
Living in a parking lot in Santa Barbara - lisper
http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-lopez-safe-parking-20171224-story.html
======
aphextron
I'll be facing this soon as well, at least they've got RV's. After getting
back from my third open house for the week, with double digit atendees, I
think the bay area just isn't for me. A perfect credit score and a job making
double the median wage is not enough to land a 1 bedroom apartment apparently.
I'll probably end up sleeping on someones couch for a few months to finish my
work contract, and get out of this hellscape for somewhere people can actually
live.

~~~
downandout
I grew up in California. It's a beautiful place. But I fail to understand the
point of living or doing business there in 2017. High state taxes, high crime
rates (that will only get higher as more people are driven to homelessness),
impossible housing market, etc. I now live in Nevada. I can easily drive or
fly to California for vacation if I want, housing is relatively reasonable,
and there are no state taxes.

If you are doing consulting that can be done remotely, live in Nevada and fly
to California when you need. Flights are cheap and plentiful. If you're
running or starting a web-based business, then you can run that from pretty
much anywhere, and you'd be insane to do it in California with such a punitive
tax system. There's just no point to living in California these days.

~~~
rxhernandez
> high crime rates (that will only get higher as more people are driven to
> homelessness), impossible housing market, etc. I now live in Nevada

What on earth are you talking about? You live in the state that is in the top
5 for violent crime rates. California doesn't even break the top 15.

~~~
downandout
You have to look at crime rates in the specific area where you live, because
they are all over the place and sometimes vary from street to street.
Certainly you wouldn’t say that all California neighborhoods are equal in this
regard. The area I live in (in Nevada) is upscale and has a violent crime rate
more than 50% below the national average.

~~~
zeep
If you think about it that way, Chicago and Orlando are probably OK if you
choose the right area.

------
tempz
There is a linguistic problem here - extending the term 'middle class' to hide
prevailing poverty in the US.

You are _not_ middle class if:

\- you will lose home, car if you are out of job for 6-10 months;

\- you don't take 30 days vacation a year;

\- you cannot afford health services without going to debt;

\- you cannot send your kids to university;

\- your diet is mostly junk food because you can't afford fresh stuff.

If some of the above is true, you are poor.

~~~
gozur88
It's cheaper to buy fresh food than junk food. If you're buying junk food it's
because you don't have a place to cook or you're too lazy to cook.

~~~
pjmorris
My metric for food price is calories per penny. For example, the 760 calorie
slice of pizza for $1.99 at Costco works out to about 3.8 calories per penny,
while the 500 calorie Caesar salad for $3.99 works out to about 1.3 calories
per penny. In my worked example, the fresh food is more expensive than the
junk food from the point of view of 'How much money do I need to spend to keep
myself alive today?' Could you post some examples of the calories per penny of
the fresh food and junk food costs you are referring to?

~~~
gozur88
A pound of uncooked white rice is $0.69, and it has 1696 calories, which works
out to 24.6 calories per penny. That's about 19x better by your metric.

~~~
morganvachon
Yep, and it doesn't take much to turn that rice into a full meal. If you've
got a freezer and a microwave, fresh-frozen veggies are a good alternative to
always buying fresh veggies for the time constrained. It's a little more
expensive but you lose virtually none of the health benefits and gain ease of
preparation.

Throw some veggies in with the rice and some soy or teriyaki sauce, and you've
got a healthy meal that is compatible with most diets. If you're a meat eater,
you can cook some chicken breast to go with it; if not, some tofu for protein
will help make it more filling.

------
sologoub
LA really needs to work on providing restrooms. The RV convoys aren't really
that much of a problem themselves (some individuals are, but so can be those
with homes). Instead what they leave behind is a problem - feces, urine and
trash.

I'm sure most people would rather not do this on a sidewalk or under an
overpass, but if they have no other option it's hard to blame them. To add
insult to injury, city has proven uninterested in increasing sanitation work
to at least clean this up. Now LA and San Diego are facing diseases most
developed countries only read about.

I'm sure the city could organize a service to place mobile restrooms at a
reasonable cost. I'd be more than willing to pay extra sales tax for this and
it would generate jobs for companies that maintain them.

