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More Than One-Third of Schoolchildren Are Homeless In Shadow of Silicon Valley (theguardian.com)
Alastair Gee writes via The Guardian about Palo Alto's problem with homeless children. Palo Alto is one of the most expensive cities in the United States, yet "slightly more than one-third of students (1,147 children) are defined as homeless here, mostly sharing homes with other families because their parents cannot afford one of their own, and also living in RVs and shelters." From the report: The circumstances of the crisis are striking. Little more than a strip of asphalt separates East Palo Alto from tony Palo Alto, with its startups, venture capitalists, Craftsman homes and Whole Foods. East Palo Alto has traditionally been a center for African American and Latino communities. Its suburban houses are clustered on flat land by the bay, sometimes with no sidewalks and few trees, but residents say the town boasts a strong sense of cohesion. Yet as in the rest of Silicon Valley, the technology economy is drawing new inhabitants and businesses -- the Facebook headquarters is within Ravenswood's catchment area -- and contributing to dislocation as well as the tax base. "Now you have Caucasians moving back into the community, you have Facebookers and Googlers and Yahooers," said Pastor Paul Bains, a local leader. "That's what's driven the cost back up. Before, houses were rarely over $500,000. And now, can you find one under $750,000? You probably could, but it's a rare find." Several homeless families whose children attend local schools told the Guardian that they had considered moving to cheaper real estate markets, such as the agricultural Central Valley, but there were no jobs there. One man shares a single room with three children, in a house where three other families each have a room. Another woman lives with her partner and five children in a converted garage. Even teachers are not immune to such difficulties. Ten of the staff who work on early education programs -- one-third of the total -- commute two or more hours each way a day because they cannot find housing they can afford.
So they do have homes, even if they aren't necessarily the most comfortable ones. That's a big difference from not having any sort of a home at all, which is what homelessness really is.
I mean, where does this sort of they-have-homes-but-they're-"homeless" mindset stop?
What if a single family lives in a house, but there are only 4 bedrooms and there are 5 kids, with some of the kids sharing a room? Are the kids who have to share a room considered "bedroomless" under this strange definition of the term?
If a home only has 2 bathrooms, but more than 2 occupants, does that mean that whoever lives there is "bathroomless" because they have to share the 2 bathrooms?
"mostly sharing homes with other families because their parents cannot afford one of their own"
Those children aren't homeless.
If they really want to pump the numbers, they can define "homeless" to include kids living in apartments or sharing a bedroom.
That just means that their reporting is useless.
"sharing homes" doesn't mean "splitting rent", it means "crashing until you get thrown out because you can't pay rent." or "crashing until the landlord realizes there are 8 people living in a 2 bedroom apartment". You just happen to be such a pompous, entitled ass that you can't envision sharing homes as anything other than you and your buddies in college splitting rent. Go fuck yourself.
R moving into the whitehouse. So, as is tradition, 'homelessness' just became a much bigger problem.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
That's always the problem with these sorts of statistics. Whoever is crunching the numbers is doing so with an agenda and comes up with something that strains credulity. They're just going for shock value, not attempting to convey any useful information. Ultimately it detracts from the real problem. Housing throughout the bay area is, in fact, incredibly expensive. It strains the budgets of pretty much everyone who isn't bringing home six figures, and even 100k isn't enough to afford a nice place. To get even a small condo, you need a couple people making fairly high salaries. The situation in the bay area is not sustainable, but I fail to see how a shock headline claiming 1/3 of school children are living under bridges in cardboard boxes does anything to change that.
The wealth gap is to large and no matter how one sees it it is dangerous. I once lived in an area that was well off but bordered a ghetto. I warned people that between 12/15 and Christmas day they had best not be out and about. A certain pre Christmas rage would build up in the poor area and armed robberies and the like would jump up too much in that two week period. Simply shopping or sitting in a restaurant or bar, or even being tied up in traffic became an opportunity for being a crime victim. Sometimes some horrible racist incident would occur and people would fear riots. If it happened on a Monday or Tuesday one could predict that the troubles would break out on Friday or Saturday as pay checks would enable alcohol to be purchased and the weekend would be the time to riot. Certain things are predictable and when the rich are too rich and the poor are too poor violence tends to break out.
