Posted on 11/06/2017 6:11:56 AM PST by Mariner
SEATTLE (AP) — Housing prices are soaring here thanks to the tech industry, but the boom comes with a consequence: A surge in homelessness marked by 400 unauthorized tent camps in parks, under bridges, on freeway medians and along busy sidewalks. The liberal city is trying to figure out what to do.
"I've got economically zero unemployment in my city, and I've got thousands of homeless people that actually are working and just can't afford housing," said Seattle City Councilman Mike O'Brien. "There's nowhere for these folks to move to."
That struggle is not Seattle's alone. A homeless crisis is rocking the entire West Coast, pushing abject poverty into the open like never before.
As the West Coast’s economy booms and more people move to the area, the number of homeless people has spiked to crisis levels. The Associated Press found that the number of homeless people is now 168,000 in California, Oregon and Washington.
Public health is at risk, several cities have declared states of emergency, and cities and counties are spending millions — in some cases billions — in a search for solutions.
San Diego now scrubs its sidewalks with bleach to counter a deadly hepatitis A outbreak. In Anaheim, 400 people sleep along a bike path in the shadow of Angel Stadium. Organizers in Portland lit incense at an outdoor food festival
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
That’s reserved for the black privileged and recently arrived refugee/illegal alien.
Cost of living in California is high and not every joe blow or jane doe graduating from College with a tech degree can get a job that pays $125k/year. $125k/year requires double income families and paying for child daycare.
Prices are high because they can fill the apartments up with people that can seemingly afford it.
Bring back trailer parks
Most trailer parks have been shut down do to cost of land
As land price skyrocket, most of the trailer parks been sold off
Just returned to Massachusetts after a family reunion in Orange County...
All I can say is YIKES!
I saw the tent city in Anaheim. Disgusting!
Funny how all of these homeless problems reside in UBER CRAZY (LIBERAL) cities...
p.s.
Stop feeding the seagulls and they will leave.
“$1,600 a month will pay for an apartment in most of SoCal”
With a room mate you’ll even have enough for groceries.
And, a studio can be had for less.
Consider this. The national foreclosure rate is approx 1 in every 2000 mortgaged homes. Loss of job and medical events are primary cause. So 168000 homeless on the West Coast doesn’t add up. I would expect millions.
“Working and cannot afford housing is not the same as mentally ill.”
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Yup. There is a legitimate concern for what used to be called the “working poor”.
“I would suggest changing the bureaucratic rules for housing and the heavy taxes on companies which build housing might free up some extra places.”
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Not a bad idea.
“But that also might mean the yuppies have to live close to where their servants live.
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Ewww. Poor techno-yuppies. But they could commiserate the injustice of that over their 10 dollar a cup candy-flavored coffee.
“And there’s no shortage of full time, minimum wage jobs anywhere on the West Coast.”
Minimum wage was never created to afford a family lifestyle. It was there to set a standard for the high school kids that wrap your business packages at Christmas, shovel snow, or mow your lawns during the hot times. It is a way for youth to make money to buy bicycles, comic books, and clothes if enough is made. It was never designed to support people.
The problem is that there are forces in the system that are trying to re-create the level of minimum wage because it is being used as an entry level amount for people entering the employment world. So instead of leaving minimum alone and creating an entry level wage, they are using it for both.And it isn’t enough. But it way too much to categorize everyone into an entry level need with minimum requirements so it punishes the employee and employer for opposite reasons.
The employers have to charge more for their service or product to pay for the increase. The cost will cause everyone to go higher to afford it. And the domino effect will leave the minimum wage employee out on the street as the employers can’t afford to pay them. They lose their jobs, the higher scaled employees have to do the minimums job for no, or little pay, the price goes up a little and the country inflates more. Up goes the debt. A vicious circle.
rwood
It will be millions just in time for the 2020 elections. This is just to establish a baseline.
The local Salvation Army has free meals every evening and some lunches where services agencies are there to help anyone who needs it. You cannot avail yourself of these services if you are using.
