In Google's hometown, some residents are living on the streets in RVs

[zenkai]

Source

There’s a housing crisis in one of the most affluent areas in the country. To make it even more shocking, it's at the doorstep of one of the world's most valuable companies: Google.

In Mountain View, Calif., home to Google and its parent Alphabet, housing and homelessness is rampant enough that the city is taking action.

Earlier this year, the Mountain View City Council voted to ban oversized vehicles, such as recreational vehicles (RVs), from parking overnight on city streets. This is expected to be enforced in the coming months.

Hundreds of people live in RVs in Mountain View because of exorbitant rents, according to the City. “The concentration of recreational vehicles has been a particularly visible sign of this issue,” a speaker for the city said at a March 19 meeting.

The median rent in Mountain View is now $4,151 a month, according to a report from Bloomberg. That’s almost twice what it was in 2010 and almost triple the national average, the report said, citing data from online real estate company Trulia. The median home value is $1.8 million more than double the $750,000 it was 10 years ago, Bloomberg reported, using data from Zillow.

At the March city council meeting, Mountain View residents and vehicle dwellers talked about the paradox of living in poverty in a place that is home to big tech and the mega-rich.

“I do not want to live in a town where the only people that can afford to be here are very, very rich techies and very, very old retirees like myself,” said one resident during the comment session.

“It’s not a secret that rent is very, very expensive here,” said a student who lived in a car at the meeting.
RVs sit parked on a street across from Google headquarters on May 22, 2019 in Mountain View, California. As the price of rent continues to skyrocket in the San Francisco Bay Area, a number of RVs have appeared on the streets near the Google headquarters in Mountain View.

RVs sit parked on a street across from Google headquarters on May 22, 2019 in Mountain View, California. As the price of rent continues to skyrocket in the San Francisco Bay Area, a number of RVs have appeared on the streets near the Google headquarters in Mountain View. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

“I originally lived in an apartment but due to rent increases I was unable to afford that apartment,” said another student who had lived in their car.

Civil rights attorneys say the proposed ban appears to be designed to push poor residents out of the city, according to a report in the Mountain View Voice. If passed, Mountain View would be “skirting its responsibility to provide for its most vulnerable citizens,” the report said, paraphrasing a comment from a local attorney.

The most recent count done by the Mountain View police department cited 290 vehicles used for living.

The city has taken measures to correct the issue, but so far, they don’t seem to be having much of an impact. “The magnitude of the regional housing crisis and the complexities of homelessness have resulted in the needle not moving much in reducing the inhabited vehicles seen on Mountain View streets,” a speaker for the city said at the March 19 meeting.

RVs parked long term in the street can also create a pollution problem, such as illegal dumping of raw sewage. Recent Mountain View ordinances would make it illegal to discharge domestic sewage into a curbside gutter or storm sewer.

Fox News has reached out to the Mountain View City Council with a request for comment.

4k for rent? Holy shit... How do manage to keep low income people in the city for low skilled jobs? People must have 8 roommates or something lol

[Exeris]

4k for rent? Holy shit... How do manage to keep low income people in the city for low skilled jobs? People must have 8 roommates or something lol

I live in one of the most expensive countries in the world and the highest monthly rent cost I could find was 2 731,84$ for a 5 room apartment at a prime location in our capital city.

When I see Americans post prices they are usually about half of what we are used to, 4000$ is shocking number.

[Socialhealer]

what do you expect? most people living there probably work at google making minimum 6 figures and in some cases 7.

you don't work at google? tough shit that company is making more money than probably every other building with 20 miles combined, people will want to live nearby driving house/rent prices through the roof.

[Afrospinach]

Time to bust out the chieftain.

You could live virtually anywhere you want if you owned property there lol.

[Dellis0991]

4000 a month for rent?! God damn that's high as shit!

[Jingoism]

Call me crazy, but what if they moved to somewhere more affordable?

It would be a smart move. Most people resist leaving the familiar though, even in a bad situation.

[Dellis0991]

Call me crazy, but what if they moved to somewhere more affordable?

^Yeah I'll do that if I was in that predicament. I understand the area has changed but holy shit that is kind of sickening.

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It would be a smart move. Most people resist leaving the familiar though, even in a bad situation.

That would be a good time to convince them to do the same because sooner or later it could be them too ending up in a situation where the cost isn't worth it.

[Zantos]

Call me crazy, but what if they moved to somewhere more affordable?

Not that easy. If they can't find work elsewhere or get the money up to actually facilitate a move, then they are stuck. I've been in similar situations where I needed to move, but at the same couldn't swing it because it took every dime I had just to stay afloat and not be homeless. It sucks but thats the reality.

