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$700 a Month for a Bed-Sized “Pod” in Downtown SF? Techies Are Renting Them

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Re: $700 a Month for a Bed-Sized “Pod” in Downtown SF? Techies Are Renting Them

#121

Post by wahnfrieden »

HarryHirsch wrote: post #9
CamperBob2 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't sound like there is any security. He mentions a privacy curtain.

The half-homeless protagonist of the Treasure of the Sierra Madre had at least a cage where he could lock his suitcase in. 2020's San Francisco is objectively worse than 1920's Tampico.

In Tokyo you can lock your luggage still in various places. And you can get a cheaper and higher standard cubicle type of room superior to these beds, with more valuable free or cheap amenities. I believe there’s a “nomad visa” in the works as well

Re: $700 a Month for a Bed-Sized “Pod” in Downtown SF? Techies Are Renting Them

#122

Post by seanmcdirmid »

xkekjrktllss wrote: post #58
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> More than a step, this oversteps the mark by quite a bit. A human being shouldn't have to live in a space that small. I can't imagine it not screwing up anyone's mental health when just looking at a picture of it is giving me an anxiety attack. It works well in Tokyo. These are common housing for kids who might only have part time jobs at convenience stores.

> It works well in Tokyo. These are common housing for kids who might only have part time jobs at convenience stores. By this logic, homeless encampments under freeway underpasses work well in the US. They are common for people who can't afford anything else so why fix what's not broken?

Actually housing, even if small, works better than homeless encampments. Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.

Re: $700 a Month for a Bed-Sized “Pod” in Downtown SF? Techies Are Renting Them

#123

Post by friend_and_foe »

tomohelix wrote: post #90
gamepsys wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm honestly confused about which part specifically you find unacceptable. Do you think it should be illegal to sell housing smaller than a certain minimum size? Do you think the price is too high? Do you think the location is awful?

Someone working full time should at least be compensated enough to have a proper living condition. A box is not a proper living condition. For a minimum wage worker, $700/month is basically at the limit of what they can afford for rent. And yet this is all they can get? And people are cheering for it?

You skipped the core of the question though. Define "proper living situation." There was a time when travelers would sleep in a big bed piled on with other people in the back of a tavern, without giving it a second thought. Not too long ago whole nations of people native to north america lived in tents made of animal skin from cradle to grave, and were perfectly satisfied.

Someone has a backpack full of belongings and that's all they need, many of these people don't even need a kitchen because they never cook. They're social, they want their days spent in shared spaces. How is this worse than a hostel?

I think the idea of "proper living condition" is as varied as the number of people you ask. I wouldn't live in one of these shared spaces, but I do live an equally unorthodox lifestyle and my housing situation would be considered inadequate by many, and I love it. I can understand why someone would want the minimum private space to sleep and a shared space bustling with activity and full of like minded people. As long as people have sanitation and aren't sharing diseases and bedbugs and what not I don't see a problem with any mode of living and sheltering, and that's what it really is all about, shelter.

Re: $700 a Month for a Bed-Sized “Pod” in Downtown SF? Techies Are Renting Them

#124

Post by friend_and_foe »

paulryanrogers wrote: post #72
crhulls wrote: post #64

Maybe I’ll sound like the old out of touch rich guy (I’m 40 and won the startup lottery), but isn’t it great there is a way for people who are broke but have hustle to get their chance? When I was an intern at Goldman Sachs me and my roommate rented an apartment in the Tenderloin for $600 a month. I slept in the closet. We stayed at the office 24/7 and focused on work. My former roommate is now a GP at a major growth…

We can still distain worsening living conditions. These folks are paying more for less space than a closet. And starting up in an era of more entrenched incumbents with higher interest rates. So looks like worsening odds for more expensive lottery tickets, at least from the outside looking in.

This isn't worsening living conditions though.

50 years ago, in most places in the US, people shit into pits in the ground covered by a shed with a crescent carved into the door. They had lots of land, and they lived in drafty wooden shacks with, at best, a wood stove to keep them warm. 100 years ago in cities like new York most new immigrants lived in rickety stick buildings and took a shit in shared privies. The fact that it is considered the norm today for every individual to have their own toilet and closet full of clothes is a borderline miracle. A sanitary bed to sleep in, air conditioned, and a living area, that's not good enough for a single person because the bunk isn't queen sized and the living area is shared? I'm not convinced that this is some travesty.

Re: $700 a Month for a Bed-Sized “Pod” in Downtown SF? Techies Are Renting Them

#125

Post by freitzkriesler2 »

tomohelix wrote: post #22

Looking through this thread, it is surprising that there are actually people who consider this "acceptable". Like it is not something out of a dystopian hellscape. Amazing how much a person can be conditioned into accepting a terrible situation. And no, there are ways to fix this, there is just no will to do so, partly because of the people who see nothing wrong with it.

