
Largest Homeless Camp In US is in Silicon Valley - jalanco
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-jungle-largest-homeless-camp-in-us-2013-8?op=1
======
TallGuyShort
I know my experience is entirely anecdotal, so even I take it with a grain of
salt, but unbiased, verified data on this topic is hard to come by at a large
scale. I spend between 10 - 20% of both my income and time working through a
charitable organization, and since moving to Silicon Valley a couple of years
ago, I have been disappointed to see that most of the people who I've worked
with who have become homeless recently enough for me to know the circumstances
well (or who have become homeless while I have known them), and most of the
people who have had long-term welfare dependencies, have not shown any
initiative or drive to seize opportunities. They have rejected job offers for
silly reasons, they have soured their relationships with those willing to help
them over silly issues, and they have in some cases outright rejected offers
of assistance. Now, I don't say this to suggest that all homeless people
deserve to live in camps like this, but I would like to suggest that the
existence of homeless camps is not a sign that our society is beyond "common
decency and civilization... so far beyond that it's obscene", as one commenter
has described it. I don't doubt that there are many who are or who have been
in those camps that had fallen on hard times and did not get a fair second
chance - but likewise I personally know some who have simply been beyond help,
and I don't know why. Clearly there are places that have more or less
homelessness, so there must be some cause involved that may not be obvious -
all I wish to say as that as a "hacker" in Silicon Valley, I have spent my
efforts in this direction far enough that my wife asked me to cut back for the
sake of our family - and I was simply unable to get most people to accept the
help they needed. I am skeptical of suggestions that all that is needed is for
the 1% to stop being so 1%-ish. (I apologize - I have made several small edits
while organizing my thoughts that aren't convenient to label explicitly as
edits...)

edit: (Yes - another one) For the record, I agree with most of the suggestions
that have been provided in responses. I think these are avenues worth further
investment and exploration. My only point here is that it's not just a case of
the 1% in Silicon Valley being selfish.

~~~
sentenza
A universal health care system would probably fix a lot of this, as it should
reduce the number of untreated mental disorders.

When I was still considering moving to another country, one of the factors I
used to assess the attractiveness of a country was the worst worst case
metric. The worst worst case metric looks at what might happen if things get
worse than what you think of when you hear the words "worst case".

Basically, I looked at how prisoners and the insane are treated. For instance,
the metric allowed me to rule out Serbia pretty fast.

It also led me to rule out the US.

~~~
refurb
Canada has universal healthcare yet the homeless problem in Vancouver is only
getting worse.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_Vancouver](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_Vancouver)

~~~
timr
That's not a rebuttal to the parent's argument. For all we know, the homeless
residents of Vancouver could be far more numerous (or worse-off) without the
safety net of universal health care.

~~~
refurb
The parent's argument was "A universal health care system would probably fix a
lot of this"

I rebutted with an example of a country with universal healthcare that still
has a large homeless problem. I have no doubt that homeless residents of
Vancouver have better access to healthcare. I'm just saying universal
healthcare will NOT fix a lot of this.

~~~
timr
Your comment was not a rebuttal. It was a logical fallacy, and you haven't
shown what you think you've shown ( _" universal healthcare will NOT fix a lot
of this"_).

Canada's healthcare system could be making the situation in Vancouver much
better than it otherwise would be. The OP can be correct, even if homelessness
is getting worse in Vancouver.

~~~
refurb
I guess it depends on how you define "a lot of this". I took it to mean
homelessness. If I am correct, then it was a rebuttal.

~~~
kevmi
Hi refurb,

Thanks for bringing up the point about the homelessness and the health care.
Its a solid thought to bring to attention.

Sincerely,

Guy who does not give a shit if its a rebuttal or not :)

------
bowlofpetunias
For me, personally, this cancels out anything good about Silicon Valley. This
is why I really don't give a crap why SV is such a great place for tech
entrepreneurs. If this is the price, I rather live in a place where people
have the decency to compromise their ambition a little bit in favor of those
less fortunate.

And I'm far from a socialist. I would like many things in my country to be way
more libertarian, and on a personal level I'm as selfish as the next guy.

But there's a line, a line of common decency and civilization, and this is so
far beyond that it's obscene.

