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Poor Kids of Silicon Valley

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Re: Poor Kids of Silicon Valley

#151

Post by mindfulgeek »

redthrowaway wrote: post #23

Maybe I'm missing the point here, but why is it reasonable to think that a single mother with a low income should be able to afford to live in San Mateo?

Its very possible the father of the child lives in SM, and she is obligated to live in a certain area. Lawyers cost money even if one person is not paying child support. W/o a good lawyer, people can lose things, like kids. Also, if she had a technical career, her best way to find income again is to stay in the area -- shorter commute, more opportunities, higher income.

Speaking as a once single mom with an extensive technical resume, finding a job can be next to impossible. Regardless, living in the city increases the chance.

Re: Poor Kids of Silicon Valley

#152

Post by bequanna »

benten10 wrote: post #73
Domenic_S wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> some people feel VERY STRONGLY emotionally about where they live Those feelings are a luxury. Taxpayers should not be forced to bear the cost of someone's emotional attachments. I would prefer tax dollars be spent on relocation assistance + job placement to help get people on a sustainable path.

I can also understand that. Now these people, not making a lot of money. They at least had a social support system, happy with friends families etc. They had a place they could call their own, and the pride that comes with it. You've taken their support system out. In short, it is cheaper to build them houses and put them there, than to put them in prisons. Whether people get happy in places they like, or they get pi…

> In short, it is cheaper to build them houses and put them there, than to put them in prisons. Whether people get happy in places they like, or they get pissed at the system and live in prison, it's your tax dollars either way.

This solution makes me really uncomfortable.

You're completely disregarding the individual and saying that we are responsible for creating an environment for them and ultimately, we are responsible for their behavior.

These are independent, adult people who are perfectly capable of making their own decisions, good or bad, and living with the consequences of those decisions.

It shouldn't be the public's responsibility to remove them from neighborhoods or 'build them houses and put them there' as you said.

If low income people want to live in one of the most expensive areas in the world, they can. But they shouldn't expect to live well.

Re: Poor Kids of Silicon Valley

#153

Post by whybroke »

nsnick wrote: post #124
whybroke wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, we need to ask is Manhattan affordable? Are Manhattan prices dropping? Did they ever? A 10%-20% price difference is irrelevant and will just disappear in just a few years anyway.

The price difference will increase if San Francisco continues to not build enough housing to meet demand.

The price will increase no mater what you do so long as you rely on an uncontrolled free market in real-estate.

At some point prices will make employing people there impracticable due to wages and commercial rental. In the current system, that is the price point the market will reach no mater how many units are built.

Re: Poor Kids of Silicon Valley

#154

Post by nsnick »

pron wrote: post #149
mgraczyk wrote: post #20

This may not be the most popular thing to say, but ... Just move? If you are the head of a large household living in an area where the cost of living is too high to support your dependents, you would do a whole lot of good for them and yourself by starting new in some other part of the country. At the very least it would be wise to relocate across the Bay. I realize that people have families, social networks, and sma…

Disregarding the question of the cost/possibility of moving, do we as a society want communities to be completely segregated based on income? Do we want poor kids to grow up without role models and good education opportunities? Do we want rich kids to grow up believing they somehow deserve all this, completely detached from the rest of society and the problems they face? The forces of the market are not the forces of…

This is called social engineering.

Re: Poor Kids of Silicon Valley

#155

Post by ccvannorman »

mgraczyk wrote: post #20

This may not be the most popular thing to say, but ... Just move? If you are the head of a large household living in an area where the cost of living is too high to support your dependents, you would do a whole lot of good for them and yourself by starting new in some other part of the country. At the very least it would be wise to relocate across the Bay. I realize that people have families, social networks, and sma…

"Just Move?" I'd rather live out of my car (and have done so..briefly.)

Together with my cofounders over two years we have built an amazing company and product (and we still have a ways to go). This would not be possible outside of Silicon Valley, and our trajectory would look much different (worse) if we lived in, say, Montana.

Re: Poor Kids of Silicon Valley

#156

Post by slipjack »

redthrowaway wrote: post #23

Maybe I'm missing the point here, but why is it reasonable to think that a single mother with a low income should be able to afford to live in San Mateo?

A) We don't know she's single, only that she's living alone. Those are two different things.

B) She says in the video that she makes good money.