EDIT: It's worse than I thought - in skid row (granted this might be an
extreme) 9 toilets for roughly 1800 people!

Source: [http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-bathroom-
protest...](http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-bathroom-
protest-20171024-story.html)

~~~
nradov
San Diego has been suffering a hepatitis outbreak and city health workers have
had to sterilize downtown streets. It's hard to believe this is happening in
an affluent country.

[http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/health/sd-me-
hepati...](http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/health/sd-me-hepatitis-
update-20171031-story.html)

------
ChuckMcM
Its always sad to hear how people doing the right things getting caught up in
circumstances that puts them on the wrong side of the power curve with respect
to keeping their heads above water.

I looked into the safe parking initiatives a bit. I've noticed more folks
living in RVs around town in various parking lots or on quiet side streets. It
seems a bit like a no-brainer that if you have some extra land that isn't
doing anything you should be able to just let people park on it without the
fear of being hassled by the police or community members. But when you look at
it closely what you are talking about are re-inventing the trailer park. Try
to get a permit to build one of those in the bay area, not easy.

~~~
stickfigure
_But when you look at it closely what you are talking about are re-inventing
the trailer park._

I really feel it's a shame that this isn't more accepted. What is a trailer
park but cheap high-density housing? We have people living in tents under
bridges. Surely cheap temporary housing with proper sanitation would be a
major improvement.

------
d_burfoot
California has the highest rate of poverty in the US, when you factor in cost
of living:

[http://www.politifact.com/california/statements/2017/jan/20/...](http://www.politifact.com/california/statements/2017/jan/20/chad-
mayes/true-california-has-nations-highest-poverty-rate-w/)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_poverty...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_poverty_rate)

------
santaclaus
I've met tenured computer science professors at UC Santa Barbara who couldn't
afford to live in Santa Barbara. That place is nuts. Similar situation with
Stanford and Palo Alto.

~~~
SilasX
IIRC, planning commission members couldn't afford to live in Palo Alto.

~~~
beamatronic
The official poverty line is $250k household income in Palo Alto.

~~~
TheCoelacanth
I believe this is a misinterpretation of a news story about Palo Alto
considering subsidizing housing for households making under $250k. It is not
the poverty threshold, it is just a hypothetical cutoff for qualifying for
housing subsidization in one housing plan that Palo Alto considered.

~~~
sjg007
Which is still nuts... a quarter million a year and you qualify for subsidized
housing.. yet they won’t build condos.

~~~
s0rce
Makes sense if you let the locals control zoning decisions, if you have a
house in your nice quaint suburb and are extremely selfish you probably would
try to block condo developments.

------
peterburkimsher
I was an exchange student at UCSB for 1 year. The US government caused me a
lot of visa issues because I didn't have $25,000 cash, which meant that I
couldn't get a job and had to pay $900 in fees for a visa application that was
eventually denied.

Due to family issues, I also wasn't getting support from my parents that year.

AS CAB (the Associated Students Community Affairs Board) gave out free hot
dogs on Tuesday nights to people who attended a lecture. The Engineering
department had companies coming to give careers talks, where they gave out
free pizza. There were free concerts by Storke Tower on Thursday lunchtime
where free ice cream was provided. CAB also organised a breakfast for homeless
people (including the legendary Pirate) in the park on Wednesday mornings.
KGCC is a Korean Christian group that has food at every event. The ISA
International Student Association has cookies on Friday afternoon every week,
and ISI (International Students Inc, a Christian group) has a proper meal once
a month.

Two other people (one from Europe, one from Asia) were attending all these
activities, so we soon became friends.

One of them heard about free pizza being given away at the store at Buchanan
when it's closing time. So we went down there, and sure enough, there was
food. Every day!

This went on for weeks. But one time, we came too late. All the pizza and
daily sandwiches, each wrapped in plastic, were already put inside a black
trash bag.

That was my introduction to dumpster diving, which continued for the rest of
that year.

The weird thing was that because my rent was pre-paid, I wasn't homeless -
just completely broke. Transport wasn't too much issue because hitchhiking up
and down the coast was quite easy.

I slept outside in LA during one of those travels, but after that, my dumpster
diving friend told me about CouchSurfing. I now host the weekly CouchSurfing
meetup, and have a guest staying today. So short-term accommodation was free
too.

Meeting people at the homeless breakfast made me realise how was to their
situation, though. There's nothing like praying "Give us today our daily
pizza" and "Thank you for this food", when God is really the only one taking
care of you.

America is a land of extremes. There are some incredibly wealthy people, but
there's also poverty right next door. I think that situation breeds crime. My
situation now is much more comfortable - I earn much less, but I feel totally
safe not locking my bike when I go into a convenience store.

