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Two Miles From Facebook's Headquarters, Working Poor Live In Trailers (mercurynews.com)
"The working poor are spilling into Bay Area streets for lack of safe, affordable shelter," report two Silicon Valley newspapers describing a "pop-up neighborhood" that's now banding together, "a small community of blue collar RV dwellers...fighting for the only place they can call home."
The beautifully-illustrated article begins with an interview with a grey-haired woman named Lisa Cosey-Steven: [D]espite steady work and little debt, she trudges back and forth to the office every day from a dark RV trailer, packed floor to ceiling with bags of clothes, pet supplies for her seven dogs, thriller novels and food. Cosey-Stevens, 63, has been parked on the shoulder of Bay Road in East Palo Alto, just about two miles from Facebook headquarters and some of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the country, since June. "No one knows how badly I want out of this," she said during an interview in her trailer. "It's depressing to live like this...."
She's part of an unplanned and impromptu RV park, about 80 people pushed out of apartments and into trailers and the edge of homelessness... Their neighborhood of about 50 RVs lines the eastern end of Bay Road and Tara Street, next to a stretch of salvage yards, warehouses and empty lots guarded by chain link fence. It's just off a thoroughfare for local tech employees and sits adjacent to the site of a new, multi-million dollar youth education center, Epacenter Arts. Several of the aging RVs have large banners draped over the sides, making pleas to the big employers in the area: "SOS -- Facebook, Sobrato, Amazon, Google."
The [RV Families Association of East Palo Alto] has a grand vision for East Palo Alto, a city steeped in activism and landlord-tenant disputes: to get a few acres donated by a major tech company to build an RV park with security, facilities and regular, affordable rent for low-income workers. But first, they're fighting City Hall to keep their homes. A proposed ordinance working its way through city government would ban most RVs from overnight parking on city streets.
"It's not like they're trying to be a nuisance to the city," says the mayor of East Palo Alto. "It's a survival thing. It's a strategy, a tactic to survive for a while."
"We are the working homeless," says a 57-year-old upholsterer and Navy veteran "who moved into his RV after his rent in East Palo Alto doubled to $4,000 a month." Another family lost their Redwood City apartment when their landlord increased the rent from $1,300 to $2,800 a month.
The beautifully-illustrated article begins with an interview with a grey-haired woman named Lisa Cosey-Steven: [D]espite steady work and little debt, she trudges back and forth to the office every day from a dark RV trailer, packed floor to ceiling with bags of clothes, pet supplies for her seven dogs, thriller novels and food. Cosey-Stevens, 63, has been parked on the shoulder of Bay Road in East Palo Alto, just about two miles from Facebook headquarters and some of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the country, since June. "No one knows how badly I want out of this," she said during an interview in her trailer. "It's depressing to live like this...."
She's part of an unplanned and impromptu RV park, about 80 people pushed out of apartments and into trailers and the edge of homelessness... Their neighborhood of about 50 RVs lines the eastern end of Bay Road and Tara Street, next to a stretch of salvage yards, warehouses and empty lots guarded by chain link fence. It's just off a thoroughfare for local tech employees and sits adjacent to the site of a new, multi-million dollar youth education center, Epacenter Arts. Several of the aging RVs have large banners draped over the sides, making pleas to the big employers in the area: "SOS -- Facebook, Sobrato, Amazon, Google."
The [RV Families Association of East Palo Alto] has a grand vision for East Palo Alto, a city steeped in activism and landlord-tenant disputes: to get a few acres donated by a major tech company to build an RV park with security, facilities and regular, affordable rent for low-income workers. But first, they're fighting City Hall to keep their homes. A proposed ordinance working its way through city government would ban most RVs from overnight parking on city streets.
"It's not like they're trying to be a nuisance to the city," says the mayor of East Palo Alto. "It's a survival thing. It's a strategy, a tactic to survive for a while."
