from Hacker News

Largest Homeless Camp In US is in Silicon Valley

by jalanco on 8/31/13, 2:39 PM with 154 comments

• by TallGuyShort on 8/31/13, 4:09 PM

  I know my experience is entirely anecdotal, so even I take it with a grain of salt, but unbiased, verified data on this topic is hard to come by at a large scale. I spend between 10 - 20% of both my income and time working through a charitable organization, and since moving to Silicon Valley a couple of years ago, I have been disappointed to see that most of the people who I've worked with who have become homeless recently enough for me to know the circumstances well (or who have become homeless while I have known them), and most of the people who have had long-term welfare dependencies, have not shown any initiative or drive to seize opportunities. They have rejected job offers for silly reasons, they have soured their relationships with those willing to help them over silly issues, and they have in some cases outright rejected offers of assistance. Now, I don't say this to suggest that all homeless people deserve to live in camps like this, but I would like to suggest that the existence of homeless camps is not a sign that our society is beyond "common decency and civilization... so far beyond that it's obscene", as one commenter has described it. I don't doubt that there are many who are or who have been in those camps that had fallen on hard times and did not get a fair second chance - but likewise I personally know some who have simply been beyond help, and I don't know why. Clearly there are places that have more or less homelessness, so there must be some cause involved that may not be obvious - all I wish to say as that as a "hacker" in Silicon Valley, I have spent my efforts in this direction far enough that my wife asked me to cut back for the sake of our family - and I was simply unable to get most people to accept the help they needed. I am skeptical of suggestions that all that is needed is for the 1% to stop being so 1%-ish. (I apologize - I have made several small edits while organizing my thoughts that aren't convenient to label explicitly as edits...)

  edit: (Yes - another one) For the record, I agree with most of the suggestions that have been provided in responses. I think these are avenues worth further investment and exploration. My only point here is that it's not just a case of the 1% in Silicon Valley being selfish.

• by bowlofpetunias on 8/31/13, 3:56 PM

  For me, personally, this cancels out anything good about Silicon Valley. This is why I really don't give a crap why SV is such a great place for tech entrepreneurs. If this is the price, I rather live in a place where people have the decency to compromise their ambition a little bit in favor of those less fortunate.

  And I'm far from a socialist. I would like many things in my country to be way more libertarian, and on a personal level I'm as selfish as the next guy.

  But there's a line, a line of common decency and civilization, and this is so far beyond that it's obscene.

• by outside1234 on 8/31/13, 3:12 PM

  I don't want to downplay this because these conditions are terrible.

  But I once worked in India for 3 months, in Mumbai, and I can tell you that on a global scale, this is nothing.

  My commute in the morning consisted of driving, for 1 HOUR, through the largest slum in the world. 20 kilometers on a side big.

  So while its terrible that this exists in Silicon Valley, on a global scale we have much bigger problems.

  For me, that's the biggest reason I hope Bill Gates keeps on doing what he's doing.

• by davidf18 on 8/31/13, 4:27 PM

  The reason for the high cost of rent and of purchasing houses is because of "rent seeking" on the part of landholders who wish to keep land costs high by restricting land use. Fix the zoning codes and density restrictions which will diminish the artificial "rent seeking" and you'll see a corresponding increase in market efficiency and lowering of the cost of housing.

  For example, in Manhattan which is where I live, the number of people in Manhattan has decreased from 2.3 million to 1.6 million or 700,000 fewer citizens with a corresponding increase in the cost of living as there are far fewer apartments. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/30/opinion/gothams-towering-a...

• by smutticus on 8/31/13, 4:45 PM

  But god forbid we let people live in their cars. Or for that matter anything less than a single family ranch home.

  Housing costs are crazy in the bay area because people refuse to allow more dense housing. With the homeless problem the way it is in the bay area we should be doing everything to decrease the cost of rent. Instead municipalities do everything in their power to prevent more housing from being built.

  I don't see homelessness in the bay area as some kind of tragedy. I see it as a crime.

• by gdne on 8/31/13, 7:44 PM

  I've lived in SV for nearly 20 years. There's a reason that the homeless problem is as bad as it is here. It's not economics biased against the poor. It's not greedy landlords. It comes down to two things:

  First, SV has the economic ability to support a homeless population this large. If the homeless couldn't get basic necessities, they wouldn't be here. There are many reports that show panhandlers here can make $10-15 an hour. Highest anywhere in the world. SV people are extremely giving.

  The second reason? Weather. The weather is mild enough that people can live in makeshift shelters year round. With a huge population to provide all the necessities, there's no reason for them to leave SV.

  I have a friend who lives in Toronto. We got on the topic of homelessness and asked him how they deal with the homeless in Toronto. He said, "we have an amazing homeless abatement program here. It's called winter." If SV had snowy winters, there would be dramatically fewer homeless here.

• by justin_vanw on 8/31/13, 6:02 PM

  I don't know the answer to this question, but I feel like it's important from a social justice perspective:

  Where did the people in this camp originate from?

  I think putting people in the following statistical buckets would be enlightening:

  Locals:

  - Raised (attended k-12 schools) in Silicon Valley.

  Transplants who arrived healthy and able to survive:

  - Moved to the Valley to take a job, but were stranded when the job went away (no drug or alcohol additions pre job loss, no disabling psychiatric conditions pre job loss).

  - Moved to the Valley for other reasons, were stranded (again, no drug, alcohol, psychiatric causes to homelessness)

  Transplants who moved here because the conditions for transients are better here:

  - Moved to the Valley having previously been homeless.

