
Hotel 22: The Dark Side of Silicon Valley - ghosh
http://www.businessinsider.com/hotel-22-the-dark-side-of-silicon-valley-2014-11?IR=T
======
anon4000
I don't think it is fair to contrast every problems in the Bay Area against
the backdrop of the tech industry. I do concede that population growth and
housing is a direct result of the tech boom. However, to say every socio-
economic problem existed in this area is a result of the tech industry is
dubious.

Homelessness is a problem with or without the tech backdrop.

~~~
lpsz
I just wish the media didn't make this an "us" vs. "them" situation. This
approach is so destructive: it improves the situation for nobody but only
fuels class hate.

I remember reading a very long, well-researched, and balanced post from
TechCrunch [1] about the housing shortage in SF. Media: more posts like that,
please. Help identify underlying issues, flawed policies, or missed
opportunities, instead of simply blaming the engineers.

[1] [http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/sf-
housing/](http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/sf-housing/)

~~~
mc32
It's really ridiculous to say the tech industry is creating more of a problem
than it does in helping the population. Before the tech explosion, let's say
1989, San Jose, and in particular, San Francisco, were dumps. The sort of
looked like Fresno does today. Downtown San Jose was not a place most people
from San Jose would ever venture to. Market St in San Francisco was scary.
Maybe people think Fresno, as it is today, is what we'd like the SF bay area
to look like. I prefer that it not look like that.

Yes, gentrification does have some impact on people on the periphery, and we
can't discount that, but on average, the population as a whole is better off.
Back in the early '90s, SF's real estate was in a depression. RE agents were
moving out, due to the RE market depression. What we have now needs
addressing, but it's more of a governmental intervention which is necessary.
Intervention to address the housing stock shortage.

We need an organization like ABAG to have some executive power. Someone who
can say, these will be green areas, these areas we can build up, and we need
to bring mass transit here. We need regional governmental integration. Piece-
meal works too slowly to adapt to the changes brought on by economic
development.

It's because the SF bay area is such an economic engine that we have so many
people come here and find jobs they cannot find in their home states or
counties. If we were in stagnation like Fresno/Bakersfield, we'd have people
fleeing trying to find the economic magnet.

~~~
timr
_" Before the tech explosion, let's say 1989, San Jose, and in particular, San
Francisco, were dumps. The sort of looked like Fresno does today."_

Oh, come on. At least in SF, that's obvious exaggeration: San Francisco had
been the west-coast center of the financial industry since before the 1980s,
and most of what you see on Market street was built decades (if not a century)
earlier. It looked _nothing like_ Fresno.

If you're referring to the economic status of the people living at mid-Market,
it's equally wrong to use it as an example where "tech" is making things
better: The Tenderloin was a blue-collar neighborhood before the war. It
gradually descended into property as the rest of the city gentrified around
it, leaving few places for working-class people to go. Gentrification
absolutely made things _worse_ in the Tenderloin.

Mid-Market's decline came as part of the larger Tenderloin decline, but also
as the result of BART construction, which killed business on the road in the
60s. SOMA was light industrial in the 1960s and 1970s, but by the late 1980s,
this area was beginning to gentrify as well. For example, entire blocks of SRO
housing were eliminated during the 1980s to build Moscone Center.

About the only thing you can say regarding the "tech industry" is that it's
the latest gentrifying wave of many, all of which have undoubtedly made things
nicer for rich people, and worse for poor people. It's therefore completely
unsurprising that someone in the tech industry would believe that
gentrification makes things "better", but it doesn't reflect a lot of empathy.

~~~
avn2109
>> "...descended into property..."