~~~
justin_vanw
You clearly have no idea what is going on here, and you should find out before
you casually slander everyone that lives here.

The people that live in SV are VERY generous. The consequence is, we have a
huge population of homeless people that moved here because the weather is mild
and the people are generous, making being homeless here far less terrible
than, say, New York or Chicago or Cleveland or Phoenix or even LA.

It's really easy to accuse a large and varying group of people of living
purely for avarice, especially when you clearly have no idea what you're
talking about. What are you doing about the homeless problem? Making snide
comments on HN that scapegoat other people.

References:

[http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-08-20/national/41427...](http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-08-20/national/41427596_1_northern-
california-rawson-neal-psychiatric-hospital-patients)

[http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5221311](http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5221311)

[http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/matier-
ross/article/Homeless-p...](http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/matier-
ross/article/Homeless-problem-lingers-as-S-F-spends-millions-3173290.php)

[http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/08/the-
asto...](http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/08/the-astonishing-
decline-of-homelessness-in-america/279050/)

~~~
bowlofpetunias
Last time I looked, SV was located inside the US.

(For the record, my original comment wasn't intended as a snide remark. This
however is.)

And your comments about homelessness make me want to throw up. As if being
discarded as worthless human thrash is in anyway less horrible when "the
weather is mild and the people are generous".

How on earth do you manage to twist this so that it's the affluent denizens or
Silicon Valley that are the victims here?

I'm sorry I'm not being constructive, this attitude just pisses me off. Like I
said, I don't consider myself morally superior, far from it, I'm a selfish
dick 95% of the time, but even I have limits. I couldn't live there and
cheerfully ignore the problem.

Children are growing up homeless in one richest areas of one of the richest
countries in the world. There's no nuance here, no deeper meaning that
requires further research before one has the right to formulate an opinion.

There are many gray areas in life. Hell, at my age, almost everything turns
out to be a grey area. But this isn't one of them.

~~~
justin_vanw
In that case, I have the solution.

I'm going to go to each homeless person I find, and buy them a ticket to your
city, and give them directions to your house.

Then, when you wake up one morning, you'll have 500 homeless people living on
your lawn.

Then I'm going to post to HN saying that you are a terrible person for letting
the homelessness problem get so out of control at your house. "Don't you even
care about them? How dare you throw them out like trash!?!"

~~~
wturner
In a more Silicon Vally context I think it would be more appropriate to do it
to Mark Zuckerbergs house instead. Out of his 3 billion I'm sure it would be a
drop in the bucket to help get those people on their feet.

~~~
justin_vanw
Get them back on their feet?? Do you think they are homeless because they ran
into some temporary setback? What do you think of these people that you think
they are perfectly capable of living a normal life, but they hit some
speedbump along the way and now they are too, what? How pathetic would they
have to be if some accident of life left them permanently on the street? How
little you must think of them!

Drug addiction and crippling mental illness effect over 95% of chronically
homeless people. These are people struggling with things you and I can't even
_imagine_ coping with. I mean that, you and I can't fathom in any meaningful
way what it means for our perceptions and judgments about the world to be
completely unreliable. It's pretty much not possible to cope with hearing
voices or having visual hallucinations or crippling addiction. You can't 'get
them back on their feet', because they are not healthy enough to stand on
their own, and we don't know (I mean the royal we, all of the medical and
psychiatric expertise in the world is more or less helpless in the face of
what they are suffering from) any way to make it better. In fact you can't
merely _offer_ them help, because they very often aren't mentally stable
enough or responsible enough to accept it.

The best thing we can offer them is long term support. We can give them food
and warm/clean clothing, offer medical care, and respond when they have an
emergency. We can offer them safe shelter and mental health care, that is,
when they are in a mental state such that they will accept it.