"We are the working homeless," says a 57-year-old upholsterer and Navy veteran "who moved into his RV after his rent in East Palo Alto doubled to $4,000 a month." Another family lost their Redwood City apartment when their landlord increased the rent from $1,300 to $2,800 a month.
And yet cities continue to build new office buildings without building enough places for people to live, then wonder why there aren't enough places for people to live. When more people come without enough places to live, that will drive prices up: that is how supply and demand works.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I'm supposed to feel sorry for someone who has seven dogs? Life choices man. She chose the expense of seven dogs over the expense of non-disgusting housing.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
and prep land for developers. That's the expensive part of building homes, not throwing up a frame and some wiring/plumbing around it. Folks don't realize how heavily the US Government subsidized their lives in the 50s, 60s and 70s. The just took all that for granted. Land developers sure as hell aren't going to pay to get that land ready themselves, and since the government ain't paying anymore it's just not getting done. The result is massive housing shortages in a lot of places.
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You forgot the "/sarcasm". Some might actually take you seriously, and agree with the serious version...
Sure, let them pay for an education on minimum wage, and $4,000 a month rent, since making payments on an RV is clearly not a legal cost saving strategy, rather it appears to be "cheating".
Not to mention, pay at least $7K to "move where the jobs are".
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
You're clearly nuts and have zero clue. They aren't lazy and work their butts off. It's true they didn't grow up privileged and go to an expensive school to buy their way in. I had a wealthy grandfather and his business used 100% hispanics for maintenance and kitchen staff. He would say terrible things about hispanics being lazy or stupid, but that was far from the reality. They would work 12 hours and then walk about 4 miles home on foot in the dark if they missed the bus. I seriously doubt you'd be able to work 12 hours a day on your feet 7 days a week. Clearly even though you have an education, you didn't learn jack and behave like an asshole.
we need more unions
Why does Slashdot have so many anti-capitalism articles. Iâ(TM)m assuming most of us have tech careers and are making at least low six figures. The current system is working for us! Who are these articles supposed to appeal to?
I can't speak for Slashdot or the intentions of their staff. Having said that, not every communication is designed to "appeal to" you. Sometimes, the purpose is to show you a view that you may not already agree with in order to promote thought and discussion.
I'll give an example. Given your comment above, one could ask the question: do you care about the large numbers of people for whom the current system is not working very well? Can you imagine any way(s) to improve things for them that don't require sacrificing the situation you enjoy?
It's trolling. They're trolling for page views.
zone and build RV/Trailer parks on vacant city land.
Virtue signalling? Political correctness.
People with the wealth that never to have to live in high crime and near poverty areas like to show how they would make other parts of a city better.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Uprooting your life and moving is an expensive proposition for anyone who had built a life for themselves over the course of decades. You effectively become trapped as you have family to care for, friends, a life. You can't leave because you can't afford it, and you stay because you can't afford it.
...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
America has a growing problem with homeless people with full-time jobs, and it's worse in places like Silicon Valley, where all the tech yuppies have driven up real estate prices. The working class people with RVs are the ones who are doing pretty well as silicon valley has lots of wage-earners in much worse shape than that.
It pains me to admit this, but the fact that America--the wealthiest nation on Earth--has a growing number of homeless people with full-time jobs is perhaps an indication that it's time to admit that capitalism failed, and it did so more or less the way communists predicted, which is more or less the way it failed the last time. Even with its bread lines, the Soviet Union did a better job of providing for the well-being of the population than this.
Her RV holds all her possessions, and likely has wheels on it... what she needs is to rent a uhaul vehicle with a trailer hitch.
Ken
The only reason a high tech company has to open an office in Silicon Valley is to snipe employees from competitors, The vast majority could do their job from almost anywhere in America and live like kings, instead of salving away to pay exhorbitant rent and taxes in Silicon Valley.
Ken
It isn't anti-capitalism, but the problem with businesses lack of morals. More specifically silicon valley. The arrival of wall street being involved really changed things
A person with skills doesn't have to pay $4K/month for a tiny apt in a certain zip code - they can MOVE.