  - Moved to the Valley, initially with a place to stay, but with substantial drug and alcohol abuse problems.

  - Moved to the Valley with substantial mental health issues that had previously caused chronic homelessness.

  There are probably much better ways to break this down, but hopefully that makes the idea clear.

  This is important because there is a huge moral difference in having great wealth and allowing people to fall into homelessness VS becoming a national hub that attracts homeless people because of better living conditions. Either way, having people live outside is not acceptable, but the solutions we might pursue are very different.

  If this is local-grown homelessness, it is our responsibility to address it and ensure that people aren't reduced to such conditions, regardless of what anyone from the outside contributes to the solution.

  If transients from across the country (or world) are concentrating here, it doesn't reduce the responsibility to address it, but it does mean that it is not our sole responsibility. The places that are exporting homelessness to us should be liable to help fix it here, otherwise they have a perverse financial incentive to put homeless people on a bus headed in any direction to make it someone else's problem. The more benefits we provide, the stronger the attraction will be to homeless people everywhere, which will only make the problem here more insurmountable.

• by jayferd on 8/31/13, 4:53 PM

  These look an awful lot like homes to be calling the people living in them "homeless". I wonder what it would look like if the city didn't keep bulldozing them?

• by realrocker on 8/31/13, 5:14 PM

  It looks very similar to the slums near my flat in Bangalore, albeit, ironically, richer.

  Edit: Similar in it's disarrayed outlook and temporary permanence.

• by mmagin on 8/31/13, 6:09 PM

  While I don't want to diminish how bad it may be for those actually living in this situation, it seems to me that the only big problems about this -- besides "poverty makes non-poor people feel guilty" are essentially safety and sanitation. In this setting, there is too much fire danger, too much danger of the spread of disease, and danger of violence from less stable individuals living in the area.

  Aside from that, it's basically like going camping -- except the density is too high to be safe.

  One could argue that basically we (society) are merely failing to provide them with proper water, sewer, police, etc. because they're not doing this on privately-owned land and not doing it in a manner conforming to building codes, etc.

  Instead we kick them off the land periodically, hoping that someone else will take care of the problem.

• by davidf18 on 8/31/13, 10:27 PM

  Many of those who are homeless, in jail, etc. have some sort of underlying mental illness for which they are self medicating with drugs and alcohol. Years ago these people were in hospitals but with the use of new medications and changes in policy they were able to live in some sort of assisted living facilities. These facilities would assist with medication and other support. Yet, when the hospitals were closed, the promised assisted living facilities by and large never materialized. The self-medicating mentally ill end up in jail as they sell drugs to sustain their drug habit.

• by frank_boyd on 8/31/13, 3:49 PM

  A wise guy once said "The American Dream, you'd have to be asleep to believe in it".

  Is this camp here one example of the "99%-ers' flip side" of the "American Dream"?

• by Kurtz79 on 8/31/13, 5:05 PM

  This is sad, I have arrived in the valley just a couple of days ago and I found striking the contrast between San Francisco, where there are literally hordes of homeless on the main streets, and the actual valley (Santa Clara, Sunnyvale, Mountain View...) with its idyllic single family homes in the middle of the trees, all clean and shiny.

  I wonder how many residents know about the existence of these camps ?

  I guess it's easy to forget that poverty exists if it's not screaming at you in the face.

• by shire on 8/31/13, 4:27 PM

  It takes one person to make a difference it's just sad people in Silicon Valley can't contribute together to fix this particular problem.

• by nazgulnarsil on 8/31/13, 8:50 PM

  If you are unknowledgeable about economics/incentive structures you really should try not to get so angry when your outraged intuitive solutions get shot down. I understand that moral intuitions tell your brain to get angry when they are violated, but you should take it as an opportunity to educate yourself. Casting your opponents as some sort of immoral monsters is not constructive.

• by solnyshok on 9/1/13, 10:26 AM

  Looking at the map of homeless camps in the Silicon Valley, one might come to the conclusion, that Adobe is the root cause of all evil that ever came out of SV. http://tinyurl.com/oqnzxnm

• by unono on 8/31/13, 4:55 PM

  There's an easy solution to this - electric robo-cars. With self-driving cars that can roam around, and thus not violate city ordinances against parking, there would be no homeless. Electric charging is fairly cheap and the city could even pay it for those deemed destitute.

  A robo-car with shower, kitchenette, bedroom would radically transform the situation for poor people worldwide.

• by pastaking on 8/31/13, 4:54 PM

  Does it surprise anyone that Troy the carpenter did not know how to spell? Pic: http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/5204f8736bb3f7b3300...

• by beefman on 8/31/13, 5:31 PM

  Largest by acreage?

• by michaelochurch on 8/31/13, 7:16 PM

  Dear Californian elites,

  It's time to talk about something you don't believe can happen to you, and that's urban decay. It has many causes, plenty more proximate than this one, but the first is the economic stickiness (technical term) of housing prices. People don't sell in a down market. They hoard. This price:liquidity correlation is toxic. Creating new housing (which requires regulatory change) is the only way.

  If you don't take care of the poverty caused by the high housing prices, if you laugh it off as "not our problem", your city will not reach maturity but fall into urban decay and it will take decades for your municipality to recover both from the physical damage and disenfranchisement, but also from the damage to reputation.

  Sincerely,

  Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, D.C., Minneapolis, Atlanta, et al.