We can scrape them off the sidewalk when they OD, and we can temporarily put
them in a hospital when they are so unstable that they are very likely to
cause injury to themselves or others. Of course, there is a fine line in such
paternal actions, at some point we are violating their humanity when we give
them involuntary help. Sometimes the best systems we can create to do so end
up being worse on the whole than doing nothing (institutionalization of the
mentally ill for example).

That is the state of the art. Someday we, as a society and civilization, will
be able to tend to the least fortunate in more effective ways, but what I
described is literally the best we know how to do right now. Of course
everyone, even us greedy Silicon Valley types, have a strong desire to make
this better, but unfortunately nobody knows how to do it. We are spending
_HUGE_ amounts of money, and besides reducing suffering a little, we aren't
able to achieve much more.

~~~
wturner
I was just responding in a smart ass manner to a smart ass comment.
Regardless, some of those people are in a state of temporary setback...insofar
as the values of our capitalist society would infer. The permanency of being
homeless due to some illness is something we should deal with in a humane
manner and I believe food, shelter and most everything you mentioned is a
human right. You don't know what I 'think', just what I type on the screen,
and you also don't know what I can 'fathom' or whatever other nonsense you
infer about people you don't know. But generally speaking I agree with much of
what you typed.

~~~
justin_vanw
You are right, I shouldn't have presumed.

For all I know, you are profoundly mentally ill, and in a fleeting moment of
coherence you went with a zuck joke.

------
outside1234
I don't want to downplay this because these conditions are terrible.

But I once worked in India for 3 months, in Mumbai, and I can tell you that on
a global scale, this is nothing.

My commute in the morning consisted of driving, for 1 HOUR, through the
largest slum in the world. 20 kilometers on a side big.

So while its terrible that this exists in Silicon Valley, on a global scale we
have much bigger problems.

For me, that's the biggest reason I hope Bill Gates keeps on doing what he's
doing.

~~~
randomdrake
I don't understand comments and attitudes like this. "On a global scale, we
have much bigger problems." People starving down the block are no less a
problem than people starving on the other side of the world. It's atrocious
that human beings have to live in squalor anywhere. There are people who need
help _everywhere_ and I do not get why people feel the need to measure one
form of suffering against another.

You say "I don't want to downplay this" but then follow with: "we have bigger
problems." How much more could you downplay it?

I hypothesize that folks (not necessarily OP) do this, consciously or
unconsiously, so they can more easily justify inaction for themselves. "Well I
could volunteer on Sunday at the Soup Kitchen but India has it so much worse.
How could I/we be so selfish?"

~~~
elsewhen
It's triage -- solving the biggest fixable problem first.

~~~
rayiner
Poverty in a place like India, because of its scale and the country's broken
social institutions, is a much more uphill battle than poverty in the U.S.

~~~
igravious
You'd think that, wouldn't you?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_eq...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_equality)

There is a greater relative disparity in wealth between the rich and poor in
the US of A than India. (relative poverty) Out of the developed countries the
US is easily one of the least unequal (if not the most unequal -- I haven't
checked) places. This is, of course, because universal health care is
communism and social security is for spongers and the lazy.

In absolute terms there is undoubtedly more extreme poverty in India than the
US. Why that is so is not as simple as the country's broken social
institutions, we're still talking about the world's largest democracy here. I
would imagine the caste system plays a part. Colonialism too.

~~~
dylangs1030
> _In absolute terms there is undoubtedly more extreme poverty in India than
> the US. Why that is so is not as simple as the country 's broken social
> institutions, we're still talking about the world's largest democracy here.
> I would imagine the caste system plays a part. Colonialism too._

Wealth disparity is not what Rayiner was talking about. He was talking about
social infrastructure. You're actually adding to his point here.

What he meant was that the wealthy class in India have about the same spending
power as the middle class in the United States. They are sheltered away from
the extreme destitution that is on display _everywhere_ in their country and
don't interact with the poor at all. It's perhaps 10x what you'd see from a
rich person walking in NYC avoiding a beggar asking for change on the street.

Rapid urbanization and the slow collapse of the caste system has left a vacuum
in India's culture that leads to stories like that of the poor woman we saw on
Hacker News just last week or so. _That_ is the lack of social infrastructure.
Not enough is being done, and not quickly enough, to positively impact the
society in a meaningful way. As it is now, India is in a state of culture
shock that does nothing to help its economic system.

------
davidf18
The reason for the high cost of rent and of purchasing houses is because of
"rent seeking" on the part of landholders who wish to keep land costs high by
restricting land use. Fix the zoning codes and density restrictions which will
diminish the artificial "rent seeking" and you'll see a corresponding increase
in market efficiency and lowering of the cost of housing.

For example, in Manhattan which is where I live, the number of people in
Manhattan has decreased from 2.3 million to 1.6 million or 700,000 fewer
citizens with a corresponding increase in the cost of living as there are far
fewer apartments. [http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/30/opinion/gothams-
towering-a...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/30/opinion/gothams-towering-
ambitions.html)

