take place.

“We need more housing at all income levels so we don’t have people driving two hours to work,” Foust said.

Leora Tanjuatco, organizing director for the San Mateo Housing Leadership Council, said that her group had met with police union representatives, but didn’t have any good news to dispense.

“Quite honestly they are desperate for a solution,” she said. “Our solutions are 20 to 30 years out. We work on the root causes of the housing shortage.”

Like nurses and teachers, police officers represent the “missing middle” — people who earn too much to qualify for subsidized housing but not enough to afford market-rate homes.

“The solution to the missing middle is to make it easier to build market-rate housing — not more difficult,” she said. “I’ve heard of teachers sleeping in their cars; nurses sleeping in their cars in the parking lot of the hospitals they work in.”

While it may not be an affordable housing solution, both Brinton and Morsilli said they will be grateful to have a comfortable bunk on which to catch a few winks rather than white-knuckling it through hours of exasperating Bay Area gridlock.

“The idea of these barracks is fantastic for me and a lot of people here — it gives us another option if you get too tired or just can’t make the commute anymore,” Brinton said. “I’m glad the city is taking on this task. We’ve got to try something new.”

At the San Mateo City Council meeting Monday night, Councilman Rick Bonilla said he wished the barracks had been opened in time to help Basurto.

“I just wish we had done this a few years back,” he said. “Before one of our officers actually lost a leg because of his long commute.”

J.K. Dineen is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jdineen@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @sfjkdineen