Palo Alto is a technology boom town with a per-capita income well over twice the average for California. But 93% of the homeless population end up sleeping outside or in their cars. Palo Alto has almost no shelter space, just 15 beds that rotate among city churches through a shelter program called Hotel de Zink. A 2013 census showed Santa Clara County having more than 7,000 homeless people, the fifth-highest homeless population per capita in the country and among the highest population of people in unsuitable shelters like vehicles.
The gentrification of the Bay Area has lead to a cascade of displacement of the region’s poor, working class, and ethnic and racial minorities. In San Francisco itself, currently the city with the most expensive housing market in the country, rents increased 13.5 percent in 2014 alone, leading more people to move to the middle-class suburbs. As real estate prices rise in places like Palo Alto, the middle class has begun to buy homes in the exurbs of the Central Valley, displacing farmworkers there.
Some people shrug and say “that’s the way of the world. Just get on your bike and move elsewhere”. As an Epicurean I would reply, “that’s not good enough”. The displaced people were likely born and grew up in that part of California. Why should they be forced to live in their cars? At the very least some community-aware techie boss could start a fund to build shelters and give something back to the rest of the community. I like the habit some Christian sects have of tithing their members, who apparently don’t mind parting with 10% of their income because others are doing the same. In just a few years the poor and dis-possessed would at least be being treated with dignity and decency. No, you can’t make the rich techies contribute, but you can make them feel uncomfortable about the way the treat their fellow men and women.
I’m sorry, but I don’t quite understand what you’re saying. Are you blaming the techies for being uncaring and selfish people? Or is it more that they are unaware of the fact that their presence drives up property prices. And more generally, if you are rich and you move into a poor area, are you morally obliged to help your neighbours? Also, should rich people stick to historically rich areas? It’s just there’s lots of evidence to suggest that income segregation is bad, and so rich people should move to places like Palo Alto.
What I am saying is that property prices are so high that ordinary people can’t afford to live in Palo Alto, people who, say have rented all their lives, are forced out by rising rents and have to live rough or in a car. There is apparently no mechanism to help them, and i think these very rich people (who have every right to live there, as have the poor) should be taxed locally to provide hostels; alternatively, they could simply chip in to help their fellow citizens.