They even have a room for men awaiting treatment to stay, but again you cannot stay there if you are using.
Everyone makes their own choices.
They all live on City Government property and they city refuses to do anything about it with the exception of every couple months posting notices and then going in and providing cleaning service. Within hours everyone is back at it. Our city is their partner in maintaining homelessness.
Due to various USSC rulings, there effectively are no vagrancy laws any more.
“We have tons of them in Lodi CA.”
I drove from Sacramento to Modesto and back yesterday.
I saw at least 1,000 tents. Or make-shift tents.
All close to the downtowns where the services are.
These folks CHOOSE to live this way. It’s a lifestyle.
The lifestyle of the drunk and crazy.
” there effectively are no vagrancy laws any more”
There are still public health and zoning laws.
Besides, all you have to do is break the law once: Raid the tent city, burn all possessions as a legit health hazard, book everyone into the county jail and release them the next morning.
They will find a different city to squat.
Most cities suffer geographic limitations: they just can’t get any bigger.
While places like Atlanta can sprawl endlessly, West Coast cities have a hard limit of coastline & mountains. Result is, inevitably, that a growing number of people competing for a strictly limited number of square feet drive housing prices sky-high fast. Leftists, forever disconnected from reality, fail to grasp this objective reality and think they can create more space by legislating lower prices for real estate and higher prices for hourly wages.
[googles furiously]
Seattle has a total of 3316 sq ft per person. Total. That includes roads, office space, unusable surfaces, everything.
San Francisco is under half that, with 1504 sq ft per person.
In contrast, geographically-unlimited Atlanta has 7905 sq ft per person, and the whole land area of Earth works out to 210,942 sq ft per person (just under 5 acres each, and falling).
And more people keep wanting to move into Seattle & SF. A mere 10% population increase is a big hit on current occupants, only willing to give up some of their space in exchange for a big stack of money.
So yeah, homelessness will be a problem in those places. There just isn’t room for everyone who wants to be there; if you can’t pay a steep price to reserve a spot, best solution is a ticket to somewhere with a lot more space available.
The cops here in LA have no way to get these guys off the streets. And the cops around here are thoroughly frustrated. Right next to the freeways there are so many it’s like living in a third world. There has never been this public acceptance for massive feral living before. Lots of charities popping up to MAKE LIFE EASIER ON THE STREETS. Hats for the homeless,etc. I refuse to give. Life on the streets should be IMPOSSIBLE. Where it is against the law, in places where they throw them out of the municipality, there is (wait for the utter shock) NO HOMELESSNESS.
I’d not buy a home in any other place.
My son at college is in a studio for $900 in a rough-ish part of town. It is pretty pricy for the young students these days.
I've been waiting for the articles on the homeless. Its like waiting for the the hummingbirds in spring they always arrive after a new Republican administration has been in office long enough to blame for the problem.
“These folks CHOOSE to live this way. It’s a lifestyle.”
Being of a minimalist mindset, fond of camping, and currently overwhelmed with family’s accumulation of clutter, I can see some people choosing to live out of a backpack in a high-wage area - either just out of simplicity, or as means to sock away cash before moving to a more space-dependent lifestyle. Lots of services available (grocery, gym, laundry), plus practically zero overhead, plus ultralight survival & technology gear, make it a viable lifestyle - for the sane & adventurous, and the drunk & crazy, alike.
Exactly. Blaming tech (read “corporations”) is a red herring.
The truth is not in the ignorant AP authors’ words, but buried in these words here:
“I’ve got economically zero unemployment in my city, and I’ve got thousands of homeless people that actually are working and just can’t afford housing,” said Seattle City Councilman Mike O’Brien.
Let the Mayor lead the way and see how the tune changes...
What do you expect when you cut off the legs of the employment ladder with $15 minimum wage?
Terrible situation, I see ‘tent’ towns starting to pop up in Santa Rosa :(
The liberal loons running the town are now talking about imposing rent control.
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