
The Homeless in Silicon Valley - subnaught
https://newrepublic.com/article/124476/dispossessed-land-dreams
======
vanthrowaway
I live in a van in SF and I'm a software engineer. I park in the Sunset and
ride a bike to work. I have a gym membership with towel service at a major gym
chain. I have two comped meals a day at the office. I make more than $150K,
but less than $200K. I go out drinking every night and wind up at a bar in the
Sunset with clean bathrooms. On weekends I drive out of town and camp
somewhere scenic. I'm saving 80% of my take home pay. I have been doing this
for six months. I date regularly. On the first date I state that my place is a
no-go. Camping is a good second or third date. If they are special, I explain
that I live in a van.

My van was towed once when I was out of town and construction notices were
placed after a few days. That stung. Otherwise, it has been fine. If
everything in the van was stolen I'd be out $1,000.

~~~
randycupertino
I live in the sunset district- there are a bunch of vandwellers who do this in
our hood and it's frankly disgusting. They urinate out the side of their van
in the gutter and leave their feces in the gutter. Perhaps YOU are clean but
there are plenty of people who do it as well who are not as conscientious.
It's making the neighborhood pretty disgusting.

You're telling me in the middle of the night if you wake up and have to pee,
you're really going out to a bar and finding a restroom? I think not. At worst
you're peeing onto the sidewalk or into a bush and at best you're peeing into
a bottle in your van and then dumping it out on the street.

I report anyone I can tell living in a van on our streets to the non-emergency
PD line, and they come out and they make them move.

~~~
chvid
I think this is much more than a local Silicon Valley thing.

I have noticed similar things in Europe and Australia.

As I see it this is a symptom of housing becoming too expensive. By a perverse
logic the only thing the powers that be do is to make sure that housing
becomes even more expensive. In that way people buying too expensive houses
are saved by house price appreciation.

How this will end is no longer obvious too me, however people in top paying
jobs living out of hostels or vans for me is a sign of erroding real wealth in
our society.

~~~
Decade
I think we just have to build much more housing. The housing prices are too
high and simply must go down. It will suck _a lot_ for all those people who
bought houses in the past 20 years, but it’s the only option that is good for
society.

The political will is a big problem. Homeowners are much more likely to vote
than people like me. In San Francisco, the latest new regulation/roadblock is
that any increases in waterfront height limits have to be approved by voter
proposition. That regulation was passed by simple majority, 8.5% of San
Francisco residents voting in favor. This is pathetic. We need to be involved
in reforming our neighborhoods.

------
yggydrasily
> That homelessness persists in Silicon Valley has puzzled me.

The reason is (as the paragraphs just below this line indicate) in fact the
same reason for a great deal of issues in the Bay Area: lack of regional
planning.

Planning in the Bay Area is far too localized. Cities constantly pawn off
problems on each other. There are cities that approve thousands of new units
of office space but zero housing. Transit systems don't connect to each other.
Sports stadiums are constructed with no thought as to how people will arrive.
Freeways have lanes that appear and disappear at various county boundaries,
causing dangerous congestion. On and on. It's also why so many cities don't
have enough shelters and just seem to expect (as the article states) that
other nearby cities will pick up the slack.

What is needed is for the disparate cities of the Bay Area to stop passing the
buck and come together as a region and plan together. Continuing to hope
someone else does the hard work of solving problems will continue to result in
them not getting solved.

~~~
tedivm
The real question is how do we push for that to happen. Most of the tech
people I know move around- they rent one place for a few years, then end up in
another part of the bay shortly after that. There's no real incentive for the
politicians on the local level to give up power, and the state doesn't seem to
care.

Regional governance seems to be the answer, but making that happen seems like
an impossible task.

~~~
abfan1127
you could de-regulate the planning all together and the the market decide the
best way to allocate resources...

~~~
superuser2
The market decides human beings are not worth shelter, and you're suggesting
it needs _more_ power? What the _fuck_?

~~~
HappyTypist
The market certainly decided that human beings ARE worth shelter and more
shelter should be constructed. More supply will result in lower prices.
However, cities are barely approving residential zoning and this artificial
distortion is amplifying the homeless problem.

As we have seen here, regulation like rent control is much more harmful than
helpful. Rather than needing to cough up an extra $50 per month for example,
you wait until the market rent is double what you're paying now - and
naturally, get kicked out for one reason or another.

If zoning was dramatically curtained and / or abolished, the housing problem
would be solved almost overnight. The high property prices ARE a market signal
saying, build more houses. Regulation is preventing efficient markets.

~~~
superuser2
Certainly building more housing will bring down the price, and that will make
life easier for tech workers who will still be well-paid. But that won't do
anything for the homeless who are unemployed or making minimum wage, who are
still going to be vastly outbid compared to tech salaries.