You are 100% correct. There's plenty of land in San Francisco for new builds and high density housing can also fix the issue.

Entrenched property owners and landlords have an incentive to not se see this fixed for a reason and it will be San Francisco's downfall.

Re: $700 a Month for a Bed-Sized “Pod” in Downtown SF? Techies Are Renting Them

#126

Post by HDThoreaun »

kranner wrote: post #24
DoreenMichele wrote: post #7

Not ideal, but a step in the right direction. We used to have SROs -- Single Room Occupancy -- units for singles, childless couples, retirees. We've torn down about a million of them since WWII. We need to update the concept and bring it back in some fashion. If your life is online, you don't need that much space. You don't need rows of bookshelves when you can download kindle books. Founders of online businesses are…

More than a step, this oversteps the mark by quite a bit. A human being shouldn't have to live in a space that small. I can't imagine it not screwing up anyone's mental health when just looking at a picture of it is giving me an anxiety attack.

Shouldn't have to pya $5k in rent either but here we are. People should be allowed to make tradeoffs that they deem beneficial.

Re: $700 a Month for a Bed-Sized “Pod” in Downtown SF? Techies Are Renting Them

#127

Post by HDThoreaun »

tomohelix wrote: post #91
mixmastamyk wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scrappy people solving problems is the only way problems are gonna get solved. Also living in a dorm is not the hardship you seem to think it is. It’s better accommodations than 90% of people in history have ever lived. Watch Les Miserables for a reality check. Better to direct anger at the landed gentry who made this possible.

The apathy is what I am angry about. The sentiment that "this is fine" is what allowed this to happen. Laws and regulations need to be adjusted to enable better housing for more people. But they get blocked because those who hold the means don't see any problem with people below them living in squalid conditions like this. Make no mistake, I see this as a terrible living situation. Just because some war time refugees…

As far as I can see you are the apathetic one here. Complaining about NIMBYs won't actually solve the problem. We need realistic solutions, especially short term ones, and these rooms are absolutely part of that. When the alternative is homelessness these units are unequivocally good.

Re: $700 a Month for a Bed-Sized “Pod” in Downtown SF? Techies Are Renting Them

#128

Post by freitzkriesler2 »

kibwen wrote: post #51
trimethylpurine wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crustaceans are very distantly related to "bugs," and don't taste remotely similar. While, funny, this correlation is not accurate.

The correlation is very accurate. Lobsters were once considered so low-quality that they had to be force-fed to prisoners. Anyone complaining about "eating bugs" on principle is being foolish. If you don't like bugs for the taste, that's one thing (I've tried crickets before; they're unremarkable). But if anyone thinks that eating bugs is inherently any worse than eating, say, pigs, or octopuses, then that's simply i…

Cut the BS. Lobsters used to be ground up, shell and all. The people eating them didn't know how to cook them corredtly. It was a recent innovation (like 19th century) to keep them alive, boil them, deshell, and douse in butter which made them delicious.

Re: $700 a Month for a Bed-Sized “Pod” in Downtown SF? Techies Are Renting Them

#129

Post by fragmede »

freitzkriesler2 wrote: post #70
throwawaaarrgh wrote: post #31

I scorned the SF tech scene growing up, and now that I'm getting older, it seems foolish that I didn't live there for a few years and try to fleece some VCs to build a crappy product and exit with millions, or at least take one of those cushy $350K jobs and bank most of it for a decade. Could be retired at 40, instead I'll be saving for retirement until 68.

Run the numbers, those salary numbers aren't as good as you think once taxes and CoL are factored in. And for every big VC payout there are thousands with worthless monopoly paper options. You're probably farther ahead than you think.

CoL is the big one, along with lifestyle inflation. It depends on the numbers, is a smaller percent saved off a bigger paycheck more than a bigger percent off a smaller paycheck? Too many variables to ever really say, so the thing to optimize for is hygge.

Re: $700 a Month for a Bed-Sized “Pod” in Downtown SF? Techies Are Renting Them

#130

Post by fragmede »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #104
BurningFrog wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A human being shouldn't have to live in a space that small. The moral instinct that opposes renting out beds like these, but has no reaction to people sleeping on the street (because no one gets paid) is fascinating!

That's making a pretty big assumption about the poster and their views.

The assumption is that people have thoroughly thought out positions on things that aren't full of contradictions. Something like this challenges each of us to figure out how to square the circle on our world views with how things are and how things should be.
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