~~~
s0rce
Your were a student at a major university and they didn't assist with your
immigration documents? Granted, I'm from Canada but when I was in grad school
I don't know anyone of the other international students who had visa issues
like that, although we didn't try to get other jobs beyond school, maybe that
is the issue.

~~~
peterburkimsher
The problem is that I'm too poor. A letter from my parents' bank guaranteeing
$25,000 wasn't enough - the USCIS required me to have that much money in my
bank account. When I was 19.

I'm now 28, and I've still never had that much money. America is only
interested in welcoming rich people.

------
lisper
Ten years ago I made an attempt to get a homeless person off the street and
made a movie about it:

[http://graceofgodmovie.com/](http://graceofgodmovie.com/)

My main subject had a masters degree in psychology.

~~~
base698
Reminds me of this:
[https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2012/11/hipsters_on_food_sta...](https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2012/11/hipsters_on_food_stamps_part_2.html)

> Why does her PhD make her more deserving that a welfare queen? Because to
> The Chronicle, the PhD has value. It doesn't. I'm not saying she isn't
> smart, I'm saying the PhD in no way communicates to me she knows medieval
> history better than any D&D player. She may know more, but how do I know? I
> don't even find "MD" particularly valid, but at least you can sue a doctor.

> But my reason for showing you her is to highlight the perverse logic of the
> university which will doom us all: since the only maniacs who would ever
> hire these PhDs are universities, then the solution to their unemployment is
> more money for universities:

------
currymj
i think reading about people suffering misfortunes like is naturally very
frightening. my instinct is to scramble for reasons why this is abnormal, or
the result of avoidable mistakes, or due to a unique situation that isn't
likely to be repeated. the just-world fallacy in action.

the fact is, there are lots of stories like this. maybe you're immune because
you live in a more reasonable place or your strong technical skills or
whatever. then again, 30 years ago being a paralegal was a good job and
working people could afford to live in places like Santa Barbara.

it's a fact that you could be next. we can't predict the future, there will
only be more and more upheavals and disruption in the economy, unless things
change drastically. employers and investors are working very, very hard all
the time to devalue and deskill engineering. maybe your RV will be self-
driving though.

------
brandonmenc
>Phil said people may wonder why vehicle dwellers like himself don't move in
with family. Well, good for those who are able, but easier said than done,
said Phil. His son is already sharing space because of the high cost of
housing.

Again, this just boggles my mind.

I understand there are people who are on bad terms with their family, but sans
that, I cannot imagine a situation where my 60+ year old parents living alone
in a van is in any way better than all of us sharing a studio apartment, even
if we were sleeping on the floor.

~~~
jstarfish
Dealing with your parents' alcoholism, drug abuse and/or mental illness for 18
years and being none too enthusiastic to continue to do so is one situation.

It gets worse when they start stealing, destroying property and procuring
drugs, and you find it's too late to get rid of them thanks to
eviction/tenancy laws.

Not everybody's families are Rockwell portraits.

~~~
brandonmenc
I addressed those cases in my comment, but I'm specifically talking about
stubborn boomers grasping on to shreds of independence and wanderlust when
they don't have to.

It seems a significant number of the people featured in these articles fall
into that category.

------
kenning
This is a sad article with unfortunate subjects. However I'm not convinced
that the movement of people from apartments to vehicles is always a "sort of
homelessness." I personally know people who are planning to move into a van to
work remote, and there's definitely no shortage of blogs and instagrams from
those people. Many of them are doing it to save money, but could live in a
home if they chose to.