Given the geographical constraints and the velocity of tech growth, it's
really unlikely that a free market would build _so many units_ that all the
high-paid tech workers who could possibly come to the Bay Area were situated,
and landlords were forced to start catering to the working poor. We have to
force them to, because market incentives won't.

~~~
gnarbarian
Companies could build offices in other towns. That's an option too.

~~~
dragonwriter
Oddly, one way to encourage that is to make the permitting process easier.
Tech companies want to all be in the location, because its much more desirable
to tech workers, and the belief that the best talent is worth the price means
that money is made available for that.

Without the restrictions on development (which are designed to keep the area
desirable, and succeed at that, as shown by market prices) desirability would
drop -- because you'd have more people, and less money for services per person
-- along with prices, and tech companies would be more likely to locate
elsewhere.

~~~
gnarbarian
You'll get no argument from me on that front. I still believe tech companies
should go with other locations now because there is already incentive and
opportunity to do so.

------
scurvy
Palo Alto, Mountain View, and other peninsula communities don't spend money on
homeless shelters for two big reasons:

1) San Francisco spends a ton of money on the homeless. Over $40k per homeless
person per year. "If big SF spends so much on the homeless, why should little
ol' us?"

2) The weather in the Bay Area is not particularly harsh. Yeah, it might get
cold 1-3 days a year, but it's not really bad. You're not going to die from
exposure to the elements like you would in Cleveland, Detroit, or even Dallas.
"No one will die sleeping outside here" is a common thought.

I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with these thoughts, but this is what
peninsula planners think.

~~~
beatpanda
Citation needed for "$40k per homeless person per year". I used to work
directly with homeless people and that doesn't sound even remotely true. And
even if you have the top line figure correct I suspect there's some missing
context.

~~~
scurvy
$189M in the city's budget goes directly to homeless services. That's roughly
$25k per homeless person in direct spending. The city estimates it spends
another $20k per homeless person in indirect city services (health, police,
fire). The "frequent fliers" cost the city more than $100k per year.

In many ways, $40k per person is a low-end figure.

~~~
masonicb00m
Mayor just committed to $250MM/yr
([http://www.sfmayor.org/index.aspx?recordid=1017&page=846](http://www.sfmayor.org/index.aspx?recordid=1017&page=846))

------
jmspring
I'm mixed on the issue. I've got roots going back multiple generations in the
bay area. The only immediate family member besides myself still living in the
"bay area" (monterey to Santa Rosa) is one of my Aunts. Both parents
born/raised in the Bay Area, my sister and I as well. Choices made, people
moved. There is a golden rule - "if you sell your house and move out of
California, it is hard to move back". My parents found this out in spades.
They live in WA now and I'm supporting them a bit.

Old friends of my family still own a house in Campbell. Retired now, even with
ups and downs, their mentality is "we aren't splitting up, because we can't
afford to go anywhere". The build out of the Bay Area, lack of planning, etc.
is taking a toll and making it hard on current and retired blue collar
workers.

That said, I live in Santa Cruz and have very little pity on the "I should be
allowed to live where I want". Mostly because over here, our "3000+ homeless"
are 2/3 (according to a UCSC/Civinomics survey) didn't reside here before
becoming homeless. We have way too many services, few rules, and a lot of
"compassion" \-- to the point of people being publicly called out if you
publicly ask about "compassion".

The Bay Area is expensive, yes one would like to stay where their friends are,
but one should also be open to where they can afford. For instance, locally,
we keep being lectured about needing "safe places for RVs to park", yet these
RVs aren't local, and a simple search of CL, a trailer park in Modesto has
spaces (including utilities) for $15/day.

------
SeoxyS
I feel somewhat terrible for thinking this… but, to me this story seems like a
sad example of why responsible financial planning is important. It seems like
they had plenty of opportunity to build equity into their house over time.
Taking out multiple mortgages and refinancing seems like dangerous behavior.

Also, why is living in a van preferable to moving somewhere where they can
afford the housing?

~~~
scurvy
Unexpected, high medical bills and crappy insurance coverage would probably
bankrupt most Americans. A really unfortunate hospital stay can ruin many
people's lives.

~~~
mahyarm
Even when your insurance is 'top of the line', if it's cheaper to hire lawyers
than to treat you, then they might just hire lawyers. Insurance has a big
incentive to not provide it's service when the cost is high.

And this can happen to anyone with the right kind of car accident.

------
andreasklinger
There are 35k homeless people in the Bay Area [1] 7-15k of them in SF. There
are ~7M people living here.