Ken
So, what's the ratio of homeless in the US vs. the people who died in the old Soviet Union when they were doing "a better job of providing for the well-being of the population"?
They relocate to places where state and local gov't give them $48K per worker in tax savings... Amazon HQ2.
Ken
Housing homeless people in a stadium? Have you been watching Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome again?
Trying to bring back the Roman coliseum?
Ken
Absolutely. I would love to live on a trailer on 200 acres! Plus this twat in the article ... anyone that lives in an RV with seven dogs, clearly doesn't make logical or educated decisions!
Not sure why some are always looking for who to blame, while actively denying the very basic idea of cause and effect.
The ASPCA says the *nationwide* average cost per dog is $1,000-$2,000 / year. Things cost 43% in California, on average, so that's roughly $2,100 / year per dog. Total $15,000 / for the dogs. That's what dogs cost. It's not someone's FAULT, it's just a fact. Dogs need food, vet care, etc. If you spend $15,000/year on dogs, and another $15,000/year on whatever odd choice, you're left with less money to take care of yourself. That's called arithmetic, not fault.
It's funny - just this morning I had a conversation with my daughter, mostly listening to her talk. First she said she wanted all of the toys in the Ryan's Toy Reviews line, now available at Walmart. Next, she said she'd spend ALL of her money on those toys. "But then I couldn't get any other toys", she said. "I want to have money in my gifting cup to buy gifts for my friends", she continued. With me barely saying a word, she quickly reasoned through that she did NOT want to spend all of her money on Ryan toys. Maybe just one, she decided. Maybe one Ryan toy would be good.
My daughter understands the cause and effect of choosing to spend money on one thing means you don't have that money for other things she wants. She's four. Four years old.
The sheer amount of homeless people in this area, which I have been told may be over 22,000 is daunting. The powers that be in this area have generally not been inclusive of the needs of the poor an low-income people.
There are even some 2,000 college students that represent the future of America, who are now stricken with homelessness in this areas.
Whatever was supposed to happen to put a check and balance the asymmetrical, biased political power of the corporate giants and house-flippers who invest in this area--has failed.
I likely am going to be homeless in a few weeks. As a person with a disability, as I look deeper into the resources here in California. What I have found by following the leads has simply been one of the most disheartening things I have witnessed.
I heard was "low-income" housing exists, which honest people with a SSD/SSI income could never afford. The lay of the landscape currently has a 1-5 year waiting list for a place to live. Yet, I have heard that some housing exists for people making as much as $75,000/yr. I checked up on homeless shelters where a homeless person is not even afforded a wall to put their back against. I have read of a shower and wash van, supporting the homeless that only comes to an area once in a week.
[Who would want to sit next to a person who only showered/bathed once in a week?]
In all honesty, as someone who has written proof that I have tried to add my name to the HUD waiting list for a nearly a decade, I am deeply upset. Yes, clearly I am upset for myself, but also for I am upset for the other homeless people, many of which (also) have disabilities.
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
you buy dry food in bulk and put them down if they get sick. Also, if you're a 63 year old woman living in a trailer you need a lot of dogs for protection. She could ditch every one of those dogs and wouldn't have the extra $2k/mo it takes to rent a tiny, dumpy apartment.
And what's with all the non-stop poor shaming? Is this supposed to make you feel better about abandoning these folks to their miserable fate? Does it? Somewhere in the back of your mind it's gnawing on you, how you're letting fellow Americans live like shit. The Americans who do work you want done.
Bottom line, You want those people to live near where you are so they can cook, clean and fix your plumbing but you'll be damned if you want to pay for them to have an OK life. When people bitch about "gentrification" that's what they're talking about. You know that's messed up, so you do crap like this to try and convince yourself it's their choice. Gives you an out, but like I said, it gnaws on you, doesn't it?
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I for one wouldn't mind living in a travel trailer aka an RV. Some are very comfy. What the people in the story are living in, on the streets of San Jose and surrounding cities, are old refurbed box trucks. Think Uhaul rentals kind of trucks. No windows, one door and zero light or air. And did I mention cold? Cold. No insulation or sound proofing. Some people pay monthly rent to live in these squalid conditions. They shower at work or the gym. Now THAT's not a life.