~~~
smutticus
I don't know why you were downvoted. You are exactly right. Until SV makes the
connection between forcing everyone to live in ranch homes and homelessness
the problem will never go away.

The best way to reduce homelessness is to reduce rent costs. The best way to
reduce rent costs is to create more supply of rental homes.

~~~
ryandrake
Not just rental homes, but AFFORDABLE rental homes. There's plenty of
development going on here, but it's all $800,000 townhouses and luxury
apartment buildings. This is not housing for the poor or even for middle class
workers for that matter.

------
smutticus
But god forbid we let people live in their cars. Or for that matter anything
less than a single family ranch home.

Housing costs are crazy in the bay area because people refuse to allow more
dense housing. With the homeless problem the way it is in the bay area we
should be doing everything to decrease the cost of rent. Instead
municipalities do everything in their power to prevent more housing from being
built.

I don't see homelessness in the bay area as some kind of tragedy. I see it as
a crime.

~~~
prewett
What about the many homeless that are homeless because they choose to be?
Since they've chosen that life style, then a place that is warm all year and
give free handouts is an attractive place to live. I lived in Austin, and
there are a lot of homeless there, especially in the winter. It's pretty warm,
the city is nice and liberal, so there are plenty of places to get free food,
clothes, etc. In fact, some of the them migrate from location to location
throughout the week to be at the spots where the handouts are.

The Salvation Army told a friend of mine that there is no reason for people to
be panhandling in Austin (there is a lot of that, too): the Salvation Army has
never turned anyone away who wanted food. But, the Salvation Army has some
annoyances, like bland food and (presumably) you have to sit through a sermon.
So, why not just wait for the Mobile Loaves and Fishes truck from one of the
Catholic churches to come around with free food, hot chocolate, and clothes,
no strings attached, no questions asked, no sermons given, no lifestyles
challenged?

The assumption that the homeless are homeless because of things outside their
control is not true. Some are legitimately in need. But many have chosen it,
often in part due to (alcohol) addiction. I've given a bag of food to homeless
panhandlers who gave me a dark look because they wanted actual money. Why? If
you talk with people who work with the homeless, often it is because they
aren't hungry, they need actual money to buy alcohol.