Do you mean "into poverty..."? Genuine question, not being snarky.

~~~
timr
Yeah. I must have made a typo, and got auto-corrected to "property"...or it
was a Freudian slip!

------
habosa
I recently moved to San Francisco for a software engineering position. So I am
clearly "part of the problem" more than I am "part of the solution". I lived
in Philadelphia previously and the homelessness in San Francisco has been
absolutely shocking to me. I don't live in a great area (near 6th street) so I
really see some of the least fortunate people in the city.

If I had real problem-solving money (think Bill Gates) I'd go for homelessness
first. I think that as a nation we have a fundamental duty to make sure that
everyone gets basic comforts like shelter, heat, food, and water. I hate that
I am paid a high salary to flip bits on a computer while there are people a
block from my house sleeping on the sidewalk in the rain.

That said, I don't really understand why this all has to be portrayed as a
phenomenon caused by the influx of tech workers into SF and the Bay Area. Tens
of thousands of people move in and get jobs paying $80-200k. They all pay very
high taxes. Why can't the local government take that revenue and help those
who need it? Why can't the expanded tax base be part of the solution for the
problem? It seems crazy to me that it's a "problem" that so many people are
moving to one area for high paying jobs. That sounds like high economic
production and many cities would love to have that "problem".

As an individual I am horrified by my inability to help the homeless while
people like me are portrayed as villains in the media. I wish there was
something I can do. I donate to youth services and homelessness-centered
charities but I know that's not going to fix things (it never has). I don't
see anything that can be done but the local government stepping up and making
serious changes that will stabilize the housing market and help those who are
already on the streets get into a better situation. I'm not an expert on the
topic so I don't have specific suggestions here.

That was a bit of a rant and I don't have much advice to offer. I just think
we are looking at this all in the wrong way. There is now a lot of money in
the area and huge economic growth. Let's use this to improve the lives of
everyone, not just people like me who learned JavaScript at the right time.

~~~
patio11
It makes much more sense if you read this story as a salvo in a class war not
between homeless and billionaires but between two different groups in the
Valley middle class. In this reading, the homeless are a convenient prop to
demonstrate why an engineer who wants to rent an apartment is doing something
morally evil, to whit, taking an apartment that One Of Us could rent.

------
varelse
Lost me at "Where once a robust middle-class thrived, there exists only the
super-rich and the extreme poor."

Yes, that's exactly what it's like here. Either you live in a 10,000 SF+
megamansion or you're on the street. Hyperbole much?

------
joeguilmette
San Francisco's homeless problem has little to do with the tech industry.

1) Are we shocked that a temperate city that offers a wealth of social
programs for the homeless sees an influx of homeless from elsewhere in the
nation?

2) In the 1970s California closed many mental institutions and made it harder
for people to be admitted involuntarily. Guess where mentally ill Californians
end up?

3) The San Franciscan government has spent decades fighting development to
keep the city's beautiful, famous and in many cases historic housing intact.
And now we are shocked when housing prices skyrocket after we deny development
of new high density housing.

SF's housing and homeless debate is infuriating.

Affordable housing in a desirable neighborhood in one of the most expensive
cities on earth is not a basic human right.

~~~
1stranger
The article was about Santa Clara County, not SF.

~~~
MrDom
You're ruining this man's beautiful rant with logic and reason. :P

------
gasull
> _Where once a robust middle-class thrived, there exists only the super-rich
> and the extreme poor._

How is someone like me who lives in a tiny studio "super-rich"? Most of us in
Silicon Valley live in shared apartments or tiny studios. If we were super-
rich we would live at least in McMansions like you see everywhere else.

Yet another smear-SV article.

~~~
ChuckMcM
Agreed. I suggest to my friends that if nobody could afford to live here I
would expect less traffic on city streets.

Folks don't always appreciate how large an area we're talking about when we
talk about the 'bay area' we're talking about 3 large cities (San Francisco,
San Jose, and Oakland) and a bunch of smaller cities, in an area that is
larger than all of New York city (which is nominally 490 sq miles according to
Rand McNally).

And according to HUD New York has a higher per capita homeless population than
California does[1].

I'm sure BI gets good rage views though.

[1]
[http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/storyline/wp/2014/08/08/w...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/storyline/wp/2014/08/08/which-
states-have-the-highest-levels-of-homelessness/)

~~~
MrDom
> I suggest to my friends that if nobody could afford to live here I would
> expect less traffic on city streets.

Perversely, it's the exact opposite that's true. If nobody can afford to live
here, they commute in from farther and farther away. And they do. They do it
in Manhattan too.

------
Stratoscope
In the article, Chris Richardson of the homeless organization Downtown Streets
complains:

> We are trying to get tech billionaires involved in what we’re doing. They
> donate millions to good causes, but almost nothing to the local community
> they are helping destroy.

Here's a tip for anyone with a good idea or a worthy cause: If you want to
enlist the support of a group of people, making them out to be the villain is
unlikely to help you.

