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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.
...a valley is a low point geographically. It doesn't have a shadow.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
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?
Living conditions there are awful. There are plenty of jobs in other cities and you get to have a whole house! I figure I'd have to make three times what I make now to live in Silicon Valley. Nope.
I heard a piece on NPR (which unfortunately I can't find a link for), that observed if you paid over $500k for your house 20 years ago, your house appreciated more than 100%, and if you paid less than $200k, it only appreciated 25%. Further analysis discussed that the great preponderance of such houses were on the coasts, and that affordability in those communities is a real problem . They also correlated the house price with how the people voted, noting that Trump voters were more likely to have houses in the $100k-$200k range rather than the $500k range, and that was presumed to be part of the dissatisfaction with the state of the economy.
Now putting these stories together, -I- come to the conclusion that high cost areas such as Silicon Valley are much more likely to support abstract notions of income redistribution, with the sense that "I have mine, so now I can feel bad about income inequality."
"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.
Moving someplace new generally requires a sizable amount of liquid funds to cover moving expenses, deposits, etc., not to mention the costs associated with finding a new job to go to. The working poor don't often have that kind of money on hand to spend.
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.
I have lived in an RV for the past 15 years. I lived in an RV for 3 years in the 70s. The first two were only 21 feet in length. I have a nice 36 foot motor home the I live in now. I have never paid a dime for any city property taxes. It just breaks my heart that I was never indentured to a bank for 30 years paying for a regular home and then indentured to a city for my entire life paying property taxes. It has been tough, but I have managed to tough it out. It has especially been a burden watching my huge bank account grow and grow.
CA has been run by the Ds since 1959, with only one short loss of control from 1969-1970 and one split session in 1995.
Cite: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
>> 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.
Bullshit. Here's your solution: move to San Jose, then commute 45 minutes to work. Here's some listings for rooms and apartments starting at just $500 if you're too fucking lazy to use one of the hundreds of "find an apartment" web sites.
https://www.trulia.com/for_ren...
Even better would be for them to find a way to make the move to San Jose, and then get a job they are qualified for locally. If enough did that, the affluent citizens of Palo Alto will find themselves freaking out that there are no longer any people to prepare or serve their meals when they eat out, sell them their overpriced coffees, clean their buildings, take care of their lawns, etc.
Oops! You fuckers just drove away the majority of your labor pool.
This space unintentionally left blank.
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 was an engineer in Silicon Valley and couldn't afford to live in Palo Alto. Why the fuck would any poor person choose to settle in such a high priced area?
Heck, I got out because I couldn't afford the housing and moved East to the cheaper places.
reinstate child labor. let the market decide. we need to get the government off the backs of the American people. It's the libertarian thing to do.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
In many cases, they were there first. This is gentrification on steroids.
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.
Why do poor people continue to stay there?
Probably because they have job and leaving it to find work elsewhere is a huge risk without financial resources to cover the gap. However the article is defining "homelessness" as those families who share a home with another. This is not homelessness but a what a smart, resourceful person without financial means does when the housing prices are so high. Since the article mentions that many of the teachers are also sharing houses it seems that the teachers themselves are "homeless" too given the article's clearly wrong definition of the word.
No they weren't. If they were there first, they would've owned the houses they live in, and the rising property price would be a good thing.
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.
Your problem was thinking that voting for president would help your cause. You vote for a president to deal with other nations, make sure we're safe, and to work with Congress to help shape the path of the country on a macro level. Want to really influence your life with your vote? Then pay attention to and get involved in your local politics. As far as I'm concerned, no one who doesn't put more effort into their government than just voting has no right to complain about the outcomes.
And, as a Democrat, I ashamed to say he is not wrong. I am sure residents of Palo Alto would rather have some manufacturing jobs than our "great values". We need to fire demagogues and elect someone who will make people love California and trust us to govern on federal level.
HOA
What's one of those? Out here you just have to worry about the township telling you where and how much to dig.
if there were jobs there I could live out there but jobs are not located in rural america.
Tesla is hiring out here:
https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/...
https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/...
https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/...
Lets give you a short commute. Here's a 3 bed, 2 bath for $99k Another 3B, 2B for $60k Both larger than 1000 sqft too.
Then lets swing you to a long commute and set $200k as a ceiling. This house is 4 bed, 2 bath on 2.1 acres, $125k for 1600 sqft. 3B/2B. Or if you like a really well built house 4 beds 4 baths 3,106 sqft, built in 1855 (Ask the Europeans if that's 'old'). In a town no less.
