
High rents force some in Silicon Valley to live in vehicles - grej
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/high-rents-force-silicon-valley-live-vehicles/
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colmvp
I know this isn't the same as people who live there, but while in SV, I met
Uber/Lyft drivers who drove in from other cities in NoCal and worked 5 days a
week in the Bay Area as a driver, sleeping overnight in their cars. Only on
the weekends did they drive back home to spend time with family.

~~~
booleandilemma
To paraphrase William Gibson, the dystopia is already here — it's just not
very evenly distributed.

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s0rce
One of the people listed makes $175,000 he can easily afford his own apartment
at, conservatively, $3000/month, or he can have a couple roommates and pay
around $1000-1400/month. He chooses not to so he can save money and use the
amenities at his work. You shouldn't be allowed to live in cars on the street,
people paying property taxes are paying for those streets.

Free parking is the problem here, you shouldn't be able to leave your car on
the street anywhere for long periods, especially not living in it. If you do
this you are taking advantage of the system supported by tax paying owners and
renters.

If the cost of the car registration included the true cost of parking on city
streets living in your car would likely be much less attractive for these
people who can afford housing but simply choose not to.

~~~
surfmike
> If you do this you are taking advantage of the system supported by tax
> paying owners and renters.

Many people living in California, thanks to Prop 13, are also paying almost
nothing to the system because they bought their house early on. Many could
even afford property taxes on a current market valuation but the law still
means they pay much less.

If someone rented an apartment with some friends there is a good chance the
landlord is paying peanuts in property tax anyway.

Addressing the property tax imbalance is far more important than kicking out
people living in cars. Many of them are genuinely out of options, despite this
anecdote.

~~~
s0rce
I agree Prop 13 is also terrible, leads to large inequity in property taxes,
and this problem should be solved, however, I'm not sure its directly related
to whether you should be able to live in your car on the street for free.

~~~
surfmike
I agree it's a separate issue, but if the reason is "these people aren't
paying property taxes" then it's a much lower priority than reforming Prop 13.

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chmaynard
I'd love to find out what SF Bay Area property owners who rent their
properties out to others are doing with their extraordinary windfall profits.
Are there any academic studies or reports that explore this question?

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driverdan
I'm currently converting a 25 ft former shuttle bus to my home. I make enough
money to buy a house here in Austin but have chosen to live in a vehicle.

I like tiny homes and wanted to build my own place so it would meet my wants
and needs. Zoning makes building small hard and land costs make it very
expensive per square foot.

I like to travel and would rather take my home with me than sleep in a hotel
or hostel.

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sputknick
I haven't been to Silicon Valley in ~15 years, is living in outer suburbs and
commuting not an option? Here in Seattle, you can live in the outer suburbs
and pretty easily get to Seattle. I'm not crazy about my 45-60 minute commute,
but I like not paying Seattle-sized rent.

~~~
colechristensen
When I worked remotely for a bay area startup and did some hypothetical
apartment shopping, there was no amount of rent saved that came close to being
worth the commute time. It was a min-max problem with no optimum. Live close
and take a significant lifestyle hit, live far and give up time for any sort
of lifestyle. I chose instead to live remote and take a work-interaction
situation hit which ultimately led to leaving that position. Oh well, such is
life.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Quality of life is paramount. Jobs come, jobs go.

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40acres
How about the folks who work for the tech companies in the area, are they also
struggling with rent or is the average salary of an engineer in SV enough to
cover the recent increases?

~~~
sidlls
I earn a substantial income in the Bay Area. It's not the $250k/yr Google
experience, but it's in that ballpark (within 25%). My commute into the city
is about 90 minutes one way (using trains and biking or walking). Rent on the
attached home my family lives in is half my take-home pay. The only reason it
isn't more than half after the 8% increase my landlord added this last renewal
is because I got a substantial raise.

~~~
jrysocarras
Assuming you're making 25% less than $250k/yr, that puts you at ~$190k/yr. Are
you saying you pay ~90k/yr ($7.5k/month!) to live 90 min away from the city?
If so, what are your living conditions?

~~~
sidlls
It's my pay net of taxes, pre-tax savings like 401k, HSA, etc., not half my
gross pay. That amount (total) is around $90k/year (give or take--I'm not
giving exact numbers, here), and if you divide that by 12, roughly half
(again, not exact) is rent.

My family (self, wife, two children) live what I'd describe as a modest
lifestyle (for America). The home is big enough to be comfortable but not big
enough to have "extras" (e.g. there's no space suitable for a private home-
office). I would normally describe it as a comfortably middle-class (not
affluent) lifestyle, but considering the savings and other perks the taxes pay
for that'd be a bit disingenuous, in my view.

I do think the rent is excessive, though. The same home we're living in would
sell for perhaps $150k-$250k (depending on neighborhood) in the location my
wife's family lives. The high end of that range is a 25% down-payment on what
the units in the community we live in sell for the last few months; a
ridiculous valuation by any reasonable standard. There isn't as much cultural
variety there, but it's not exactly a cultural wasteland (e.g. there are a
variety of native-come-to-America run restaurants for Afghan and other similar
foods, stores, a non-trivial presence of foreign-born non-whites, etc.). The
offerings of the Bay Area don't justify the huge difference in prices.

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1dundundun
Is this the situation with those RV's lined up just outside of Stanfords
campus?

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virmundi
Good. Let's see what the SV folk do with the SF NIMBY folk. There should be
enough socially minded individuals in SV with the Google or Apple like money
to go to zoning meetings to allow more than 5 story buildings. Time for the
SJW folk at those companies to put their future property money where their
controlling mouths are.

~~~
simonsarris
Do recall that Google itself couldn't even get a couple small bridges built in
mountain view to save the polluting commute of its own workers between parts
of campus.

But even Google money can't shake a small city council.

[https://www.mv-voice.com/news/2013/12/23/viewpoint-city-
shou...](https://www.mv-voice.com/news/2013/12/23/viewpoint-city-should-at-
least-study-google-bridge)

~~~
thearn4
Serious question, why do the major tech companies put up with this and not
slowly migrate elsewhere? I get it's a bit of a chicken vs. the egg game when
it comes to where the work is & where the talent is, but the bay area seems
like it's at such a critical mass.

~~~
new299
Because when they're doing well, the benefits (to them) out-way the costs.

It was only really obvious to me what the benefits were after I visited Palo
Alto. For Stanford spinouts, you can literally go visit 10 VCs within a 20min
walk. If must make life so much easier.

For larger companies, they still want to interact with VCs and aquire
startups. They also want access to other forms of capital/banking services
which are available in the area.

