
‘I lost everything:’ Homelessness surges in Silicon Valley - cepth
https://apnews.com/9309128222ab4c4f92b0d0022e1ec133/In-shadow-of-tech-boom,-the-working-homeless-sleep-in-cars
======
ryanackley
There are easier locations to live on $15/hr in California and the USA than
Silicon Valley. Some of the people featured in the article have vehicles which
implies mobility. I wish the article focused more on the reasons people choose
to stay in a place with a ridiculous cost of living that they can't afford.
That seems like the real story to me. I'm sure there are valid reasons like
family or other things but it's not mentioned at all.

~~~
gt_
Those locations don’t pay $15/hr. if you can find a job, and you probably
can’t. Employment is rising in densely populated areas and not so much in
rural areas. This is a little different on the east coast, but that’s a more
significant moving investment.

Other services like healthcare in rural areas has eroded to barely existent. I
can speak from experience in Oregon.

Moving costs money, something they don’t have.

Finding a new job costs time and money. They’ve got neither.

~~~
bdcravens
Unskilled labor in Houston may not get $15/hour, but jobs are pretty easy to
come across. I know multiple people who really aren't good at their job (one's
a waitress, one works in retail) but they frequently get new jobs when they
lose the old (and sometimes have more than one at once). It's not hard to find
a $700 apartment here either.

~~~
pm90
Interesting that you bring up Houston. As someone who lives in Austin and
frequents Houston (and have friends living in Houston), I really really liked
the city for its great housing at affordable prices, amazing food and
nightlife (even though one has to drive fucking everywhere with inhumanly
aggressive drivers). Has your opinion changed after the recent Hurricane?

~~~
bdcravens
I live in an area where I was unaffected (north of Houston). It really only
affects where I'd buy a house in the future, as I'd ensure I'm not near a
bayou or creek (my current home, a lease, is outside of that danger zone). If
you're open to where you live, and aren't stuck on a certain hot spot, I still
think it's a great (if hot with the traffic you mentioned) place to live.

------
drwicked
Adding to the problem, the NIMBYs everywhere mean that no one builds new RV
parks anywhere and the extant RV parks ramp up rents and regulations (your RV
has to less than 10 years old) to push out the lower income people. This exact
thing happened to me in Austin.

~~~
TheAdamAndChe
I hear the same argument on this site every time poverty and homelessness in
Silicon Valley is brought up, but I really don't understand it. Massive
capital concentration is leading to only a few cities in the country
experiencing economic growth, and your solution is to just build more housing
in those few areas?

Why not do something about the capital concentration? Why not do something to
push some of those jobs into the Midwest? That would sure lower housing demand
in those few cities, and would lead to a more equal country overall.

~~~
jimmywanger
Massive capital concentration is one of the reasons the valley, SF, and to a
lesser extent Seattle, Austin, and New York, are creating so much.

Capital concentration leads to higher pay, which leads to smart people coming,
which leads to cool products, which leads to an increase in the economic
productivity of a society.

I don't see why anybody should "push" jobs away. That would make both the jobs
and their employers less desirable.

There are few instances where central government control of economic
allocation led to innovation. Even China and Singapore generally is pretty
laissez faire about who does what where. It's not like the Korean government
is trying to push industry out of Seoul, even though real estate there is
insane.

Free markets created the Bay Area and SF (arguably the lack of enforcement of
non-competes did), but that's another example of the government backing off.
It's not like Communist Russia was a hotbed of innovation.

~~~
TheAdamAndChe
The issue with this is that it's going to create massive political instability
if there are a few megacities with massive poverty in every other state. There
are already signs that our political system is already destabilizing. What
makes you think this wouldn't amplify that?

~~~
jimmywanger
The alternative is government mandated poverty. The government hardly ever
creates wealth. They can create the conditions for wealth creation by getting
the heck out of the way.

To be a bit dramatic, Venezuela, PRK, Sudan, and Cuba all have incredibly low
wealth inequality. Except for the rich and corrupt, everybody else has just
about the same as everybody else, which is nothing, based on government
policies. Hong Kong is cutthroat with high levels of inequality, but it's also
an engine of economic growth. Would you really rather like in Sub Saharan
Africa than Hong Kong?

EDIT: And massive wealth and capital concentration brought us Amazon and
Google. In exchange for newly minted millionaires being "equal" to us, would
you rather live in a world without those technologies - next day shipping and
Google Maps and Search?

~~~
caseydurfee
"The government hardly ever creates wealth. They can create the conditions for
wealth creation by getting the heck out of the way."

Yes, we're aware that's how it works in shitty novels about trains from the
1950's.

Here in the real world, every single technological innovation in the iPhone
was created by the US Government, or with the assistance of US government-
funded basic research. This book breaks the whole thing down:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Entrepreneurial_State](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Entrepreneurial_State)

Google Maps is a particularly terrible example. It wouldn't exist without GPS,
a technology invented by the US government.

Hong Kong's government puts billions of dollars a year into technology
research. That's not a good example, either. Furthermore, HK has lower income
inequality than Nigeria, Rwanda, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, Madagascar,
Burundi, The Gambia, Swaziland, Botswana, CAR, Sierra Leone and Namibia:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_eq...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_equality)
. So your statement "everybody else has just about the same as everybody else"
in sub-Saharan Africa is total bullshit.

Japan and Scandinavia have relatively low rates of income inequality
(especially compared to sub-Saharan Africa). Are you saying those countries
are less innovative than Namibia (highest income inequality in the world)?

Finally, the idea that the sole difference between "Sub Saharan Africa" (a
region that encapsulates over a billion people and over 40 countries which you
regard as a monolith) and Hong Kong is due to "government policies" is
childishly ignorant. Africa is not a country.