You can repeat that experiment all across the US.
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.
If they were renting, then they purchased a temporary right to live there. Even if the rent didn't go up, the owners have a right to kick them out and move in themselves. The only people who can claim a permanent right to live there are the Native Americans (who truly were there first).
Buying a house is cheaper than you think. I don't know your exact situation, but let's just say you're in East Palo Alto.
A 3 bed, 2 bath house in East Palo Alto is $3000 / month minimum to rent, with higher ones at $4000 / month. But it's only $650,000-$800,000 to buy. If you pay 20% down and the interest is 4%, the mortgage payment is only $2500-$3000 / month. Now if you're willing to squeeze a bit and rent out one room for $800 / month let's say, your own cost would only be $1700-2200, cheaper than renting even a 2 bedroom apartment.
Of course, this only makes sense if you really love the place and wants to live there for a long time, but that sounds like the case to me.
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.
Pretty sure that increased housing prices are an inevitable consequence of economic success. More people with jobs making more money are willing to pay more for their homes and anyone who doesn't keep up has to settle for less desirable living conditions.
And California (at least, the parts that we're talking about, with housing crunches) has been spectacularly successful economically since "those liberals" took over.
Did you hear that California if considered by itself would be the 7th largest economy in the world?
People here in SV are just going to have to accept a different standard of housing than they think they are entitled to. I know I have done so.
Link here:
http://reason.com/archives/2016/10/01/yes-in-my-backyard
The ratio of new jobs to new building permits is 8:1.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
$800,000 loan with 20% down would be closer to $4000/mo once you add property tax, insurance, maintenance, and repairs. Of course, you'll save a fair amount on income taxes as long as you're itemizing, which most CA homeowners do given the higher state income tax which is federally deductible.
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 right... all right...
But apart from paved roads and judges in courthouses and airports and bridges and fire department and army and navy and marines and air force and coast guard and a county hospital and sewers and clean water and the EPA and national, state, and local parks... What has the government done for us?
I think you're wrong. I think most people believe that at the end of tax season, if you get a refund that somehow it means you didn't pay taxes. What that often times means is that you paid too much in taxes. I'm a very generous person. So, indeed, if you give 50% of your earnings away to charity, you'd think that maybe you get achieve this "no tax" sort of status, but actually the government restricts the benefit so that you can't just "give it all away" and reap some outrageous deduction benefit (those who are highly charitable know this to be true). The goal at the end of a tax year to to either get nothing back from the government or pay very little to them. If you get a huge refund back it's because you gave the government too much and while it might seem nice to get the money back, it's without interest (well, somebody got the interest and it wasn't you). The tax code is huge. And its so huge because it tries to make sure that loop holes or some "secret" way isn't present. Not saying their isn't some kind of "magic" way to avoid paying taxes, but could be a very very very small probability. With that said, if you are reading this and if you are above the "line" where you have to pay taxes (essentially you are above low poverty levels), please feel free to let us all know how you avoid paying taxes.
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.
The kind of retarded shit that also pays 40% more for everything else they have to buy. $200k on $50k in Ohio?
That is not true. I live in Silicon Valley (San Jose). Housing is hecka expensive here. But everything else costs about the same here as it does anywhere else. The grocery prices in San Jose are no higher than they are in Gilroy or Tracy.
If you can keep your housing cost down, you can save up a ton of money here. When I first moved here, I lived out of my van for two years, and save enough for a down payment. Plenty of other people rent a place and bunk two or four to a room while they build their nest egg. That is no worse than living in a college dorm or a military barracks. The house next door to me has 16 Filipinos living in it. It is absurd to call these people "homeless".
... end up homeless like these families.
These families are NOT homeless. They are living with a lot of people per room. When I was a kid, I slept in a room with two bunk beds and a crib. It was me and four siblings. Was I "homeless"?
I live in San Jose, and the house next to mine has 16 Filipinos living in 4 bedrooms. You may consider that crowded, but they seem happy. They have a BBQ every weekend. They laugh and sing. The kids are always smiling, and are doing well in school. I know because they are my kid's classmates. They don't have any of the problems that actual homeless people have. Sleeping in a bunk bed is a hundred times better than sleeping on a sidewalk, and equating the two is absurd.
How did you benefit from not being on the losing side in WWII or WWI or the Civil War or The War of Independence.
Well, I used to live in Tennessee, so I was on the losing side of the Civil War. As for the others, none of them were preceded by high military spending. Yet we won anyway.
