For years, the prices are on the rise in Silicon Valley. The Rents are skyrocketing. Many can no longer afford it. They are homeless, living in tents, in campers.
Liz is originally from New York. More than 30 years ago, you came here to the West coast. She is 57. Your home is a tent in Roosevelt Park, right in the middle of one of the poorer neighborhoods of San José. It is Thursday afternoon, the last two weeks it has rained a lot, everything is muddy, the ground is as soft as wax. This is unusual for the sun-drenched Silicon Valley.
“I have not always lived so,” says Liz. “I had a Job, a car, my kids and a house. And then I crashed. I was able to pay neither house nor car loan.” And suddenly, she had landed here, in Roosevelt Park.
Similar tent cities, there are also in Berkeley.
The Roosevelt Park: A settlement for the homeless
Maybe 30 tents here. Close to the river, under the trees, on the other side of the Park is a children’s Playground and a Halfpipe for skaters. The homeless in their blue and green tents will stay in sight, close to the brown, very dirty looking stream, with the name of Coyote Creek. Liz lives for the past eleven years here.
“My tent looks pretty nasty,” she says, but it was her house. Be over the dogs. You don’t want people to think that she wanted to live this. “For the first Time in the tent where I was camping, I would never have thought that I would live like that. I don’t enjoy it.”
women are in this tent city in the majority. Most of the homeless people living in the so-called jungle, a few kilometers further. In the case of Liz and her roommates in Roosevelt Park, it’s quiet. Between the tents, it looks tidy. Tent neighbor, Darleen at just a small stone garden.
The Rent in the Silicon Valley to explode
she’s here for the rent. “I lived in a room, for eleven years,” says Darleen. “After the rent was increased for the fourth Time, I could not keep up.” They had three children. Now your whole family was dead. “I’m alone.”
The tent of Darleen is cleaned up: a gas cooker in the middle, black plastic boxes with cooking utensils, an air mattress and a wool blanket. In addition, empty beer cans.
Andrea Primordial wants to help people like Liz or Darlene. She directs in San Jose “Home First”, a non-profit organization that brings people out of homelessness. “Home First” operates seven facilities throughout the County. The organization has 160 employees.
The number of homeless people in the Silicon Valley has been increasing for years.
shelters reach their limits
Primordial says the organization is on three areas: “Emergency accommodation, transitional housing and support services – in particular for war veterans, individual cases and other things.”
250 beds in the emergency shelter each night. They are almost always booked, told Primordial. A bunk bed fits next to the other. During the day, only allowed to stay in their beds, the sick or frail. All others must leave by 9 o’clock in the morning the property.
“Here are the women and behind the men sleep in this room we bring the world war II veterans. This is our computer room: The homeless, where they can communicate with their Relatives, according to the Jobs search, or NPR, the public broadcasting service.”
San José is at the forefront of homelessness in the Bay Area. It has risen by more than 40 percent in the past two years. 6200 people in the city are now homeless.
Tech companies are driving the prices
There are people who worked at a Tech company and her Job lost, or people with a disability, who can no longer pay their rent. Single mothers are, the two Jobs have, tell Primordial. You worked at McDonalds and Starbucks and not earned it enough. A one-room apartment costs in San José average of 2400 euros. “And if you can ask for as a landlord but even more, let’s say 2600 euros – well, what do you do then?” asks Primordial.
“Home First” is trying to combat the homelessness, before the people lose their roof over the head. The organization shall assume the rental or participates in it. The search engine company Google wants to build in San José, a second corporate headquarters. Many citizens fear that then everything will be even more expensive, and people in low-paid Jobs and then have to move. That would be a big mistake for the city and the County, says Primordial, because of the diversity of San José would be lost.
San José has the most homeless people in the Silicon Valley.
“We don’t make it easy to build new and affordable housing,” she complains. “A lot of people shy away from social housing. So, you can’t just earn a lot of money.” There were only a few that were ready and would have to support your organization. “We have to hurry.”
The RV is not the luxury variant of the homelessness
Who lives in a tent or on the street or in the car spends the night in the motorhome. This is the luxury variant of the homelessness. In Silicon Valley you can see the campers in many areas, at the roadside stand. In rich communities like Mountain View, Menlo Park or Palo Alto. Tracey is 62, she moves voluntarily from the fixed housing in a mobile home. She is a journalist and will soon be in retirement. She works at a Local newspaper. She proudly shows her white Ford Transit, with her savings bought. It is a mobile home.
“I bought a small van and for a lot of money modifying,” she says. Because when you retire, you can afford otherwise there is no life more in addition to the rent.