That is simply the unstoppable path of the new economy. We are now told that all the jobs have to be in one of the 10 "Superstar" cities in the USA, because good jobs can't exist in a metro area unless there are millions of people there, because they can only find good workers in those 10 cities. But that high pay only goes to the Rock Star employees. Empty the trash? Why should you deserve any more money than someone emptying trash in Kansas? The result is that housing is bought by the people making $150k and up, and no one really wants to live like they do in Tokyo or Hong Kong, in small apartments in high-rise buildings, so they block that from happening without realizing that this puts $12/hour workers on the streets, or makes them commute 3 hours a day.
People move all the time. Once you are down to living in a trailer, it's not that expensive. In an RV, you just start it up and leave.
Have gnu, will travel.
Relevant link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/18/12/05/2027200/americans-are-moving-less-than-ever-and-its-bad-for-the-economy
Have gnu, will travel.
you need the land graded, roads built, water, gas and electric lines run. You need police and fire departments. In otherwords, infrastructure. That's not billions, that's trillions of dollars in land development that was all done on the gov't's dime.
Zoning regulations are a red herring. The rich got tired of paying for working class Americans to have decent homes. The only reason they had to for a time was post WWII the working class, having just got back from fighting a war, had gained a sense of entitlement. They felt owed something. Also a _lot_ of working age men died in that war, meaning labor shortages. So for a time they were better treated. Those times have passed, and we're back to where we were in the 1920s. Better tech at food production and a few depression era policies (social security & medicare, food stamps, etc) have masked some of that, but even those are under siege.
What I don't get is why is it that confronting all this reality makes Americans so damned uncomfortable? It's not like anyone's gonna tax you to to the max. Odds are you're living paycheck to paycheck like the rest of Americans, and even if you've got a bit of savings it's not enough to matter. When it comes to raising taxes to pay for social programs it's the top 5% who would be the targets. And it's not like they'd lose much in the way of standard of living, what they're really lose is _power_.
That's what you're defending when you post stuff like you did: a group of ultra-wealthy power mongers who's wealth has ceased being material and become raw power.
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From what I gathered, not all of the people living this way are poor - some are just trying to save a vast amount of money over getting even the cheapest shared apartment they can find...
This is another boon of autonomous cars, which instead of needing to find a safe and legal spot to part, can just drive through the night and have you wake up right next to the gym for a shower and that other S thing.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I was in San Jose a few months ago and I knew about the homeless problem in Silicon Valley and I made it a point to look for the homeless camps. I saw them under highway bridges and along the sides of the roads. A friend of my told me there's a YouTube channel devoted on how to live on the streets in cars, vans, and RVs. These people were already suffering even though many have jobs. No doubt the horrible air quality that hit the city from the fires up north had a huge negative impact on their health. There is plenty of space to build dense cheap housing in the area, but the political will is not there or is being blocked for profit. I think the tv series "Silicon Valley" nailed it's hypocrisy with all the tech bro startups saying the wanted to "make the world a better place." Yeah, well making the world a better place starts at home.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
Enforce parking laws. No more RV camps on streets.
No more tent cities on roads and paths.
Get caught placing trash and waste in the streets? Police get to enforce the law.
Open drug use in the streets? Police.
Crime in the streets? Police and lots of new CCTV to track criminals.
A person is living on the streets? Get them support, medical help, find them another city with the support they need.
That removes the crime, waste, trash, drug use and blocked road problems.
Change zoning rules in poor parts of a city so investment and gentrification can move crime and poverty out of the nice city areas.
New clean, safe buildings near the nice new tech job centres.
Allow more gated communities to ensure investors are safe.
Stop making new building accept a percentage of poor people as part of their approval to build a new building.
Need more housing for the working poor, poor? Set aside areas of the city for poor people and their needs.