Crime? I'm not so sure. I think cities and charities that enable this behavior
might have some responsibility.

~~~
consonants
>But many have chosen it, often in part due to (alcohol) addiction.

It's a crime that a person with a disease can be literally left in the gutter
by society and then be told they chose to be there.

>I've given a bag of food to homeless panhandlers who gave me a dark look
because they wanted actual money. Why?

There are many necessities a person will need that aren't just food and
require money.

If you talk with people who work with the homeless the first thing they'll
tell you is that there is, surprise surprise, not enough personal supplies
(toiletries, clothing) nor food nor shelter to adequately address those who
need their care. If no one is being turned down, it is because they are at
maximum capacity.

------
gdne
I've lived in SV for nearly 20 years. There's a reason that the homeless
problem is as bad as it is here. It's not economics biased against the poor.
It's not greedy landlords. It comes down to two things:

First, SV has the economic ability to support a homeless population this
large. If the homeless couldn't get basic necessities, they wouldn't be here.
There are many reports that show panhandlers here can make $10-15 an hour.
Highest anywhere in the world. SV people are extremely giving.

The second reason? Weather. The weather is mild enough that people can live in
makeshift shelters year round. With a huge population to provide all the
necessities, there's no reason for them to leave SV.

I have a friend who lives in Toronto. We got on the topic of homelessness and
asked him how they deal with the homeless in Toronto. He said, "we have an
amazing homeless abatement program here. It's called winter." If SV had snowy
winters, there would be dramatically fewer homeless here.

------
justin_vanw
I don't know the answer to this question, but I feel like it's important from
a social justice perspective:

Where did the people in this camp originate from?

I think putting people in the following statistical buckets would be
enlightening:

Locals:

\- Raised (attended k-12 schools) in Silicon Valley.

Transplants who arrived healthy and able to survive:

\- Moved to the Valley to take a job, but were stranded when the job went away
(no drug or alcohol additions pre job loss, no disabling psychiatric
conditions pre job loss).

\- Moved to the Valley for other reasons, were stranded (again, no drug,
alcohol, psychiatric causes to homelessness)

Transplants who moved here because the conditions for transients are better
here:

\- Moved to the Valley having previously been homeless.

\- Moved to the Valley, initially with a place to stay, but with substantial
drug and alcohol abuse problems.

\- Moved to the Valley with substantial mental health issues that had
previously caused chronic homelessness.

There are probably much better ways to break this down, but hopefully that
makes the idea clear.

This is important because there is a huge moral difference in having great
wealth and allowing people to fall into homelessness VS becoming a national
hub that attracts homeless people because of better living conditions. Either
way, having people live outside is not acceptable, but the solutions we might
pursue are very different.

If this is local-grown homelessness, it is our responsibility to address it
and ensure that people aren't reduced to such conditions, regardless of what
anyone from the outside contributes to the solution.

If transients from across the country (or world) are concentrating here, it
doesn't reduce the responsibility to address it, but it does mean that it is
not our sole responsibility. The places that are exporting homelessness to us
should be liable to help fix it here, otherwise they have a perverse financial
incentive to put homeless people on a bus headed in any direction to make it
someone else's problem. The more benefits we provide, the stronger the
attraction will be to homeless people everywhere, which will only make the
problem here more insurmountable.

~~~
devilsadvocate8
>The places that are exporting homelessness to us should be liable to help fix
it here

"Liable" is an odd word to use in a decision regime that has no incentives or
feedback.

~~~
justin_vanw
There are incentives. When cities and states encourage homeless people, or
people receiving welfare/foodstamps to move to another jurisdiction, they can
spend that money on something else.

------
jayferd
These look an awful lot like homes to be calling the people living in them
"homeless". I wonder what it would look like if the city didn't keep
bulldozing them?

~~~
jlgreco
It would look like a [bigger] third-world slum.

~~~
jayferd
Those... get bulldozed all the time too, unfortunately.

------
realrocker
It looks very similar to the slums near my flat in Bangalore, albeit,
ironically, richer.

Edit: Similar in it's disarrayed outlook and temporary permanence.

------
mmagin
While I don't want to diminish how bad it may be for those actually living in
this situation, it seems to me that the only big problems about this --
besides "poverty makes non-poor people feel guilty" are essentially safety and
sanitation. In this setting, there is too much fire danger, too much danger of
the spread of disease, and danger of violence from less stable individuals
living in the area.

Aside from that, it's basically like going camping -- except the density is
too high to be safe.

One could argue that basically we (society) are merely failing to provide them
with proper water, sewer, police, etc. because they're not doing this on
privately-owned land and not doing it in a manner conforming to building
codes, etc.

Instead we kick them off the land periodically, hoping that someone else will
take care of the problem.

------
davidf18
Many of those who are homeless, in jail, etc. have some sort of underlying
mental illness for which they are self medicating with drugs and alcohol.
Years ago these people were in hospitals but with the use of new medications
and changes in policy they were able to live in some sort of assisted living
facilities. These facilities would assist with medication and other support.
Yet, when the hospitals were closed, the promised assisted living facilities
by and large never materialized. The self-medicating mentally ill end up in
jail as they sell drugs to sustain their drug habit.

------
frank_boyd
A wise guy once said "The American Dream, you'd have to be asleep to believe
in it".

Is this camp here one example of the "99%-ers' flip side" of the "American
Dream"?

