The western span links the island to downtown San Francisco and has no toll booth while the eastern span of the bay bridge connects the island to Oakland and has a toll booth the makes for heavy traffic during morning commute hours. At the most congested times the commute can take well over an hour to travel from Alameda to YBI which is less than a ten mile drive. Members stationed at Air Station San Francisco are collecting the BAH rate for the San Francisco MHA even though they are based in San Mateo County due to the fact that the city of San Francisco owns the land where San Francisco International Airport is located. To clarify, no other location within San Mateo County is considered to be a part of the San Francisco …show more content…
The San Francisco Bay Area is unique in its geography and many bodies of water which separate cities by toll bridges. More desirable cities have better education, safer neighborhoods, and have closer proximity to the major work centers. In my role as a Chief in the Coast Guard I am constantly being told to “take care of my people”, I believe the Coast Guard should do the same. The entitlement differences between the two MHA’s are significantly different. For example, an E-7 with dependents BAH rate for San Francisco would be $4488 but the Oakland rate is $3324. I think consideration should be made to consolidate the two MHA’s into one to eliminating this issue. At this time members based at the YBI location are not getting the rate for the zip code they are based in unlike any other military installation and furthermore, the location of the city they are based in does not get factored into their housing rate. Combining the two MHA’s would solve this