It seems to me that high military spending makes starting wars easy, since you already have the soldiers and weapons ready, so we do it more often, almost always with negative consequences. I don't see how I benefit from that.
Perhaps you will enjoy being a Muslim after the next WW, Sunni or Shia?
How did our meddling in Iraq make that outcome less likely?
You would think that of all businesses, high tech software might enable its workers to work remotely from another part of the country, and sidestep the inevitable housing price bubbles.
Your analysis would be beautiful, except that in reality, those who silicon valley and who claim to care the most about people, really don't. As a whole, you give very little to charity, minimize tax personal tax burden, and are very, very comfortable with the notion that your special snowflake tech jobs DESERVE 3x more pay than those who serve others. The corporations of silicon valley are notorious for talking the talk about social justice, but then surprisingly absent when it comes time to pay for it. I am looking at your Apple and Google.
So, I bet that you are very supportive about measures that address income inequality....just so long as it does not personally affect you. So, can you please cut the bullshit, SJW crap about how much you care. By all measures you don't. Having a "bad" feeling is nowhere near the same as actually doing something. Please, grow up or shut up.
Btw: Here is my supporting evidence.
Bay Area near bottom of nation charitable giving from SF Chronicle: http://www.sfgate.com/business...
Silicon Valley does not social give: http://www.sanjoseinside.com/2...
Lastly, there are numerous of these showing that conservatives are far more generous than liberals: https://www.rt.com/usa/193952-...
"Liberalism is a very noble idea, currently controlled by some very bad people. Be sure you do not get the two confused.
In the land of $4500 a month rent for a crackhouse that is currently on fire what do they expect? People are living in VANS in the office parking lot.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
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.
I sincerely hope you are not saying the Space Shuttle and ISS never resulted in anything of value.
And a big reason why things do end up being done by government is because other methods already failed to do so.
History, much as libertarians like to ignore it, is full of such examples.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
A big chunk of East Palo Alto is under rent control, so those people will be paying rent that's far below market price for years to come.
It's worth pointing out that rent control and building restrictions are the primary cause of high rents. Start issuing building permits for high-density high-rise housing and the market will naturally produce affordable rents. I don't know about East Palo Alto, but in many areas with rent controls there is an exemption for "luxury" apartments, which motivates landlords to build those rather than more affordable housing -- and even to tear down rent-controlled housing so they can build luxury apartments.
Silicon Valley's problem isn't the influx of tech money, it's the combination of the influx of tech money with the old guard residents who want to keep their sleepy suburban communities unchanged. The latter disallow high-density urban development which means the former drives up the prices, massively -- of course, that works very well for said old residents who have seen their homes appreciate up to 40X in value. I have a friend who bought a small three-bedroom home in Mountain View for $1.2M, from the original owner who built it in the late 60s for $30K.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
When most people hear the word 'homeless' they imagine people living outdoors, maybe spending some nights in homeless shelters, but the majority of 'homeless' children described in this report have home to return to, they are just sharing their home with another family...
Is a 30 year-old living in his parents house 'homeless'? By the standards of this report the answer is 'yes', but to most people the answer is 'no'.
Ken
As an Ohio transplant to the Bay Area, I can tell you things are certainly more expensive here than in Ohio; the two California cities you are comparing to are irrelevant. It may not be 40%, but it's not 0, either and it is a significant amount. About the only things I don't pay more for here than i did there are my phone plan (nationally priced) and car insurance; and the latter is more the result of California's annual rate reduction law, a younger friend of mine pays more than double what I was paying at his age for a similar vehicle.
The median home value in Tracy is $438,000, averaging $211 per square foot. In Fairfield, where I currently reside, it's $399,800, averaging $220/sq-ft. Cleveland? $59,900, averaging just $48/sq-ft. That roughly falls in line with what I paid for rent there vs what I pay today; I pay 3-1/3x as much rent for 5sq-ft more than I had in Cleveland.
However, I make more than 7x what I made when I lived in Cleveland, but am barely any further ahead financially as a result. If my spending habits and lifestyle haven't changed substantially (they haven't) and things aren't more expensive here, what's the explanation?
Well, I'll tell ya, since I was just back in Cleveland for a week last month and, save for the cost of the hotel room and rental car, I lived for that week, same as I live here, on what I spend on the average day here.
Yes, shit's more expensive in California, doesn't matter the city, than it is in Ohio. Now that you've made me reflect on my recent trip, I see that my 40% figure was way off; it should have been much, much higher.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.