------
jqm
How much would it really cost to feed and house a person for a year? In real
terms I can't imagine it's that much. But I suppose it's been tried before
probably with little success. (Destroyed projects and bloated government
contracts come to mind.) It seems that something should absolutely be done but
I sure don't know what.

An elderly lady told me once that we are supposed to help the less fortunate,
and she tried her best, but it would make it a lot easier for her if some of
the less fortunate would help themselves a little. This comment has really
stuck with me and kind of illustrates what I see as the problem. However
certainly misfortune can happen to anyone, and we should be civilized enough
at this point to not allow this kind of suffering to occur in our society.
It's a problem that does need a real solution.

~~~
tomjen3
Food stamps are about 4 usd/person and some people have completed the
challenge to live only on food stamps, so it would presumably be easier to do
so in bulk.

Then you need a place to sleep, but that doesn't mean an appartment or room,
it could as easily be a disused shipping container with bunk beds. Lets assume
that we put 4 rows of bunkbeds into each 40 row shipping container (that
leaves space for a small closet next to the beds, assuming the beds are 4 feet
wide, with space at the other end to get in/out of the bed). I have no idea
what a used shipping container cost or what a bunk bed costs.

There is a huge variety in land cost, so lets just take the cheapest possible
option: not currently used government land. We can assume that we can get this
for free, since this will either be a government project or payed for entirely
by the government.

Heating costs can likely wise be minimized by putting the camp near some place
that is neither going to become very warm or very cold.

We are going to need toilets and baths, probably something like a toilet for
every 5 to 6 people and a shower for every 10 to 20. I have no idea what a
toilet costs, but a shipping container with a drain in the bottom and 30
shower heads would be largely dominated by the cost of the shipping container
and the cost of the water.

You will need somebody to cook the food and some place to cook it, but it
could easily be eaten in tents - these would be cheaper than the shipping
containers. The tents could also be used as a place to hang out when food is
not served and could provide a variety of improvement activities, such as
reading/storytelling. You will want to have a library attached which could be
made of, that is right, shipping containers and you may want to have a small
school or else a school bus (there is going to be kids there).

The cost of a shipping container (according to a handy, 11 steps wikihow guide
[http://www.wikihow.com/Buy-a-Used-Shipping-
Container](http://www.wikihow.com/Buy-a-Used-Shipping-Container)) runs from
1000 to 8000 usd, lets call it 4000, a quick google search suggest a bunk bed
runs a little over 200 usd, which would give us a capital cost of sleeping
areas of 1200 for the beds, say 1000 for the closets and 4000 for the
container for 12 people, i.e about 520 usd/person.

Lets assume the bathrooms, toilets and tents cost the same, so that is about
1000 usd.

We assumed the food was 4 usd/person/day, but that does not include
deoderants, tampoons, showgel, toothbrushes, etc. so lets make this 12
usd/day.

Adding everything up with have capital costs of a bit more than 1000
usd/person in the best case and 360 usd running cost/person/month.

That is strictly warehousing them, though for most I doubt it makes sense to
retrain them.

~~~
jqm
Ya, that's what it seems it should be...

But then you have to hire contractors to do all that. And managers to manage
them. And managers to manage the managers. And pensions for all the inspectors
and managers. Or the government could try to do it directly. Either way... the
real cost gets significant additions. Along with a higher probability of
failure.

You need security. Some of these people aren't safe for others to be with.
Liability. So you need insurance. And lawyers. Lots of lawyers so you don't
get sued as much when someone cuts themselves on a shipping container.

So you can probably 5-10x the real cost and still run into budget problems. So
people keep suffering. That's why I don't know what the answer is but I wish I
did.

~~~
tomjen3
I assumed, although I didn't state it, that we could deny people who were a
danger to others access. This also doesn't include medical care because these
people almost certainly already have it through other the government programs.

And yeah I didn't include managers or other employees salaries. We could save
much of that by requiring that the people there worked a few hours a week or
by running some traning program in the kitchen and get cheap labour that way.

I also assumed non-stupidty by the government as we were trying to find out
what it cost to house them, not what they could drive the price up to.

------
lucio
Stupid Question: It is this a business opportunity? How about a few parked
buses? I know this goes nowhere (like the hypothetical buses), but if somebody
starts renting parked-bus seats for $5 a night: is this a better situation
than the actual one? It is something "good" to be done?