When I see what people other countries are doing to get away leaving California should be trivial. People are walking out of Syria with nothing more than what they own. If life in SV is that bad, leave.
If you know how to weld, swing a hammer or have any skilled trade training you can probably filter all across the US. Local shops are hiring high schoolers with training before they graduate.
I've never received a single dollar from the government. I just pay, pay, pay my taxes. Nothing ever changes.
Did you get paved roads? Judges in courthouses? Airports? Bridges? Fire department? An army, navy, marines, air force, coast guard?
A county hospital? Sewers? Clean water? And the EPA to keep it clean? National, state, and local parks? Etc., etc., etc.
I have I earn 50K a year and I can't buy a home. not when they start at $200k for a 900 sq ft condo plus hoa fees.
And that is a 30 year old home.
I suggest you look around. get out of rural america and watch how fast prices go up. if there were jobs there I could live out there but jobs are not located in rural america.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
It's not that the home is 30 years old, it's that he still can't afford it. Why don't you take your own advice, you ignorant prick?
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
There is a whole lot of stuff in between "$200k for a 900 sq ft condo plus hoa fees", and "rural america".
Maybe you should look around some more.
The poster is posting on a network originally developed with taxpayer money. He's just another whack job libertarian Freeman on the land type.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Or there are degrees of homelessnes, as there are degrees of joblessness. If you're an engineer with a PhD working part time as a janitor, you will be counted on U6 unemployment stats because you are taking a shit job outside of your career field.
If you have to sleep on your friends floor while your kids crowd onto the couch because your other choice is waiting in line at a shelter, you might consider your family to be home-less as well.
Close to 45% of US citizens do not pay federal or state income taxes.
About 40% of households do not pay income tax. But they do pay sales tax, excise tax (on gasoline, cigarettes, alcohol), social security taxes, medicare taxes, etc.
"I can easily escape a local government (the ones that provide most services) by moving." ... to a place with another local government that provides most services. That you contributed not a penny to. Typical Libertarian leech.
"Supermarket shelves well stocked? You still pay for roads." "Madoff stole your 401-K? Still pay for judges" "Android phone delivered on time? Still pay for airports."
" Escaping the federal government is nigh impossible."
Why would you want to escape it? Have some fun. Live it up. Utterly screw up your Business, and your Federal Tax records, so that you don't pay any Income Tax for the next 19 years, and make full use of the Bankruptcy Courts, not because you have to, but because they're there. Stiff your Employees and Business Partners, and screw their Wives... and Daughters... and if that is your preference, their Sons. Trump is the Libertarian Jesus, he can get away with anything, with no accountability for himself, and the American People, well, 19.3% of them, well, the _right_ 19.3% of them, now says that now you can too.
"...the question of whether governments should be in the business of robbing Peter to pay Paul..."
You fool. The Business of Government _is_ Business. All that you have to do is make sure that you're not Peter. Libertarians are always so paranoid about this. Their little... Peters.
It is in that you are without your own home, and are subject to being out on the street on a moments notice. Same line of reasoning as to counting you on unemployment statistics if you are working part time at Home Depot to get by, after being H1-B'd out of a well paying tech job.
An army, navy, marines, air force
How do I benefit from my government spending $600B on these?
How did I benefit from America's participation in the Iraq War?
Or the Vietnam War?
Would I benefit less if we only spent as much on weapons as the next 10 countries combined rather than the next 20?
Don't have a car?
I don't, but I still have stuff delivered, which comes along roads, and I still buy things in shops, which are stocked by vehicles driven on roads.
Don't have lawsuits?
Nope, but I still benefit in many ways from living in a society governed by the rule of law.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
20% of $650,000 is $130,000. If you have that much spare cash lying around, you don't count as poor by most metrics.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
All of which benefit the society you live in, whether you use them personally or not.
Just because they benefit everyone doesn't mean funding them with general tax revenue is the best way. Roads should be funded with gasoline excise taxes and registration fees, not general taxes. That way the people that use them directly pay directly, and the people that use them indirectly pay for them through the prices of the goods and services they use. Under our current system, people that use few infrastructure resources are subsidizing those that use more, and the latter group tend to be richer than the former.
Much of the judicial system could be privatized. Arbitration is much cheaper, and mediation is cheaper still. Both have higher satisfaction rates from both plaintiffs and defendants.
