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Living in a parking lot in Santa Barbara

latimes.com

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Re: Living in a parking lot in Santa Barbara

#201

Post by zeep »

downandout wrote: post #175
rxhernandez wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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.

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

Re: Living in a parking lot in Santa Barbara

#202

Post by pjmorris »

gozur88 wrote: post #51
pjmorris wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pos…

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.

You have to factor in the time it takes to cook. Let's say you cook all the rice at once and it takes 20 minutes. At minimum wage of $7.25, that's $2.42 in addition to the 0.69 for the bag of rice, yielding 5.4 calories per penny, within the same order of magnitude as the prepared foods I gave as an example.

I acknowledge that a person's time isn't always tradable for wages, and that home cooking is generally cheaper and more satisfying.

Re: Living in a parking lot in Santa Barbara

#203

Post by QAPereo »

fuzzfactor wrote: post #200
QAPereo wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, if you’re a lab rat or a PhD student.

I believe the correct terms are ambitious or accomplished.

Ambitious. Sure, but accomplished? Oh if only hard work necessarily equates to that...

Re: Living in a parking lot in Santa Barbara

#204

Post by brandonmenc »

jstarfish wrote: post #192
brandonmenc wrote: post #155

>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 al…

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.

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.

Re: Living in a parking lot in Santa Barbara

#205

Post by TheCoelacanth »

sjg007 wrote: post #161
TheCoelacanth wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

You don't qualify for it. They considered it. They didn't actually enact that plan.

Re: Living in a parking lot in Santa Barbara

#206

Post by s0rce »

djsumdog wrote: post #147
s0rce wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here, moved to the East Bay 18 months ago, have a great 1bdrm apartment.

How much do you two make vs the cost of your rent? I suspect the person you're replying to may not have anywhere near the means you have.

Since you asked our rent (1brdm in-law in Piedmont) is about 22% of our combined take home net pay. However the OP says he makes double the median income, so he should be fine. I've seen nice (but small) 1bdrm apartments in good neighborhoods in Oakland for under 2k/month, you can find cheaper if you are willing to live in less desirable areas.

Re: Living in a parking lot in Santa Barbara

#207

Post by gozur88 »

chii wrote: post #136
gozur88 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Lee also notes in her study that, on closer inspection, food deserts don’t actually exist in the U.S., at least not as a national problem—on average, poor neighborhoods have more grocery stores than wealthier neighborhoods. http://www.slate.com/articles/life/food/2014/02/food_deserts...

It's more likely that unhealthy food is the one source of pleasure that a poor person can afford, and with all the troubles of their lives, they may find solice in eating the delicious junk. Healthy food either takes a bunch of effort, or don't taste very good (unless you couple it with some expensive condiments/spices).

Tasteful, healthy food doesn't take that much effort, but you do have to know a little bit about cooking.

Re: Living in a parking lot in Santa Barbara

#208

Post by fuzzfactor »

QAPereo wrote: post #203
fuzzfactor wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe the correct terms are ambitious or accomplished.

Ambitious. Sure, but accomplished? Oh if only hard work necessarily equates to that...

Not as good a scientist as possibe unless it is so.

That's why they call it a LABORatory . . .

Re: Living in a parking lot in Santa Barbara

#209

Post by jjeaff »

paulpauper wrote: post #80
jjeaff wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is, this money being parked from overseas isn't even benefitting the local economies. It just props up property values for a select few homeowners. The people buying these houses are just leaving them empty. There has been some private investigation of some of the homes being bought and built in BelAir right now. One home was found to be owned by a Nigerian politician through multiple layers of shell compan…

But who built the $80 million home? Such spending, as extravagant and wasteful as it may seem, is an exchange of capital for a product and creates jobs. Foreign investment is good for recipients of such investment, by spurring demand.

It creates fewer jobs, for a shorter period of time than you would think. You can only get so many people on a small property like that. And they still seem to get them done in less than a year.

Re: Living in a parking lot in Santa Barbara

#210

Post by gozur88 »

pjmorris wrote: post #202
gozur88 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You have to factor in the time it takes to cook. Let's say you cook all the rice at once and it takes 20 minutes. At minimum wage of $7.25, that's $2.42 in addition to the 0.69 for the bag of rice, yielding 5.4 calories per penny, within the same order of magnitude as the prepared foods I gave as an example. I acknowledge that a person's time isn't always tradable for wages, and that home cooking is generally cheaper…

I don't find the time argument very compelling. It takes just a minute or two to boil water, you throw in the rice, and simmer for another twenty. Sure, it takes twenty two minutes, but twenty of those are just waiting. Normally I start the rice and then prepare the rest of the meal while it's simmering. Maybe 20-30 minutes for the whole meal.

Time-wise fast food isn't as efficient as it would seem at first glance. If you go during a normal meal time (which you pretty much have to do if you have kids), between travel time and waiting at the register, it's going to end up taking as long as a home cooked meal.

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