While those numbers sound at first high. It's not such a crazy high amount of
people. (from what i know cities like Vienna or London also have at least a
forth of that number (couldnt find stats))

The "homelessness situation" is next to cost of living the #1 thing i hear
from people who don't want to relocate here. And tbh it's also the reason why
i dont plan to stay in SF for longer term.

I know there is no easy answer to the problem of homelessness in the bay area
- but it doesnt sound unsolvable.

[1]: [http://www.myphilanthropedia.org/top-nonprofits/bay-
area/hom...](http://www.myphilanthropedia.org/top-nonprofits/bay-
area/homelessness/2009)

~~~
beatpanda
The "homeless situation" is roughly the same in San Francisco as in every
major city, where a near-constant 1% of the population are homeless. There a
variety of reasons why homeless people are more visible in San Francisco than
in other places, but there aren't more of them.

~~~
mwfunk
If the 35k figure is correct for SF, that means it's over 4% of the
population.

~~~
andreasklinger
35k whole bay area

------
peterburkimsher
Two things irritate me. 1\. A food bank should never ask for a person's home
address. If you need to use a food bank, chances are you're homeless.

2\. Homeowners should not worry so much about their property value. It's all
going to be destroyed by an earthquake. I wager that the homeless are better
prepared, and more likely to survive the Big One.

------
leetrout
OT to the article but following up on some other comments about van living. I
don't think it will be long before one of the big tech companies opens a dorm.
There's no way it hasn't been discussed somewhere already. There was an
article last month on "dorms for grownups"
[http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/11/coliving...](http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/11/coliving..).
and the big tech companies already offer so many perks would access to a
company dorm actually hurt at this point?

Of course this is common place in China already for the factory workforce...

~~~
hkmurakami
I paid $100/mo for my corporate dorm in Japan. It was pretty dingy, but there
were better, well designed studio and 1BR arrangements for $150 that would
open up after a year or so that you could move into. I'd roughly estimate that
this was 1/5 the cost of market housing.

I had to move out because the particular one I was in was too close to
industrial smog, but I have friends who still live in a $150/mo corporate dorm
after 6 years working there. Not a bad arrangement at all since many of us
went home exclusively to sleep anyways.

------
HappyTypist
It's time to index everything to an area's cost of living. $1 in SV is not the
same as $1 in {somewhere else). It's time to stop pretending that you can set
a federal poverty line, or set a federal social security pension.

------
gnarbarian
This is a pretty easy optimization problem and I think it's hilarious that SV
can't seem to solve it. If this was a network you would just push the
resources further out closer to the edge to alleviate the load in one place.

What you have is people from all over the world swarming SV because you can't
get that job in Cork or Boise.

Everything doesn't need to be in silicon valley. If someone is willing to live
in their car for a job, with all the social baggage, sneaking around and
unhygienic side effects that entails, surely they would be willing to move to
a less crowded place like Portland to do the same job.

If the nexus for every single tech company must remain in SV then these
companies could set up satellite offices around the country or allow people to
telecommute with robust teleconferencing setups that turn a monitor into a
window. Then just hang it up on the wall in your office and turn it off when
you're not working.

Seriously people. You don't have to live like animals. I have a decent
software job where I live. I pay $700 rent and look what I get to do every
weekend

[http://imgur.com/a/d5BkF](http://imgur.com/a/d5BkF)

[http://imgur.com/a/iFN9Z](http://imgur.com/a/iFN9Z)

[http://imgur.com/a/ow47m](http://imgur.com/a/ow47m)

~~~
G650
"Praise The Sun!" Nice!

~~~
gnarbarian
It was funny because I had to explain it to my buddy who took the picture
afterward and I'm pretty sure he didn't get it.

We literally climbed in a shadow for 6 hours before getting into the sun. It
was ridiculously invigorating.

------
kqr2
For those without a car or van, life can be even worse on Hotel 22 -- the only
bus in Santa Clara county which runs 24 hours a day. People will ride it back
and forth all night.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/28/opinion/hotel-22.html?_r=0](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/28/opinion/hotel-22.html?_r=0)

------
nickthemagicman
This is really sad. Not to change the subject, but I'm wondering how difficult
it would be to live in a Van in SV and work as a Software Dev?

The temperature seems right, how hard would it be doing a stealth van
situation and showering at the gym?

~~~
austenallred
I lived in my Honda Civic in Palo Alto for a while. It was a little stressful,
but my total burn was ~$300/month.

Shower: YMCA on Ross Road Food: non-perishable stuff Work: Hacker Dojo.

I slept in a Mormon church parking lot most nights

~~~
Animats
Hacker Dojo and TechShop had to crack down on people sleeping there.

~~~
austenallred
I never slept in the Hacker Dojo, I slept in my car