C) Our communities do better with more income/etc diversity (http://www.urban.org/publications/411955.html).

Re: Poor Kids of Silicon Valley

#157

Post by kazagistar »

larrys wrote: post #118
unreal37 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the most shocking things I saw in the Philippines was exactly this. A mother living and working in a city as a nanny/maid, while her husband and children lived "back home" fairly far away. She saw them only a couple of times per year. That's some sacrifice she's making to put food on her family's table!

You also find that happens on certain cruise lines. A family works on a ship and send the money back home. I am guessing that some people think that there is so much money sloshing around the Valley that taxes should be higher to take care of those in need. The potential problem there is that you simply encourage more people to stay or actually even more people to move to the area to take advantage of that benefit.

That's probably why all the solutions mentioned by the article were nationwide and not local. If you improve quality of life everywhere, then you can avoid that problem.

Re: Poor Kids of Silicon Valley

#158

Post by chaqke »

cjensen wrote: post #60
coderzach wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My sentiment is not classist or elitist. You just think poor people should have to move out of their homes because rich people decided they want to live there. Got it. > The same argument applies to people of all socioeconomic background. Yeah, rich people get forced out of their homes because they can't afford them all the time. /s

I'm a 40+ Programmer making good money with a family of five. A year ago I thought long and hard about moving away. In the end, I decided to stay because we have family here. Here's my unsolicited advice: if you are less than 30 and don't plan on being a dual-income family, move away no matter how much income you have. It makes no financial sense to live in the Bay Area: your net worth will be entirely tied to your p…

Financial sense depends on how you price the benefits of living in this area vs other areas. For example, being near family is a a benefit...so is being near people who care about technology, if that matters to you. Consider being a programmer in several startups over 5 years vs being a programmer in a large bank.

There are many houses on the market that fail or pass "rent vs buy" calculators - savings can go into diverse sources instead of a property if you so choose.

I'm of the opinion that the overall package is "worth it" here, but each person should consider their own evaluation metrics - and yes, move if you don't think it's worth it.

Note: this is certainly off-topic from the troubles of extremely poor people in this area.

Re: Poor Kids of Silicon Valley

#159

Post by anigbrowl »

bobmagoo wrote: post #87
Domenic_S wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was sitting here trying to figure out how to say basically the same thing. Growing up my dad had a good job but we never were able to afford to live in $NEAREST_METRO_AREA, so we always lived a commute away -- sometimes a long commute away. Charity idea: provide moving & job placement help to get homeless or nearly homeless families into lower cost of living areas. I always have mixed feelings about stories like th…

Being a parent I have tons of empathy for how hard life is for single parents. That said, I really lost a lot of sympathy for the woman in the garage though, kids are hugely expensive (about a quarter million dollars to raise them to 18) and I just can't understand how she thought having a second kid would improve her situation. Obviously it could have been an accident or similar, but damn, maybe now isn't the right…

Living in a garage while trying to look after an infant is likely to be a big drain on cognitive resources. It's easy for you and me to sit here and say what a bad idea this is - obviously we all enjoy enough economic freedom to sit here chit-chatting about economic policy for a few minutes in the middle of the daytime. When you don't have existential anxieties crowding in on you, such things seem so simple and obvious.

It would be a very different calculus if any of us were in that woman's situation. Maybe she made a bad decision. Maybe someone told her she'd be much more likely to get public assistance with two children than one, and she's ashamed to admit it. Maybe she was coerced into sex in exchange for money or because her personal safety was threatened. I very much doubt that she just decided it was a Friday, and a good time to get her sexy on.

Re: Poor Kids of Silicon Valley

#160

Post by nerfhammer »

mlmonkey wrote: post #16
maerF0x0 wrote: post #10

It skips some important points. The cost of living is high due to zoning laws and a lack of building. Subsidizing families' rent will just make existing landlords richer. It would just drive rents up further. What is needed to get fewer people bidding on the same unit. If landlords are finding <1 suitable tenants per vacancy then suddenly it becomes a renter's market.

On top of more housing, we need better public transit. Start with running Caltrain every 10 minutes. Change local transit so that it becomes a feeder to/from Caltrain, BART, etc. And make it cheaper.

They are planning on electrifying caltrain which makes running a larger number of smaller trains more feasible

They're also planning on extending caltrain to downtown and connect with BART there

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