Offer tax credits and consider changes to permits to build low cost housing for poor people in city approved areas. Have the city help poor US citizens with rent but only in approved low cost areas.
The world would be a way better place if people like you were aborted prior to birth.
which is why the average price of a home is north of $200k but Median income's around $67k/yr.
Residents don't care about property values. In fact they hate that their homes are "worth" $2M (more like $500k actually) because they can't afford the property taxes and they get forced out of the neighborhoods they spent their lives in.
Nobody really wants to live in a high density multi-story building for very long. I don't think humans are wired for that. You can do that in your early to mid 20s, but when you decide you want kids it's not gonna fly. We're used to having open space. Kids need a place to play. With proper transportation and building that's not really necessary either. But it means more highways, more roads and more infrastructure spending, and that means taxes on the ultra wealthy. It means putting an end to the wealth inequality that's as bad as it was in the 20s now. It means taking all that absurd power the 1%ers have away from them.
The question is, are guys like you gonna like the 1%ers have unlimited power, becoming the new kings? That seems to be the case. I'm not sure why you're doing it, I think you're just "kicking down", e.g. looking down on folks below your social standing to feel better about yourself. There's a saying I've heard before: if nobody's poor then nobody's rich. Thing is, that's an emotional thing, that desire to feel wealthy in the sense that you have more than other folks. It's being exploited to keep working class Americans at each other's throats. It's biting you in the ass. You're having everything taken away from you gradually and that's how the 1%ers are getting away with it. You might die before the worst of it happens (e.g. "I got mine, fuck you" school of economics) but if you're under 55 you won't. Nows the time to stop screwing around and shitting on the poor to make yourself feel better short term and actually solve the problems in your life and mine.
Demand better. Demand a decent life for all Americans. Demand guarantees of that decent life. Remember: you can tell how good a society is by how it treats it's least members.
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1. Decriminalize homelessness.
2. Establish emergency minimal-level shelters were people can shower/sleep, and wash their clothes.
3. Allow people to sleep in their cars, one car, one night, one block,
4. Require people who buy homes to own then for no less than 5 years or be fined, unless proof of financial hardship, divorce or partner split.
5. Restore Section 8 Housing for people with disabilities.
6. Discourage foreign investors and companies from purchasing homes.
7. Rezone areas to end single-family homes.
8. Make sure that homeless people can vote.
9. Rezone certain industrial and business buildings for shelter use.
10. Require all non-profit charities to abstract their organization or religious presence from their offer of help.
12. Require all California cities and towns to take in a certain percentage of the the homeless people.
13. Vote out the people who only represent rich people.
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
nobody whants them as they would disrupt the cost of living no matter where hey go and threw no falt of there own but the greed of others.
Maybe the approach to using property taxes to fund public services is thus flawed and needs to be changed.
Fucking over young people to subsidise old people living in mansions isn't the right alternative.
Camping on a road in a city would be something police could move people out of the area for.
Filling a city street with waste and junk should get police to enforce city laws.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
A new way to tax people that allowed poor people to afford the costs of buy into nice areas?
A tax on wages?
A transport tax?
A tax on spending?
On investments?
That money to support all the gov projects every year has to be extracted in some way.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Another family lost their Redwood City apartment when their landlord increased the rent from $1,300 to $2,800 a month.
So far as I know this shouldn't be possible, explain please?
Even the previous owners of the site were lefties. We used to have daily articles from lefty rags like slate.com
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
The market dictates prices. Someone finds nearly three grand a month for rent is acceptable and pays it. Meanwhile in more sane areas of the country that would get a mortgage on a 3000 square foot home.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Last count, Google has over 50,000 employees in the bay area with its campus expanding all the way from Mountain View down into San Jose now. Facebook has under 15,000. Redwood City, 2014 Population: 90,000, just saw the opening of giant 6+ story apartment complexes that increase its population nearly 20% over a few months.
Cisco has over 60,000 employees in its massive 3-city campus at the north end of San Jose.
