
More than one-third of schoolchildren are homeless in shadow of Silicon Valley - heisenbit
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/dec/28/silicon-valley-homeless-east-palo-alto-california-schools
======
samlevine
> Remarkably, slightly more than one-third of students – or 1,147 children –
> are defined as homeless here, mostly sharing homes with other families
> because their parents cannot afford one of their own, and also living in RVs
> and shelters

So clearly I was homeless all the years I lived with roommates.

~~~
rayiner
Redefining multi-family living arrangements (very common in many parts of the
world) as homelessness is actually a little offensive.

~~~
dublinben
I think it's more offensive that working families can't afford their own place
to live.

------
kentbrew
East Palo Alto resident, here. Not at all surprised to hear this; our town
used to be the last place on the Peninsula where non-engineers could afford to
live, but those days are gone. See here for some history:

[https://techcrunch.com/2015/01/10/east-of-palo-altos-
eden/](https://techcrunch.com/2015/01/10/east-of-palo-altos-eden/)

Some reasons:

\- Predatory lending resulted in a 35% foreclosure rate on single-family homes
since 2008, half of which are now owned by people who don't live in town. More
at [http://archive.peninsulapress.com/2013/07/16/squeezed-by-
the...](http://archive.peninsulapress.com/2013/07/16/squeezed-by-the-
foreclosure-crisis-and-booming-silicon-valley-real-estate-east-palo-alto-
confronts-gentrification/)

\- Until mid-2016, virtually all of the high-density rental homes in East Palo
Alto were owned by a single absentee landlord in Chicago, who was hell-bent on
chasing out as many residents as possible so they could reset rents to "market
rates" or (better) knock down the apartments and build condos. More at
[http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2016/02/16/exclusive...](http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2016/02/16/exclusive-
east-palo-altos-woodland-park-apartments.html)

\- The price of local housing has jumped since Facebook opened their new
campus, offering a $10,000 to $15,000 payment to employees who live within 10
miles of One Hacker way. More at [http://www.reuters.com/article/facebook-
benefits-idUSKBN0U02...](http://www.reuters.com/article/facebook-benefits-
idUSKBN0U02PC20151218)

I'm sad to read some of the comments. "If you can't afford to live in your
neighborhood, get the hell out" is a sentiment that will definitely come back
to haunt you.

~~~
sirakov
Why is that a bad sentiment? People downsize homes all the time.

Anecdotal, but my own parents moved away from Chicago to rural Michigan when
the economics just didn't add up. Chicago housing is hundreds of thousands,
where as rural Michigan you can buy a good single family home for under $100k.
Cheap enough to support a family off of a minimum wage job (and I mean real
minimum wage, $8.50 an hour for Michigan).

[http://www.zillow.com/homes/Decatur-
MI_rb/](http://www.zillow.com/homes/Decatur-MI_rb/)

------
davidf18
> '“Now you have Caucasians moving back into the community, you have
> Facebookers and Googlers and Yahooers,” said Pastor Paul Bains, a local
> leader. “That’s what’s driven the cost back up. Before, houses were rarely
> over $500,000. And now, can you find one under $750,000? You probably could,
> but it’s a rare find.”''

It's a pity that they don't teach journalists how to think. The problems in
housing shortage and increase in housing prices is because of zoning density
restrictions, not that more people are moving into the neighborhood. These
zoning density restrictions are a market inefficiency called "rent-seeking"
which uses politics to give a special interest group, in this case landlords
and existing home owners a portion of unearned wealth over tenants and home
buyers.

The proper fix is to pass laws that prohibit the zoning density restrictions
or that reverse the "rent-seeking" laws.

One gets tired of journalist writing these kinds of stories without citing the
reasons and the fix.

Where I live in NYC, many of those on the left claim that they want affordable
housing and want people to have an affordable wage (or lower housing costs in
order to make the wage they earn go farther), yet they are for laws that limit
zoning density.

This phenomenon zoning density restrictions related to affordable housing is
written about by many, but here is a good article by Harvard Economist Edward
Glaeser who is an expert on cities.

Build Big, Bill [http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/build-big-bill-
article-1....](http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/build-big-bill-
article-1.1913739)

~~~
throwaway5752
"It's a pity that they don't teach journalists how to think"

It's a pity that you can't humbly disagree with someone over a differing
opinion, rather than framing them as ignorant and unaware of some basic truth
that you're privy to. It's not just off-putting, but it's also inaccurate.

Your feeling on "rent-seeking" and zoning policy are hardly universal, and
there are many scholars that have written alternative views on the subject.

~~~
davidf18
> "Your feeling on "rent-seeking" and zoning policy are hardly universal, and
> there are many scholars that have written alternative views on the subject."

Please cite your sources. The rent-seeking is one of 3 forms of microeconomic
market inefficiencies (the others are [negative] externalities and information
asymmetry).

Prices rise because of scarcity. Zoning density restrictions causes scarcity.
"rent-seeking" is use of politics or other means to create a market
inefficiency that helps a special interest gain increased wealth, not through
wealth creation. Zoning density restriction are from politics.

There is universal understanding that zoning density restrictions (which is
using politics to create scarcity) create higher housing costs. I don't know
anyone who states that zoning density restrictions do not cause higher housing
costs.

So, please cite your source.

------
lintiness
california has a lot of this. they endlessly lecture the rest of the country
on environment and sustainability while driving their hybrids 4 hours a day.

~~~
dang
Please don't post grandiose claims about large groups of people. They're
unsubstantive, often uncivil, and usually provoke worse.