Many airports are privately owned and operated. Prior to 9/11, security was also privatized. The TSA more than doubled the cost, without measurably improving security.
I feel it is first important to establish I'm a Northern Californian liberal. While I'm from North of SF what's happening in Silicon Valley is effecting where I live and causing the same problems, albeit on a lesser scale. I also agree with many posters that the parent article is stupid in it's framing of people as homeless who are not.
With that said, I am so sick and tired of our Left wing leadership wanting to "perserve our communities". The scenarios described in the article arent acceptable even if they arent describing true homelessness as they are literally describing suburban ghettos. Working people suffer so property owners can enjoy some bygone fantasy of a community that now only serves the needs of the afluent. Silicon Valley should be all skyscrapers (thus increasing housing availability and reducing costs for potential home owners or renters) and it is only people who could care less about the working class that want to "perserve" an environment that is no longer sustainable without the oppression of those who sell them their food. With property values what they are erecting a 30 story building on any city block within 50 miles of Google or Apple headquarters would be massively profitable for the developer and if done in a widespread manner, would make housing far more affordable for all. It's only bullshit city planning that is standing in the way of solving the less afluents problems in these areas.
The Left failed to deliver for the Rust Belt and we got Trump. Heaven help us if California goes that direction and with our bullshit leadership it just might.
I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.
libertarians don't believe in those things.
they are the epitome of the "freedumb" loving conservative:
Joe Conservative wakes up in the morning and goes to the bathroom. He flushes his toilet and brushes his teeth, mindful that each flush & brush costs him about 43 cents to his privatized water provider. His wacky, liberal neighbor keeps badgering the company to disclose how clean and safe their water is, but no one ever finds out. Just to be safe, Joe Conservative boils his drinking water.
Joe steps outside and coughs–the pollution is especially bad today, but the smokiest cars are the cheapest ones, so everyone buys ‘em. Joe Conservative checks to make sure he has enough toll money for the 3 different private roads he must drive to work. There is no public transportation, so traffic is backed up and his 10 mile commute takes an hour.
On the way, he drops his 12 year old daughter off at the clothing factory she works at. Paying for kids to go to private school until they’re 18 is a luxury, and Joe needs the extra income coming in. Times are hard and there’re no social safety nets.
He gets to work 5 minutes late and misses the call for Christian prayer, and is immediately docked by his employer. He is not feeling well today, but has no health insurance, since neither his employer nor his government provide it, and paying for it himself is really expensive, since he has a precondition. He just hopes for the best.
Joe’s workday is 12 hours long, because there is no regulation over working hours, and Joe will lose his job if he complains or unionizes. Today is an especially bad day. Joe’s manager demands that he work until midnight, a 16 hour day. Joe does, knowing that he’ll lose his job if he does not.
Finally, after midnight, Joe gets to pick up his daughter and go home. His daughter shows him the deep cut she got on the industrial sewing machine today. Joe is outraged and asks why she doesn’t have metal mesh gloves or other protection. She says the company will not provide it and she’ll have to pay for it out of her own pocket. Joe looks at the wound and decides they’ll use an over the counter disinfectant and bandages until it heals. She’ll have a scar, but getting stitches at the emergency room is expensive.
His daughter also complains that the manager made suggestive overtures towards her. Joe counsels her to be a “good girl” and not rock the boat, or she’ll get fired and they’ll be out the income.
His daughter says she can’t wait until she’s 18 so she can vote for change or go to the Iraq War.
They get home and there’s a message from his elderly father who can’t afford to pay his medical or heating bills. Joe can hear him coughing and shivering.
Joe turns on the radio and the top story is a proposal in Congress to raise the voting age to 25. A rare liberal opinionator states that it’s an attempt to keep power out of the hands of working class Americans. The conservative host immediately quashes him, calling him “a utopian idealist,” and agreeing that people aren’t mature enough to make good choices until they’re at least 25.
Joe chuckles at the wine-swilling, cheese eating liberal egghead and thinks, “Thank God I live in America where I have freedom!”
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
If you cannot afford to raise your child, THEN STOP HAVING CHILDREN. Yeah, won't prevent them all, yes something might have caused them to be "homeless" but, you know good and well that some people, have children because the women won't keep their legs together, and the men are horndogs. (hope by including BOTH sexes, the "women's rights" types won't be completely offended, not that I care)