The real issue, as always, is the absurdly inflated real estate market.

~~~
jlg23
> I personally know people who are planning to move into a van to work remote,
> and there's definitely no shortage of blogs and instagrams from those
> people.

This is a very small minority. Even 10 years ago this was a hot topic in the
communities concerned. I lived in Venice Beach at that time: People being
force out of their homes into their cars or RVs, police harassing them and
finally even suicides were a daily topic within the local community.

------
davidw
Always worth mentioning on these threads:
[http://www.sfyimby.org/](http://www.sfyimby.org/) \- these people are doing
real work and getting stuff done. In San Francisco, Sonja Trauss is running
for supervisor: [http://www.sonja2018.org/](http://www.sonja2018.org/) \- well
worth a donation if you care about housing in that area.

------
edward
If you're interested in this topic I recommend you read Nomadland by Jessica
Bruder.

~~~
drdrey
Also: [https://www.topic.com/life-inside-the-rvs-of-silicon-
valley](https://www.topic.com/life-inside-the-rvs-of-silicon-valley)

------
domenukk
Reminds me of the few months I lived in Santa Barbara, it took over two weeks
to find an overpriced room, during that time we also slept in the car close to
the beach... It's fun in the beginning then it gets really tough.

------
cletus
I can’t help but think of _Snow Crash_ where Hiro Protagonist (and many
others) lived in the U-Store-It former storage facility.

This is the the real cost of allowing (particularly foreign) capital to be
parked in real estate in the developed world. In NYC for example most new
developments are ultra-luxury not because building affordable apartments is
uneconomic, it’s just that the ultra-luxury end is way more profitable.

But sure let’s just pass a massive tax cut for the wealthy instead at a time
when corporations are making record profits.

~~~
grandmczeb
> This is the the real cost of allowing (particularly foreign) capital to be
> parked in real estate in the developed world.

It's amazing to me that people don't recognize this as xenophobia when other
forms ("Mexicans are taking our jobs!", "Migrants don't have the same
values!") are so readily called out.

High housing prices are a self inflicted problem. When you mix supply
restrictions with tax breaks explicitly designed to keep people from moving,
you end up pricing people out. Not surprising.

~~~
perl4ever
When reading an article about New Zealand restricting foreign real estate
investment, I found their reasoning compelling. Housing can be used to house
people, or for speculation, like Bitcoin or gold. If you believe that
providing shelter takes strict priority for the limited housing stock then it
is moral and necessary to restrict the demand from investors.

Quantifying the scale of the problem is another issue, but I certainly think
that if people are buying houses for purposes other than living in, allowing
that _is_ the, or a, "self-inflicted problem".

If someone wants to invest and grow the supply of something, they should be
welcome, but bidding up a resource that cannot be increased is not something
people have to accept merely because of some misguided slogans or epithets.

~~~
Feniks
New Zealand also gave out passports for people who "invested" in the country.
California does something alike, giving US citizenship to anyone born in the
country.

~~~
azemetre
US Citizenship by birth is a right granted by the US Constitution and has very
little to do with the State of California.

------
TheAdamAndChe
I've written recently on this site about my difficulty in finding a job as a
recent college grad, and was bombarded with comments suggesting I relocate.
This is precisely why I won't. Income inequality means that those areas are
incredibly risky to move to without a nice financial cushion, and with a child
on the way, I'm not going to make that risk.

What can be done about regional inequality? Because such economic trends will
do nothing but continue to destabilize our country in the future.

Edit: To those downvoting me, can you please explain? I don't understand.

~~~
cletus
Serious question: why are you having children in such a financially precarious
situation when it’s only going to increase your living costs?

EDIT: by “financially precarious” I mean that above you said you were a new
grad having difficulty finding work. I assume it is your intent to work after
the baby is born (rather than being the primary caregiver) or it wouldn’t
matter so much about finding work.

If your wife returns to work and you work you’ll need to pay for care and/or
rely on family support. If she doesn’t return to work and she’s the one with
steady employment then that’s a problem (financially).

Hence my question.

~~~
TheAdamAndChe
Assuming I'm in a "financially precarious situation" is a bit presumptuous. My
wife is an employed college grad, and we have much more saved than the average
American. We have health insurance, and have already completely paid off the
medical bills for her birth. We are fine.