~~~
jimmywanger
I don't understnad your trains comment.

As for the government never creating wealth, most innovations that came out of
government basic research came out of the DoD/partially NASA. Although mostly
the DoD. Are you advocating for more defense funding, and then I'd be all
behind you.

As for your income inequality chart, it shows exactly what I'm talking about.
One of the highest "equality" ratings of the Gini coefficient is the
Netherlands, where the Jante law holds sway.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante)

As I said, those are countries who seem like they're stagnating. Do you really
want countries with low outcome equality vs. equality of opportunitity vs
countries who actually let you excel and keep the fruits of your labour and
skill? Outcome inequality is not a bad thing.

Also note that in your gini chart, most of the countries which are awful have
no statistics. Are they equal or just a blank slate that you can project your
own feelings on?

~~~
distances
> Do you really want countries with low outcome equality vs. equality of
> opportunitity

This is a commonly given argument, but does not apply to the US -- it's
nowhere _near_ a country of equal opportunity. I'd be more open to the
argument if you'd include items like no inheritance and no private schooling,
to really give a more equal footing -- but I'm guessing these are not up for
discussion. Thus, a certain amount of outcome equalizing is absolutely
necessary.

~~~
jimmywanger
Incorrect. One of the highest drives of most human peopls is to make sure that
their efforts will benefit their offspring.

Once you take that away, whether through inheritance tax or forbidding of
public schooling or even presence of more books in the household, what
incentive are you giving them to produce? Do not equalize outcome.

~~~
distances
I think we agree then that equal opportunity isn't realistic, and perhaps even
shouldn't be attempted. Thus, please avoid making this kind of simple argument
of opportunity vs. outcome, as that's not at all what is being suggested.

------
tw1010
Part of me is empathetic with this whole story, obviously. But another part of
me finds it strange that there is such a huge emphasis on the homelessness
situation in SF. It's as if we're only paying attention to this because of the
huge inequality density in the city. But the truth is, homelessness is a
problem everywhere. It just doesn't feel like an efficient (from a utilitarian
perspective) use of resources to focus efforts here instead of where the money
can act as the biggest lever. It's as if we mostly care about reducing the
visual appearance of the problem, than care about most effectively minimizing
the problem in aggregate.

~~~
santaclaus
> It's as if we mostly care about reducing the visual appearance of the
> problem

There are real public health consequences to high concentrations of people
living without proper sanitation -- see the ongoing, major hepatitis outbreak
in San Diego, for instance.

~~~
TheAdamAndChe
So it's only an issue when the public health of the rich is at risk? Because
it seems to me that's what your comment is implying.

~~~
arkades
No, he’s saying that homelessness in high population density areas has
secondary effects that you don’t see in low density areas.

~~~
TheAdamAndChe
Right, with the implication that only homelessness with those secondary
effects is the only homelessness that should be addressed.

------
chrischen
> Mountain View, a city of 80,000 which also is home to Mozilla and 23andMe,
> has committed more than $1 million over two years for homeless services,
> including money for an outreach case manager and a police officer to help
> people who live in vehicles.

Why are local governments treating these people as dysfunctional when the
dysfunction is in the government in its ability to provide an environment that
is safe, stable, and affordable for otherwise functional members of society.

~~~
alexandercrohde
I don't get it. Is your premise is that every person making minimum should be
able to live anywhere they want in the US, and if they can't the government is
responsible?

~~~
peoplewindow
This isn't really an abstract problem that requires reductio ad absurdum type
arguments. I grew up in the UK and I visit the valley sometimes. There are
several things you immediately notice:

1) Every building is incredibly short.

2) Every building is spaced very far apart.

3) Every road is incredibly wide.

Even fairly unimportant roads, the sort that have rinky dink little cafes on
them, will often have three lanes _in each direction_ or more.

The Valley has a homelessness problem because the people who live there refuse
to let anyone build tall, dense housing complexes. There's so much space here
you could crush the homelessness and poverty problems instantly by just
relaxing zoning rules, it wouldn't even take a social housing programme. But
instead all the space is taken up with tiny low rise buildings surrounded by
enormous parking lots.

~~~
alexandercrohde
Yes, but why should they? If a community likes wide roads, low traffic, short
buildings, are they somehow obligated to knock down those buildings so that
other people can live there?