But the RV campus was previously lining El Camino Real in Palo Alto outside Stanford, it just wound up in East Palo Alto because they got kicked off the Stanford property.
Google, Facebook, and Apple all need their asses kicking for this stupidity of putting tens of thousands of employees into single buildings because it makes for "better creativity". Really? 2 hour commute each way makes people more creative? It makes them earn a ton of money of which they see none because of rent and living costs beyond ridiculous.
2 bed apt within 40 minutes of google is likely to set you back ~$3000/month.
-- A change is as good as a reboot.
Then I'll have millions in equity and can afford to move to a cheaper place.
I would like to opt out of Prop 13's protections against high property taxes in the future in exchange for a lower property tax today. Where do I sign up?
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
Fuck those deplorables, always bellyaching about "jerbs" and "living indoors" and "having something to eat". Ingrates! Don't they know that in some parts of the world people live in stacks of used tires and are *happy* to eat a bowl of gravel every other day?
How dare those rednecks complain about their own disinheritance and destitution, when there are far more picturesque problems in distant exotic parts of the world that are fun to visit on vacation! Don't they know they live in THE RICHEST COUNTRY EVER!!!!1!!1!!???!?
In conclusion, those ignorant deplorables should pull themselves up by the bootstraps, after begging for a pair of boots. If only they would just put a little effort into it, they too can graduate from Stanford and take a seven figure sinecure with a loss-making, ultimately QE-funded startup company. Let them live in Palo Alto! Let them eat organic vegan steak tartar!
There are a lot of jobs out there that pay for moving expenses, especially in tech. My kid, fresh out of college with a BS in management, got $5k
Just another day in Paradise
"The only reason a high tech company has to open an office in Silicon Valley is to snipe employees from competitors"
You've clearly never had to hire people. When you're deciding where to open your business, you typically go where it's most cost effective, or you open multiple offices. Having locations where there's an abundance of talent is part of the deal. It has zip to do with "snipe" from competitors. I personally deal with hiring at ~25 locations...some are easy, and some are just about impossible...even with a ton of incentives.
Just another day in Paradise
Wall Street's been involved since the inception of Silicon Valley. So, no.
Just another day in Paradise
They relocate to where Bezos already had homes...NYC and DC.
Just another day in Paradise
Mod points to you if I had em.
Just another day in Paradise
More taxes, tents and RV is not for decades is not working out so well.
As the tax rate goes up people was to move to a better city, state. With clean streets and no crime.
Who wants to invest in a city and keep the best workers who are then expected to risk their health and crime to get to work?
The new jobs move to a better city and state. Less tax and happy skilled workers.
Let investors build as many apartments as they want to risk selling and finding rent to pay back their investment.
New tower blocks with underground parking spaces near to new tech jobs?
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Thank you for saying that. I actually get a bit self-conscious about my writing at times, so your post is meaningful to me.
I get self-conscious about errors - I said "things cost 43% in California", missing the word "more". I also often wonder if my logic is clear, if readers will be able to follow my reasoning.
In this instance, I almost posted a follow-up explaining that I meant it's not a moral issue (fault), but an arithmetic issue, a choice. If someone *wanted* to spend a million dollars a year on exotic animals while living in a tent they could certainly do that. I wouldn't *fault* them. I would just be aware that they could have chosen a nice house with no giraffes.
In this case, the story makes it sound like perhaps the person is unhappy with the results of their decisions. In which case, we can only "fix" that by a) educating them about their options or b) forcing them to do what we think is best, taking away their freedom to make "foolish" choices.
These problems affect poor people in liberal areas the most. However the housing crisis is also solvable. Three simple changes will remove the regulatory hurdles that prevent the market from resolving the housing crisis:
Remove setback requirements
Remove height requirements
Remove zoning restrictions for high density housing
Reducing regulatory overhead is a conservative value. It's also the only value that can solve the housing crisis as it allows the law of supply and demand to work. Unfortunately for current homeowners these changes will lower property values as the market adjusts to new supply. You can't solve the housing crisis by adding more regulations. Choose your values.
