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‘I lost everything:’ Homelessness surges in Silicon Valley

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Re: ‘I lost everything:’ Homelessness surges in Silicon Valley

#41

Post by danaliv »

ryaniscool wrote: post #15

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 no…

Leaving everything and, more importantly, everyone you know is not an easy choice to make. There are many, many reasons—human reasons that pure economics can't capture—to stay in a place. A sense of home. Social support. Simple attachment. Maybe even just stubbornness. Point is, this is about way more than money.

Re: ‘I lost everything:’ Homelessness surges in Silicon Valley

#42

Post by majormajor »

TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #16
drwicked wrote: post #2

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.

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 in…

Which cities are you thinking of? I bet you're leaving out a bunch of cheaper places that are also growing in the southern US/Texas region, among others.

Re: ‘I lost everything:’ Homelessness surges in Silicon Valley

#43

Post by STRiDEX »

ryaniscool wrote: post #32
s73ver_ wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But here's the thing: SV still needs 7-11 clerks, still needs fast food workers, still needs coffee baristas, and still needs all of those lower income positions. Automation is nowhere near eliminating all of those positions yet. So if all those people left, where would those businesses hire from?

If more people said "F * this, I don't want to live out of my car" and then drove away to someplace cheaper, business owners would have to raise wages to attract people to either stay or move to the area. What I'm interested is why has the equilibrium been established where people who aren't making enough to have a decent standard of living choose to stay there.

These articles always find insane numbers. People pack into apartments and houses before leaving. I lived in Santa Clara right near the Caltrain tracks, which is in no way a ghetto area. But 2-3 bedroom apartments frequently had 4 or more cars and ~2-4 adults and 1-2 kids. Our apartment was a 3 bedroom 2 bath and was 2500 and we had 3 of us and 3 cars. This was my first apartment after college with two friends, was cheap for me as a junior dev.

Re: ‘I lost everything:’ Homelessness surges in Silicon Valley

#44

Post by bdcravens »

s73ver_ wrote: post #27
ryaniscool wrote: post #15

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 no…

But here's the thing: SV still needs 7-11 clerks, still needs fast food workers, still needs coffee baristas, and still needs all of those lower income positions. Automation is nowhere near eliminating all of those positions yet. So if all those people left, where would those businesses hire from?

They'd pay more for what's left. The customers would in turn pay more. It'd be a crisis then apparently, but one the hiring class could subvert through higher wages across the board.

Re: ‘I lost everything:’ Homelessness surges in Silicon Valley

#45

Post by michaelbuckbee »

gt_ wrote: post #18
ryaniscool wrote: post #15

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 no…

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. F…

It's interesting you bring up healthcare. My wife's cousin is currently working as a travelling nurse. He get shipped off to some rural part of the country for 8 weeks to (mostly) work the over night shift at various rural ERs.

Apparently it's near impossible to fill the roles otherwise.

Re: ‘I lost everything:’ Homelessness surges in Silicon Valley

#46

Post by bdcravens »

gt_ wrote: post #18
ryaniscool wrote: post #15

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 no…

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. F…

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.

Re: ‘I lost everything:’ Homelessness surges in Silicon Valley

#47

Post by chaostheory »

ryaniscool wrote: post #15

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 no…

I can't cite the study or article, but I remember reading that even in times of war or famine; people just simply refuse to move. If my memory is good, the study mentioned that less than 15% of the population will move even in these terrible conditions.

The article was basically about the evolutionary fitness of immigrants who came to the US.

Re: ‘I lost everything:’ Homelessness surges in Silicon Valley

#48

Post by pm90 »

bdcravens wrote: post #46
gt_ wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. F…

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.

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?

Re: ‘I lost everything:’ Homelessness surges in Silicon Valley

#49

Post by arkades »

TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #22
santaclaus wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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.

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

Re: ‘I lost everything:’ Homelessness surges in Silicon Valley

#50

Post by chiph »

r00fus wrote: post #39
angmarsbane wrote: post #10

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.

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 p…

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

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