~~~
efuquen
Not to discount intentions, but I cringed when I read "Is this a business
opportunity?" I feel it's a bit uncouth to say something like that in regards
to taking money from homeless people. Maybe an opportunity for a non-profit or
social services to do something, but a for-profit business? I hope not.

~~~
lucio
The bus line is now "taking money". When you're for-profit, the homeless it is
a paying customer and keeps his dignity. The hidden cost of non-profit or
social services is dignity.

------
ZanyProgrammer
I've been on many late night Hotel 22s as a passenger-its depressing to see
that in the midst of so much wealth, people have to resort to riding on a bus
all night. The homeless in Santa Clara County are much more invisible to the
average tech worker who lives there, much more so than SF.

------
lorddoig
Why are tents such a bad thing? If it comes down to a choice between waxing
lyrical about hopelessness or buying some tents in bulk then it really seems
like a no brainer. It's a band-aid for sure but it's better than this, no?

Also I see the minimum wage as harmful in this situation - you can tell
yourself and the world that an hours worth of human time is _always_ worth at
least x USD, but it will never make it true. Policymakers do not set minimum
wages with someone struggling to get off the streets in mind, but rather with
someone in an altogether much less dire situation, and in doing so they raise
the barrier too high. Hiring a homeless person for $5/hr would in many cases
bring great utility to both parties: outlawing such transactions seems absurd.

~~~
humanrebar
Your comment about tents is a bit much. There is a better point to be made
about innovating on lower cost housing situations (building and design codes
usually drive up cost). Can we make safe buildings with shared recreational
and common areas to cut down on square footage and lower rent? Can we save on
space and costs in the long run by improving noise insulation? Why couldn't
there be a WalMart (or whatever your preferred alternatives are) on the bottom
floors of a high rise apartment?

Though I fully agree about minimum wage laws. It's a big risk to hire someone
off the street if you can't even start her at a lower introductory wage that
ramps up aggressively with proven performance. Governments that mandate high
wages must logically assume responsibility for figuring out a way to make sure
_everyone_ can do something worth $12/hour (or whatever the wage is).
Alternately, an aggressive guaranteed income or earned income tax credit can
help with this sort of scenario. But it needs to be paired with a drop in the
minimum wage to work.

~~~
lorddoig
Of course tents are not a long term solution, but vagrancy has been a problem
for centuries and we still haven't solved it despite much chatter just like
this. My point is that assuming we can't do anything substantial/long-run
_now_ then surely tents are better than nothing while we take another 50 years
trying to figure this stuff out? They're functional, they're cheap, and
they're leagues better than sleeping behind a dumpster. Siting them might be a
headscratcher, and one I can't really comment on being several thousand miles
away from SF.

------
bayesianhorse
This may be a stupid question, but: If Silicon Valley is such a horrible place
to live, compared to some place else, why don't they move away?

Answers may include family ties or high moving costs, or the uncertainty of
finding a better living somewhere else. But I really don't know for sure.

~~~
nols
They can't afford to sleep under a roof and you wonder why they can't move?

~~~
akallio9000
If they're all that poor, they don't have many possessions. How about they get
off Hotel 22 at the far end and be homeless there? Or further, if that's
suffering from liberal dystopia too.

~~~
thephyber
I don't understand your comment as it appears a bad attempt at sarcasm but
falls very short of that aim. "He gets on the bus at midnight and rides the
same 35-mile journey between San Jose and Palo Alto, California, until
sunrise." If you are homeless (assuming without a job, as is not the case with
all homeless interviewed in this article), is there a big difference to you
between Palo Alto, CA and San Jose, CA? Each is equally unaffordable to pay
rent and probably equally easy to panhandle (if that's what you choose to do).

------
igetspam
This isn't new. The 22 bus line has always been the cheap motel for the
homeless and/or crazies of San Jose. When I was riding this bus line
regularly, in high school (a decade and a half ago), we used to hop on late
night just for the lulz. Most of the companies that are popular to blame for
things like this weren't even around when it started.

This article is crap.

------
ucacian
I have been planning to move to SV in December. But every time I read an
article like this, it makes me not want to live there.