Because not enough landlords who routinely and successfully double people's rent have been ripped out of their homes and eaten alive while their families watched.
never drink kool-aid from a big vat
Those have worked so well every other time we've done that. I suppose housing projects are like communism, they just haven't been done right yet, but this next one, yeah that's the ticket.
The people living in busted old Rvs on the side of the street with seven dogs are not part of any workforce.
The problem here is no one interacts with the caravan dwellers. These people usually buy an aging and barely working rv that is near the end. Generally, the people purchasing them do not consider the maintenance aspect. Vehicles degrade and big vehicles have large costs.
Anyhow, maybe maintaining a dead RV is cheaper then SF rent, but if you had any sense then you would leave. The upholestey installer can make a killing anywhere. It is a dead art and furniture shops are killing for these guys.
You know what I would do if I lost my job and didnâ(TM)t find work in two months? Sale the house, sale this shit and fucking move. I can find a place with a nicer commmute too.
Female. The reason I had her was she was freakishly huge and too big to breed so I got her at the pound. These are dogs bred to run along carriages and kill bandits. This is my 20s so she got plenty of exercise, which a 63 year old woman wouldn't be doing with her dogs. She cost me $20 bucks month and that was 'cause I bought the sightly higher quality dog food (having lost a cat to the cheap stuff).
Yes, you can spend a fortune on dogs if you want. But if you've just got a raft of them for protection/companionship their dirt cheap.
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RV != Trailer. If anything, RVs are even smaller and less suitable for a permanent residence than a typical trailer.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Right?
1.) Don't use FB.
2.) Unless you're obscenely rich, stay away from silicon valley and the Bay area.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
"I would like to opt out of Prop 13's protections against high property taxes in the future in exchange for a lower property tax today. Where do I sign up?"
At the same place I signed up to opt out of Social Security benefits in my old age in exchange for not paying FICA taxes today?
“a ceiling on rents reduces the quantity and quality of housing available.” [American Economic Review poll of economists, 93+% agreed]
Economists are virtually unanimous in concluding that rent controls are destructive. The agreement cuts across the usual political spectrum, ranging all the way from Nobel Prize winners Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek on the “right” to their fellow Nobel laureate Gunnar Myrdal, an important architect of the Swedish Labor Party’s welfare state, on the “left.”
Myrdal stated, “Rent control has in certain Western countries constituted, maybe, the worst example of poor planning by governments lacking courage and vision.”
His fellow Swedish economist (and socialist) Assar Lindbeck asserted, “In many cases rent control appears to be the most efficient technique presently known to destroy a city—except for bombing.”
[https://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/RentControl.html]
That's not how prop 13 works. New owners pay tax on full value, but valuations can only grow at 1%/year.
I've got six cars+ worth of garages because if I added 'livable space' it would trigger a revaluation. I kind of live in the workshop.
You don't have to speculate on how it works absent prop 13. Look at any of the high cost states on the east coast.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
And $5k is nothing if you have a family.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Just moving one vehicle can be $2500.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
That refutes nothing I said. And, just to correct you, you can move a household for less $5k. Let me google that for your lazy ass...
If hiring professional movers for a relocation, you can expect to pay at least $1,000. As mentioned above, the American Moving and Storage Association states that the average cost of a local household move is $2,300, and the average cost of a long distance move is $4,300
Just another day in Paradise
Pay the movers, and drive. I've shipped vehicles between Germany, U.S. and Korea for less.
Just another day in Paradise
The average cost to ship a car to Germany from the USA is between $900 to $1,300 per car
https://www.wcshipping.com/ger...
Just another day in Paradise
That's with no personal possessions. No pets, only one vehicle.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
And if you have a second vehicle? And the pets are being sent on the plane but someone needs to be at the other end for that and it is a five day drive?