It's still too risky and difficult for us to relocate, though. Our family all
lives nearby, so we have a support structure here. My wife has an established
career in a low cost of living area. Housing is incredibly cheap. We mesh with
the culture here. When I get a job, we'll be able to buy a house pretty
easily. It's just tough for me to get an IT job, because most low level
positions have been outsourced in my area.

~~~
istorical
The circumstances of your area are so individual that without specifying a
specific city or town you're pretty much not going to get any useful advice.

And generalizing the Bay Area to all other higher salary + higher CoL places
is also going to yield no useful insight. Or in other words - your parent
comment about how articles like this are why you don't consider relocating
neglects the fact that there are likely middle ground locations where you
could be paid a higher wage while still paying a lower rent.

One simply can't extrapolate that much when looking at CoL or salary.

------
etr-strike
Keep doing what you’re doing central banks! Your policies of persistent
inflation have robbed us of our ability to save our wealth and accurately plan
for the future. You’ve decided that devaluing our wages 2% per year is in our
best interest meaning we must perpetually fight with our employers to keep our
wages we fought for the previous year. Your policies of QE have driven asset
prices so high we have no hope of ever owning them without becoming a debt
slave. Congratulations.

~~~
pjc50
This is a very weird view on inflation, given how hard central banks have
fought to bring it down to manageable levels.

~~~
etr-strike
They’ve been fighting deflation, not inflation. Asset prices need to correct
and they refuse to let them. There’s a reason young people are buying so few
homes.

------
paulus_magnus2
You have no business being in #1 cities if you don't have monetary capital to
go along your skills.

In London home prices (average) increases every year by more than average
salary. If you've not bought in, you're being better off somewhere else. No
point in earning $200k (gross) if $50k (net) is hoovered up by someone in
rent.

~~~
pjc50
Land of opportunity, eh? I bet there are plenty of people arguing that if you
ever want to make decent money you _have_ to be in the #1 cities.

~~~
sbuttgereit
Yeah, doesn't mean they're correct in taking that position.

I hear a lot of people talking in raw dollars about what they make, or what
someone else makes, or what differences are in what people make etc. and the
arguments miss a lot of important context and the important motivators.

Most important is not what you make, but are you producing enough to be happy?
And more important to that question is what purchasing power do you have on
any given salary/location. If you make 6 figures, which I'm pretty sure still
today is, on a U.S. national level, still making decent money... but can't
afford even to rent your own apartment... then so what? If your low six figure
income gives you a lesser standard of living in a #1 city than a mediocre five
figure income in a lower tier city... to me the lower income city is more
appealing.

What a #1 city can do for you is give you a much higher chance of a very, very
good income: those #1 cities are where the movers and shakers and related
money are.... but the number of people that will ultimately reap those
benefits are small and the competition is very stiff because of the point
you've made. I'd also wager that if you aren't already very clearly/obviously
on the path to a mover and shaker role by the time you're getting out of
college (because of who is in your sphere of solid relationships or what
you've already accomplished, or both) you're very unlikely to ever get there
even if you go to a #1 city. Or as they taught me in music school... if you
ain't made it by thirty, you ain't gonna.

Me, I'd take the lesser city and work towards being the big fish in a little
pond. I've done this with choice of companies to work for over my career and
probably have done well because of it; more varied and interesting work for me
individually, as well as more influence over what actually gets done... and
not bad pay by any means. Just not prestigious. You still have to have
something to offer even then, though, but the competition is much less stiff
and so the odds for achieving happiness, the real goal vs. money, can be much
better.

------
flembat
A good definition for middle class; is that you make a significant income from
your capital investments. In that case it doesn't matter if you stop working
for a few months; your stocks and shares still pay dividends and your tenants
still pay you rent; your capital still keeps on working for you. A good clue
is this: if your money all comes from working for someone else; and it all
stops when you stop working; then you are working class. Like most people in
the world.

~~~
BlanketApple
I don't think that's anyone's typical definition of the middle class. It
usually refers to work autonomy and relying on expertise to sustain yourself
(as opposed to menial labor).

Merely having liquid capital to begin with (i.e. not tied up in your primary
residence or retirement vehicles) almost certainly puts you on the higher end
of the middle class.

I don't think re-defining "middle class" to mean the top 10% (or less) of
earners is helpful.