------
acheron9383
This is mostly the result of the severe underdevelopment of new housing in the
last 20 or 30 years, due to neighborhoods preventing any sort of development
to stymy gentrification. The situation is made worse by the disincentivisaiton
of selling any property because of Prop 13. Why would you ever move if your
property taxes would increase by an order of magnitude? All the market
distortion has led to predictable outcomes, the new tech employees living in
the old crappy housing for exorbitant rents, and the poor pushed onto the
streets.

~~~
gt_
I’m not very familiar with Prop 13, but can speak for situations in Oregon
which seem quite different. Maybe prop 13 is why.

Quickly surging economies create active markets which encourage owners to
sell, renovations to happen, and old tenants to be removed for the purpose of
raising rent. In Portland in the past 3-4 years, there were quite a few
studies done on how this happens and how it is especially risky in places with
less families because those left without housing suddenly often have no place
to run to.

Going back to your point about Prop 13, the Portland issues I just described
seem to be recovering by a lot in the last 6 months. I am pretty sure it
wasn’t necessarily because of new building though, because the new building in
Portland is nearly all luxury condos.

------
angmarsbane
In my town, not Silicon Valley, the biggest complaint about new buildings is
the increase in traffic. Traffic in my area is already horrendous.

I do think some NIMBYs would be less NIMBY if improvements in transportation
took place at the same time as new buildings.

~~~
r00fus
Automobile infrastructure simply does not scale. Roads and parking are a
massive waste of space and ongoing maintenance. Gas stations are superfund
sites waiting to happen.

The entire car-culture and the industries that profit from that culture would
need to be fought to improve transportation along with new buildout, and to
the large extent, car culture has won (parking is part of local building
codes, and a large part of state/federal funding for roads).

I'd like to hear how transport could be improved without transitions to mass-
transit and increased walkability.

~~~
chiph
What I see as a major part of the problem is zoning laws that require
commercial buildings to be grouped away from residential areas. So you have a
large number of people commuting to the same area every day and none of them
are able to live within walking/cycling distance. If US zoning were more like
Japan, where the intended use is a "maximum" limit not an exclusive limit. So
you'll see houses and commercial buildings mixed together, so it's possible to
live close to work, reducing the number of cars on the road.

[http://urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2014/04/japanese-
zoning.html](http://urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2014/04/japanese-zoning.html)

------
santaclaus
> serving the very people whose sky-high net worth is the reason housing has
> become unaffordable for so many.

Well, that and decades upon decades of meager housing construction.

------
pascalxus
This nightmare has been building for 4 decades and it's finally reaching a
breaking point.

Here's my recommendation:

\- Work with builders to remove all regulations that prevent building.

\- Zone much more residential areas

\- Remove all height restrictions

\- invite builders to build and offer them legal protection from NIMBYs

\- dezone some of non-residential zoning, if needed: In places where there's
limited space, we need to move those companies to locations that can handle
the influx of workers

\- declare certain areas as innovation building zones: Remove all building
regulations and let start ups build whatever residential areas in any way they
can. Let innovation blossom without hamstringing it with countless
regulations.

There are good reasons why this trillion dollar PROBLEM/pain point/industry
has been completely ignored by venture capitalists and entrepreneurs. We need
to understand those reasons and mitigate those concerns.

~~~
s73ver_
"\- Work with builders to remove all regulations that prevent building."

This would end disastrously. "All those earthquake safety regulations, those
are really preventing me from building." "Those environmental regulations, the
ones that stop me from polluting everywhere, those are really preventing me
from building."

"\- declare certain areas as innovation building zones: Remove all building
regulations and let start ups build whatever residential areas in any way they
can. Let innovation blossom without hamstringing it with countless
regulations."

See above. Most of those regulations were put into place for a reason. Also,
this:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Oakland_warehouse_fire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Oakland_warehouse_fire)

~~~
pascalxus
We can't simply assume that removing those regulations will result in a
disaster. Look at the actual data. Find, the regulations which limit the most
building - maybe they're not even safety related. many parts of CEQA for
instance does nothing to help the environment but has prevented huge amounts
of housing. And for those that are safety related, maybe there's a way to
alter them or at least get rid of them just temporarily until the homeless
emergency has been mitigated. Anything is better than leaving people out on
the street - in any case, that's not a decision you or i should make, but
rather the people it affects.

~~~
s73ver_
"We can't simply assume that removing those regulations will result in a
disaster. "

Yes, we absolutely can. If business can get around it, they will. And then
when an earthquake hits, all that housing is destroyed.

~~~
peoplewindow
It's not impossible to build taller buildings than what you get in the valley
that are still earthquake safe. Even just burying parking lots underground
would probably 1.5x the amount of space available for building.

------
PatientTrades
The main problem is population growth. Even if housing is built specifically
for poorer and lower income individuals, middle class families looking for
hosuing will inevitable trickle in causing demand and prices to rise
naturally. Once again poor individuals will be on the street. The same cycle
keeps occurring in cities across America. Properties designed for the poor end
up getting bought by middle and upper class individuals, seen this in
Washington D.C. and New york firsthand.

~~~
ng12
That's why low-income housing is an oxymoron and any project for "below market
rate" housing is a political stunt.

You can't cheat supply and demand.

~~~
Harvey-Specter
You just have to keep building. At some point there is enough housing to meet
demand at reasonable prices.

------
polotics
America the lousily-organised.