Those prices are crazy. Should be a law against prices being able to skyrocket so high.

[Daedius]

Move to a poor country, then be considered rich!

[Anastacy]

Not that easy. If they can't find work elsewhere or get the money up to actually facilitate a move, then they are stuck. I've been in similar situations where I needed to move, but at the same couldn't swing it because it took every dime I had just to stay afloat and not be homeless. It sucks but thats the reality.

Those prices are crazy. Should be a law against prices being able to skyrocket so high.

This here is likely a huge (and sometimes the only) factor for many people.

I’m moving states soon, and it’s mostly due to me not having to pay rent for the first few months (maybe even years) after I move.

[Unholyground]

Shit my mortgage is 540CAD a month and it is a 5 bedroom 2 story home and was new when I bought it.

[Phookah]

Gentrification is a bitch.

[Spectral]

Silicon Valley and SoCal are both dystopian hellholes in my experience. Of course, they have some nice features from the perspective of a visitor or someone that's hit it big in software or another industry, but I really don't see the appeal for someone in a normal, middle-class career path. Mid-size Midwestern cities are better in pretty much every way from a livability perspective.

[Nnyco]

If only there was a way to move into a more affordable location.

[exochaft]

Is this $4000/month for renting an apartment or a house? If it's a house, $4000/month isn't that strange, as you'd at least roll in the cost of the mortage and property taxes/utilities/whatever you want into the agreement. Just throwing out a number, but that might cover houses in the $600k-700k range, or at least put a big dent in their cost. If you split a house into a duplex (they might even be duplexes already), that's approaching $1.5 mil. Article says median is $1.8 mil in the area, so it makes some sense if this was the case.

If we're talking just apartments, that is getting pretty expensive. However, that's the way things work: if there's a high demand for something that's pretty exclusive, the price is going to shoot up. The RV and mobile home businesses will reap the benefits, and this is the result of people finding a solution to their housing problem. It sucks, but you can move to another area or another state if the cost of living is that ridiculous, or wait it out to see if things normalize (although with Google right there, the chances are pretty low).

Last part of the article did remind me of National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation when talking about illegal dumping of sewage from RVs, though, gave me a chuckle.

[nymphetsss]

I've debated renting out my house and living in my RV, its paid for already. I paid less than 20,000. Financially it makes decent sense, I have power/water/toilet/shower/queen size bed etc

[Shelly]

Yep, those are crazy prices. But that's the price of living in overpopulated hub.

Motorhomes and caravans are quite good. They have almost everything: kitchen, bathroom, shower, heating. If your job allows you to work remotely, you can move around, work from wherever you want.

They are becoming more and more popular. Number of purchases increase every year. Here is article from Welt that has some statistics: https://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/artic...e.onsitesearch



Its a really good alternative to living in massively overpriced city.

They should be a popular choice for people to vacation in.

They are a terrible choice to live in.

RVs, 5th wheel trailers and motor-homes are NOT built to be lived in constantly and are basically worthless within a few years of year-round living.

There are some areas where they can make it a bit longer, but RV living is homelessness.

[Ragu4]

Tired of California refugees coming to Texas though. They're keeping their pay and moving here, driving up the costs of everything. Now I'm moving from my $1,100 a month box into a small room in a house for $600 a month.

[Enthusiastic Steward]

This is a combination of things. Mountain View is one of the nicer cities in the Bay Area, there are cheaper places to live (though not by much). This article is a little misleading when talking about people living on the streets and in RVs because it frames it around Mountain View specifically when this is a rampant problem throughout the Bay because housing costs are so high.

The big part of the problem is there are software engineers coming in starting at $200k. You find yourself a roommate in the same field and your household income is $400k so you can afford the expensive apartments. So landlords know they can get that much so they charge more. If you're not in tech, then you're stuck looking for cheap or subsidized housing in rougher neighborhoods that are pockmarked all over the place as segregated as possible. (Palo Alto went so far as to split the city, creating East Palo Alto for the lower income families.)

It's also why you've got bus drivers in SF making $80k a year which is a hell of a lot for a bus driver but the only way you'd have anyone doing it when everything is so expensive. And also why I had co-workers who commuted to Santa Clara from Sacramento, a two hour drive in moderate traffic, because it was the closest they could afford the type of house and lifestyle they wanted for their families and still have their children going to decent schools.

[PC2]

They are near a shallow bay. Would it be possible to make new land by adding dirt?