------
dominotw
>Now you have Caucasians moving back into the community you have Facebookers
and Googlers and Yahooers

Keep race baiting Guardian. Nevermind 30-40% of people working here are
Asians.

~~~
lern_too_spel
EPA was redlined, leading to "white flight" in the mid 20th century. Poor
Asians (not the highly educated recent immigrants) were among those causing
whites to move out. [http://www.paloaltohistory.org/discrimination-in-palo-
alto.p...](http://www.paloaltohistory.org/discrimination-in-palo-alto.php).

~~~
kampkrusty
Yeah, this is what I was going to post in response.

It's not "race-baiting" to accurately acknowledge that white flight happened.
Demographic trends show white people moving back to the cities, leaving
minorities without a sure place to live or a rooted community to belong to,
usually because of the connection of class and mobility.

------
sirakov
Why don't they move? They live in an RV...

~~~
danharaj
That's basically asking "why don't they just throw away all their social
connections and uproot their lives more than they already are"? Where you live
isn't just the building you inhabit.

~~~
sirakov
It's that what all immigrants do? Uprooting for economic reasons is pretty
common, (immigration, children moving away from parents, etc). If anything
they (and we as a society) should be thankful that there is the opportunity to
move unrestricted in a large and diverse nation.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
You sound like you think it's easy.

~~~
rayiner
It's not easy (immigrant here), but it's better than being homeless!

~~~
johndubchak
Many are from the area and have lived in the area most of their lives. The
current situation has evolved over the last 20 or so years to the point where
it has become economically impossible to live because of the "outsiders", from
large tech companies, coming in and displacing them.

How willingly would you be to pick up and move in this situation?

~~~
sirakov
These "outsiders" are themselves fellow Americans or immigrants who uprooted
their lives in search of economic prosperity.

Maybe I am misunderstanding something but is seems foolish to me to sit in a
single location and complain that the right economic conditions for my success
are not at my current location and refuse to move (especially ironic since we
live in a capitalistic market economy, jobs are constantly changing and
resources moving around).

~~~
johndubchak
The article never mentioned they are complaining, IIRC. They are economically
displaced. Where would they go?

This is a large-scale socio-economic uprooting. Many of them lack marketable
job skills and the necessary finances to allow location portability.

We're experiencing a very large shift in financial wealth where the level of
poverty in the country is increasing at rates not seen since The New Deal and
that's the entire point: the Bay Area is an extreme example of this where
economic disparity is so extreme. Add to that the socially minded nature of
California and you have those people who "complain" of the lack of a social
safety net at the Federal level or even a lack of a fair balance of
distributing economic wealth fairly.

 _edit_ :

And our "capitalistic market economy" is anything but capitalistic, in fact it
is predatory upon the poor and economically disadvantaged. [1],[2],[3],[4]

[1] [http://reason.com/archives/2015/04/26/american-capitalism-
vs...](http://reason.com/archives/2015/04/26/american-capitalism-vs-the-free-
market)

[2] [http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-
echochambers-27074746](http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746)

[3] [http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/17/making-
money...](http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/17/making-money-off-
the-poor/?_r=0)

[4] [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/17/social-
immobility-c...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/17/social-immobility-
climbin_n_501788.html)

~~~
harryh
There is no meaningful data that backs up your assertion that the poverty rate
in the United States is significantly increasing. In fact, the rate has been
essentially flat for 50 years.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States#/...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States#/media/File:Number_in_Poverty_and_Poverty_Rate_1959_to_2011._United_States..PNG)

~~~
johndubchak
Well, I guess we can cite statistics all day to prove each other wrong, but
clearly in [1] from 1990 to 1992 it rose before a Clinton Presidency where it
fell considerably (not crediting President Clinton directly but he did produce
a large number of jobs during his presidency) before President Bush's
contractionary policies started a large increase in poverty again in 2000
through 2010 in our worst recession since the Great Depression.

It did, this has improved, however it's structurally temporary. The effects of
it are that it's also continually displacing larger numbers of the middle-
class as our trade policies are moving what remains of our higher paying
manufacturing base, what used to make up that lower to middle part of the
middle-class blue collar workers, to lower paying countries.

So, if you think, with your single graph that poverty isn't increasing you're
not looking at what's really happening structurally in the US economy and with
all of the relevant data around you.[2]

We have College tuition that is unaffordable and an aging, out of work,
unemployed, or underemployed workforce, with skills that have not kept up with
the rapid change in the shift of American jobs and poverty truly is on the
rise.

[1] [https://www.statista.com/statistics/200463/us-poverty-
rate-s...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/200463/us-poverty-rate-
since-1990/)

[2]
[https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/09/03/jobs-s03.html](https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/09/03/jobs-s03.html)
(Uncertain how credible this site is)

~~~
harryh
1) Sure there have been some small short term fluctuations but the long term
stability is pretty clear. And if you look back further than 50 years you'll
actually see a steep decline in poverty. You can also see steep declines in
poverty if you look internationally instead of just in the US.

2) You bring up a lot of other issues that are certainly real problems but
they are mostly claims about what might happen in the future. That makes them
speculation not fact. And sure, your speculation might end up being true and
some of those speculations could lead to an increase in the poverty rate[A].
But you should be careful to frame what you are saying as a prediction about
the future not a statement about something that has already happened in the
past.

A. Personally I think you're wrong. But that's speculation too!

------
aaron695
> More than one-third of schoolchildren are homeless in shadow of Silicon
> Valley

And how does that compare to other hand picked districts in the US?

What's the point? You mention SV and you get clickbait? Why are schoolchildren
in other parts of the US not worthy of a story?

~~~
digler999
"More than two thirds of homeless children in un-interesting cities don't have
articles written about them."

~~~
nickthemagicman
Haha more than 15/256 babies forced to live in duplexes and other multifamily
housing.