~~~
mikecane
History: [http://www.american-pictures.com/](http://www.american-
pictures.com/)

------
Kurtz79
This is sad, I have arrived in the valley just a couple of days ago and I
found striking the contrast between San Francisco, where there are literally
hordes of homeless on the main streets, and the actual valley (Santa Clara,
Sunnyvale, Mountain View...) with its idyllic single family homes in the
middle of the trees, all clean and shiny.

I wonder how many residents know about the existence of these camps ?

I guess it's easy to forget that poverty exists if it's not screaming at you
in the face.

------
shire
It takes one person to make a difference it's just sad people in Silicon
Valley can't contribute together to fix this particular problem.

------
nazgulnarsil
If you are unknowledgeable about economics/incentive structures you really
should try not to get so angry when your outraged intuitive solutions get shot
down. I understand that moral intuitions tell your brain to get angry when
they are violated, but you should take it as an opportunity to educate
yourself. Casting your opponents as some sort of immoral monsters is not
constructive.

------
solnyshok
Looking at the map of homeless camps in the Silicon Valley, one might come to
the conclusion, that Adobe is the root cause of all evil that ever came out of
SV. [http://tinyurl.com/oqnzxnm](http://tinyurl.com/oqnzxnm)

------
unono
There's an easy solution to this - electric robo-cars. With self-driving cars
that can roam around, and thus not violate city ordinances against parking,
there would be no homeless. Electric charging is fairly cheap and the city
could even pay it for those deemed destitute.

A robo-car with shower, kitchenette, bedroom would radically transform the
situation for poor people worldwide.

~~~
asdfdsa1234
Robocars with shower, kitchenette, and bedroom would not be within the means
of many homeless people.

Edit for response: a robocar with all of these amenities would be an RV
costing much more than $10,000; the land cost would just be shifted to the
public as these vehicles take up all available parking. Not to mention that a
shower and kitchenette would require utility hookups, meaning they would
really need an RV camp...

~~~
unono
The cost of producing a car is only a few thousand dollars, and a robo-car is
just a car with a few extra smartphones. San Francisco spends about $40,000
per street homeless person [http://www.triplepundit.com/2013/05/hult-gov-
policy-homeless...](http://www.triplepundit.com/2013/05/hult-gov-policy-
homelessness-government-track/)

Even in slums in India people are capable of affording low cost cars like tata
nano's. And with the great efficiencies brought about by robo-cars, they would
be even cheaper to manufacture and sell.

And the above doesn't factor in the value of land. Much of rent/mortgage goes
into paying off the actual land-owner (usually a bank). Take away that
exorbitant cost and robo-cars would actually be much cheaper than even a small
apartment. At $700/month, $8,400 per year VS $10,000 one-time cost robo-car.

------
pastaking
Does it surprise anyone that Troy the carpenter did not know how to spell?
Pic:
[http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/5204f8736bb3f7b3300...](http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/5204f8736bb3f7b330000000-1200/a-sense-
of-ownership-after-losing-a-lifetimes-worth-of-things-is-almost-universal-in-
the-jungle.jpg)

------
beefman
Largest by acreage?

------
michaelochurch
Dear Californian elites,

It's time to talk about something you don't believe can happen to you, and
that's urban decay. It has many causes, plenty more proximate than this one,
but the first is the economic stickiness (technical term) of housing prices.
People don't sell in a down market. They hoard. This price:liquidity
correlation is toxic. Creating new housing (which requires regulatory change)
is the only way.

If you don't take care of the poverty caused by the high housing prices, if
you laugh it off as "not our problem", your city will not reach maturity but
fall into urban decay and it will take decades for your municipality to
recover both from the physical damage and disenfranchisement, but also from
the damage to reputation.

Sincerely,

Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, D.C., Minneapolis,
Atlanta, et al.