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Basically the $5000 will cover a trip for you to come down to the city and have enough time for you to look for a suitable home. The move is on you. Whether a car costs $2500 or $1300 it's still a big portion of $5000.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
When I looked at UHaul it was almost as expensive per pound. Furthermore I wouldn't get a crew to load a truck for me.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Fire up the RV, drive somewhere other than Palo Alto, and find a job there.
You and others in this comment thread don't understand the question fully: so far as I know, here in California, there is a cap on how much you can increase someone's rent annually. What they're talking about here is more than 10 times what I understood was the limit. The only way you can get around that is by issuing a 30 day notice to force the tennant to leave, then setting the rent wherever you want for the next tennant. There's been news stories about that this past year, too, it's a real scumbag practice. So how in Redwood City, California, did they raise someone's rent by $1500 in the same year? Shouldn't be possible so far as I know.
You clearly can't read, so I'm done with you.
Just another day in Paradise
You didn't cite your reference, but you didn't say how many pounds of stuff $4300 will include.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
They're already living in an RV. It's not like they're living in the house their father built with his bare hands or anything.
A country is unstable if a significant population depends on having to rent a place to live. We need to relax the laws against building new housing units.
It might get solved with electric self driving RVs maybe? I mean work in Palo Alto and commute to Gilroy or some place like that? Who cares if it takes an hour .. self driving and costs nothing if you recharge via solar panels at your home (all new homes in CA from 2019 on are required to have solar panels).
In NYC, it's possible to do sudden large rent increases by several ways. One way is by proving that according to property value and rent history, the landlord could've legally been charging a much higher rent for years already but they had kept it low for market reasons. Another way is by claiming that the property is actually much more valuable than it had been previously valued by documentation of renovations or improvements. I suspect similar loopholes exist in the Bay Area of CA.
Upstate New York is beautiful, I was stationed there while in the Air Force and I would live in upstate New York in a second, if the state was not run by and for New York City only.
;)
The rest of the state is just a hostage of New York City.
Just my 2 cents
At first i thought that this article was about the working poor in Seattle. It rings true here with Amazon and other tech companies. I recently moved out of a homeless shelter and i knew at least 5 people who worked for the 'Zon and still couldn't afford a room to rent situation. It is kinda the reason i got out of tech and into food.
some people are a "glass half empty" some are "glass half full" i'm a "there is something in the glass be happy" person
Zoning laws in the Bay Area are so strict that affordable housing cannot be built anywhere near tech giant headquarters. Relax zoning, and you'll see the price of housing come done. But then, that would make all the current owners angry, so that won't happen.
When I finished school, I moved to where the jobs were, and to where I could afford to live. That was 700 miles, in my case. I owned only a car and a bean bag. I slept on a cheap air mattress in an inexpensive apartment. I wasn't upset about this, it was just temporary until I was able to earn enough money for something better.
These days, people don't want to move for a better standard of living. Instead, they feel entitled.
These poor RV dwellers have made a choice. They value the job or the location more than they value having a house in a less expensive part of the country. Why do the rest of us have to impose our values on them?
CA is the same. Run by and for LA and SF areas, with a bone thrown to San Diego once in a while.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
No, I am supporting the people who were already there. I'm also not saying the capitalists are expected to go away, just share fairly.
Spoken like a true temporarily embarrassed millionaire.
I wonder who they'll pin the blame on when there's a fire and all the firemen are gone because they were out-competed for a place to live?
Or when their cars are stolen and there's no police. Or even when the coffee shop is slow because there's no waitstaff.
The economy is supposed to serve people, not the other way around. The economy is not a being with rights, it's just a construct.
until they put them down. If you get a dog from a pound (which most poors do) that's still better then them being put down right then and there for overcrowding. And those poors don't see docs themselves until they're hurting bad, what makes you think their pets would?
This is sort of the problem, folks who come from middle class families don't consider what life is like when you don't. The idea of not taking your pet to a vet every year is nonsensical. Among the poor that's just how it is. Hell, if she gets to take her dog to a vet to be put down in it's old age she's doing a lot better than a lot of rural folks who do it with a bullet.
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