Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2016/08/04/residents-of-silicon-valley-ho.html
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This is kind of frightening, because they used to say the homeless were people who got kicked out of mental facilities, but these guys sound lucid and focused. And we can’t blame the economy any more - hiring is up all over. This is more like a permanent Hooverville. I can’t imagine the Powers allowing it.
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Of course, since the US is a market economy, (that is, since demand is increasing and supply is decreasing) wages are going up, right?
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Housing prices rising faster than inflation doesn’t help either.
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"A group called the Coyote Creek Homeless Stream Stewards have begun " should be "A group called the Coyote Creek Homeless Stream Stewards HAS begun "
Basic stuff, Cory.
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Homelessness and unemployment are not always linked. There’s also other reasons people can’t get housing, like not being able to come up with a deposit on rent, bad rent history, or affordable housing being too far from work opportunities .
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Let’s not start another “Commonwealth English vs American English” argument, they are a complete waste of time.
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How would this be distinct from a shanty town?
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It wouldnt be. Shanty towns are what you get when you don’t fix a problem. We don’t want to fix the problems, and people want a bandaid for right now.
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I don’t know the specifics of the people here, but I think you do need some kind of stick.
This being Silicone Valley there are lots of well paid young people but very high rents. Why spend half your salary on rent when you could thrown up a “Tiny Home” and save it all? If you don’t want that happening you need to forcefully stop it 23 year olds’ will happily put up with that sort of thing (especially if food/showers are available at work).
There might just possibly exist a smaller stick than homelessness.
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I go jogging through downtown San Jose regularly, as well as through areas of Willow Glen, Campbell and Los Gatos, on the creek trails. Anecdotally, I would say that the number of what appear to be homeless persons is on the rise, and they are not always what I am used to seeing. There seems to be more people who what I’ve called in my mind newly homeless. Characteristics of this include cleaner and less worn-through clothes/bags/backpacks, more awareness of their surroundings or more deliberate movement or action, less sun-scarred faces or skin, and other such details. I’m fairly well convinced they are homeless because they generally have a fairly heavy load of bags filled with their stuff while still searching through a trash can for recyclables. Again, it seems that I’m seeing more of that lately, over the last year or so.
I would not say that these are young, employed Silicon Valley types that are just trying to escape paying high rents.
At the end of June, KQED’s Forum radio program had three guests that were homeless in SF or the bay area, and they told their stories. It’s an eye opening piece, hearing about the different ways people become homeless, and how they cope. Recommended listen.
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I recall seeing a small tent city along the Guadalupe river in San Jose, right next to the Target there when I was working out that way. Would see it pretty frequently out on runs of the area, and it looked like people with decent camping gear, well dressed with a really clean campsite. I actually wondered if they were tech workers!
It doesn’t shock me with housing being what it is that there’s a much larger tent city comprised of fairly normal folks nearby.
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It’s a good thing there’s always somebody around to tell us the homeless are actually well off and don’t need any help.
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Historically, after Reagan emptied the mental institutions, that was true of the chronically homeless in the area. Now it’s that group, people with substance abuse issues or criminal records, people who got sick or injured at some point, the unemployed, people with minimum (or even just low) wage or part-time jobs, college students…
I really, really hope they don’t allow tent cities along waterways - even if the amount of garbage being produced by the homeless wasn’t many times greater than what’s being picked up (which it is), it’s ecologically sensitive greenspace that shouldn’t have people living on it. The city, however, has become far more amenable to the idea of a tent city, something that a decade ago they wouldn’t have considered because of liability issues. Spaces for proper tiny houses would be a better solution that seems more doable, too.
No, it won’t happen and here’s why: The city would in effect being subsidizing the development of a new city within it’s own limits, with its own rules and regulations. It would also be legitimizing complaints that the municipality doesn’t do enough to help the less fortunate.
And of course, it would also be acknowledging the problem of homelessness, thus obligating the city to do something about it.
Is hiring up all over, though? Last time I checked, hostess just closed most of their plants after automating one, going from 40 thousand+ workers to 2k.
And the growth in employment in the US was discovered to be mostly temporary/part time positions.
I’m pretty sure the articles are here on boingboing, too.
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It is an unrealistic request, ultimately. Setting up a permanent or semi-permanent structure on public land sets a precedent that it is no longer public. It also does, yes, establish some sort of “cheap” alternative – how does one “qualify” to be homeless to get these legal protections? Must they register in order to establish a legit tent city, or semi-permanent space?
Dude, that’s not because Twinkies are out of style. Everybody loves Twinkies. It’s because Mitt Romney bought them and crushed their union.
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In High School I wrote a short story called “Day and Night”. Basically cities were so over populated that people lived and worked in shifts. Everyone had to share houses and jobs, so the day people went to work, came home, and at the end of their shift were locked into their rooms, and then the night people lived in the house and went to work, etc. There was like a 4hr overlap where they might meet each other and it had a horrible story about forbidden love been a “dayer” and “nighter”.
Anyway, house sharing in shifts. Just saying…
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