Should I get a job in somewhere else like Boulder, CO? I'm a senior CS major
living in Iowa.

~~~
joeguilmette
Homelessness is only a problem in San Francisco itself, which is quite a ways
away from SV.

~~~
xiaoma
Not true. The largest homeless camp in the entire continental US is in San
Jose.

[http://www.businessinsider.com/the-jungle-largest-
homeless-c...](http://www.businessinsider.com/the-jungle-largest-homeless-
camp-in-us-2013-8)

~~~
joeguilmette
Well, could've fooled me. Born and raised in the US, can only remember ever
seeing homeless people in SF, Berkeley/Oaklandish...

------
thelock85
The pseudo-libertarian drivel is becoming too easy to predict for every
education/poverty/human welfare article posted to HN. Scroll to the bottom to
see non-defensive, compassionate comments...

~~~
alecco
What did you expect in a forum where a lot of people think they are a hero of
an Ayn Rand novel?

~~~
4ydx
Ahhh thanks for the laugh :)

------
marcusgarvey
>“What these techies don’t realise though is that we’re no different to them -
they’re just one misstep, one paycheck away from being us.”

This is what happens when you have a runaway cost of living.

------
npinguy
Real problem.

Terrible article.

> “What these techies don’t realise though is that we’re no different to them
> - they’re just one misstep, one paycheck away from being us.”

I don't presume to know Jimmy's life, and everyone goes through hard times.
However, unless it's your first job out of poverty, if you are one paycheck
away form being homeless, you are doing something considerably wrong with your
life.

More atrocious quotes: > “You see camps of people sleeping rough just two
miles from Sergey Brin’s (Google co-founder) house,” he says. “And the irony
is, not even his engineers get paid enough to live here."

Yes, the employees of large companies do not tend to live in the same
neighborhood as the CEO of those companies. And?

> “We are trying to get tech billionaires involved in what we’re doing. They
> donate millions to good causes, but almost nothing to the local community
> they are helping destroy."

We really can't accept these kinds of statements without pushback. Just how
are tech billionaires "destroying" communities? Is it their fault they have
come up with ideas that are worth millions and billions of dollars so they can
afford to pay a lot of money to the best and the brightest to work for them,
who then want to live in these neighborhoods? Blame the landlords who giddily
raise the rent and drive people out of their homes. Blame the Government for
not spending the billions of additional tax revenue they get from these
companies on better social programs. Blame the republicans for equating
"social programs" with "socialism" and therefore "communism" and therefore
"evil". Blaming the "techies" is moronic.

> "At their weekly meeting, the team leader makes an announcement to the
> some-100 guests gathered - Google is hiring. The company is holding a jobs
> fair in a few weeks’ time and they are looking for chefs, cooks and
> cleaners. Some groan, but most are keenly listening and a group stay behind
> after to sign up. In desperate times you cannot be too proud to “make a deal
> with the devil”, one guest says."

Oh, cry me a river.

~~~
fragmede
>> “What these techies don’t realise though is that we’re no different to them
- they’re just one misstep, one paycheck away from being us.”

> I don't presume to know Jimmy's life, and everyone goes through hard times.
> However, unless it's your first job out of poverty, if you are one paycheck
> away form being homeless, you are doing something considerably wrong with
> your life.

Privileged much? If you are _one_ paycheck away from being utterly destitute,
living on the streets and foraging in trash cans for food, then yeah, there's
a problem. The problem being a lack of social programs by your government.

"Techies" may be more than _one_ paycheck away from destitution, but unless
they've won the startup-IPO/acquisition lottery, they're not _that_ many more
paychecks from homeless, especially in the case of life-altering disease or
accident.

~~~
bjwbell
I quit my job 8 months ago and I'm still many many months away from homeless.
If you're frugal it's not difficult to save up a year's worth of living on the
money from a couple years of programming.

~~~
fragmede
100-paychecks from destitution is certainly better than one, but only by 99
paychecks.

------
bcantrill
It's an interesting angle on an important story -- and it therefore pains me
that much more that the reporter has made a dunderheaded mistake:

 _It was once known for its orchids..._

 _" Growing up here it was all ranches and orchids, I was a cowgirl..."_

Silicon Valley was known for its orchards, not its orchids. Hopefully they get
it corrected; it's an otherwise well-written story on an important issue.

