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takyon writes:

It's hard out there for a Portlander:

With no laws mandating caps on yearly rent increases in Oregon, which for three years has been US's top moving destination, homelessness is increasing.

A city of bridges, Portland is full of places where people who are homeless can find dry, covered shelter from the Pacific North-west downpour. But lately, Portland is facing a housing crisis of a different sort as shelter for the homeless has become anything but discreet. New communities of vinyl pop tents and makeshift camps have been popping up everywhere, with many spilling out into city parks.

As a quick fix to address the prevalence of homelessness, Mayor Charlie Hales announced a plan this week to manage "camping" throughout the city for safe sleeping. Homeless will now be allowed to sleep overnight on sidewalks, with a sleeping bag and a tarp, while tents will be acceptable in certain areas from 9pm to 7am. Up to 10 city-sanctioned campsites with a couple hundred disaster-relief pods will be established through nonprofit service providers. Cars and RVs for homeless to camp in will be permitted in designated areas, such as church parking lots, and at least three or four spaces for more temporary shelter are being located. Though largely experimental, the plan has been given a six month trial run. But as a strategy, it's markedly different from other west coast cities, who have been adopting a strategy of clearing out visible homeless camps in recent years.

[...] Portland saw rents appreciate nearly 15% in 2015 – the highest increase in the nation – with an average rent of $1,689 per month, according to real estate company Zillow. Five years ago, it was around $980. And rents are only trending upwards. Zillow is forecasting that Portland will be among the nation's top six rental appreciations. Apart from Denver and Buffalo, the other cities are all on the west coast: San Francisco, Seattle, and San Jose. The forces driving Portland's rents are far from few. The city has a less than 3% vacancy rate. Meanwhile, the Portland Housing Bureau said 85% of all rental units currently being built are luxury.

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

Last month, the story of a 25-year-old man who's living inside a plywood box parked in his friend's living room became the latest installment in San Francisco's crazy housing market.

In a city where the average rent for a one-bedroom apartment is currently $3,590, Peter Berkowitz's tale of paying only $400 a month in rent and squeezing into some 32-square-feet of space became the stuff of legend. 

"It fits all my needs where I have a private, sound-proof place where I can keep my belongings," Berkowitz said in an interview with SFGate. "I'm saving thousands of dollars a year. It's a solution that works for me. I don't want to spend so much money on rent."

After media outlets across the country covered the story and the London Guardian ran an editorial by Berkowitz, he began hearing from people who wanted to live in similar humble, inexpensive accommodations. Berkowitz announced in a story on Hoodline this week that he would begin selling custom pods.

Those plans were quickly stopped by the San Francisco's chief housing inspector Rosemary Bosque who told Hoodline that "pods are illegal and a violation of housing, building, and fire safety codes."

"He would have to completely open it up or look at something different, such as a bed with a frame, with curtains, something that was open to the room," Bosque said in the Hoodline interview. "This would be the case for anywhere in the country with respect to building and inhabitability codes."

Thinking outside the box is verboten (forbidden).

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

California's Central Valley is best known for supplying nearly 25% of the country's food, including 40% of the fruit and nuts consumed each year. Yet today, backcountry places such as Patterson, population 22,000, are experiencing an increase in homelessness that can be traced, in part, to an unlikely sounding source: Silicon Valley.

The million-dollar home prices about 85 miles west, in San Francisco and San Jose, have pushed aspiring homeowners to look inland. Patterson's population has doubled since the 2000 census. Average monthly rents have climbed from about $900 in 2014 to nearly $1,600 in recent months, according to the apartment database Rent Jungle, compounding the hardships of the foreclosure crisis, the shuttering of several local agricultural businesses and surging substance abuse rates.

"The rents in Patterson are crazy," said Romelia Wiley, program manager of the local not-for-profit organization Community Housing & Shelter Services. "Why? I-5."

The freeway offers commuters access to high-paying job centers near the coast, and the number of people commuting to the Bay Area from the portion of the Central Valley that includes Patterson more than doubled between 1990 and 2013, to about 65,000 people, or at least 15% of the local workforce, according to an analysis by the University of the Pacific.

Why don't they build up instead of out?

Original Submission

takyon writes:

5 shuttle buses chartered by Google, Apple apparently vandalized on I-280, possibly with pellet gun

Shuttle buses carrying Apple and Google employees were apparently vandalized Tuesday while traveling to and from the South Bay, officials said. No injuries were reported.

Five buses driving in the northbound and southbound directions of Interstate 280 between Highway 84 and Highway 85 were damaged during the Tuesday morning and evening commute, said California Highway Patrol Officer Art Montiel. Four buses were chartered by Apple and one by Google, the officer said. The Apple campus is located off I-280 in Cupertino. Google headquarters is in Mountain View off Highway 101.

According to Montiel, several bus windows were damaged and cracked, possibly by pellet guns, BB guns or rocks.

According to an article on TechCrunch

In response, we've learned that Apple has rerouted the bus routes for employees living in San Francisco, adding 30-45 minutes of commute time each way, as the company works with authorities to see what exactly is going on.

Also at The Guardian.

Original Submission

requerdanos writes:

The Seattle Times reports:

SAN FRANCISCO -- [At] Souvla, a Greek restaurant with a devoted following... there are no servers to wait on you here, or at the two other San Francisco locations that Souvla has added — or, increasingly, at other popular restaurants that have opened in the past two years.
[...]
Commercial rents have gone up. Labor costs have soared. And restaurant workers, many of them priced out by the expense of housing, have been moving away. Restaurateurs who say they can no longer find or afford servers are figuring out how to do without them. And so in this city of staggering wealth, you can eat like a gourmand, with real stemware and ceramic plates. But first, you’ll have to go get your silverware.
[...]
On July 1, the minimum wage in San Francisco [was increased to] $15 an hour, [and the city] requires employers with at least 20 workers to pay health-care costs... in addition to paid sick leave and parental leave.

Despite those benefits, many workers say they can’t afford to live here or to stay in the industry. And partly as a result of those benefits, restaurateurs say they can’t afford the workers who remain. A dishwasher can now make $18 or $19 an hour. And because of California labor laws, even tipped workers like servers earn at least the full minimum wage, unlike their peers in most other states.

The TL;DR might be summed up as "San Francisco, one of the first places to see a $15 an hour minimum wage, is reaping the rewards of the progress. By pricing low-wage workers right out of their jobs."

Original Submission

takyon writes:

In San Francisco, Making a Living From Your Billionaire Neighbor's Trash

Three blocks from Mark Zuckerberg's $10 million Tudor home in San Francisco, Jake Orta lives in a small, single-window studio apartment filled with trash.

There's a child's pink bicycle helmet that Mr. Orta dug out from the garbage bin across the street from Mr. Zuckerberg's house. And a vacuum cleaner, a hair dryer, a coffee machine — all in working condition — and a pile of clothes that he carried home in a Whole Foods paper bag retrieved from Mr. Zuckerberg's bin.

A military veteran who fell into homelessness and now lives in government subsidized housing, Mr. Orta is a full-time trash picker, part of an underground economy in San Francisco of people who work the sidewalks in front of multimillion-dollar homes, rummaging for things they can sell.

One Zuck's trash is another man's "like new".

Original Submission

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow0152

It looked like yet another weird symptom of San Francisco tech culture: a cluster of people sitting on the side of a road, working at desks placed within the boundaries of a parking space.

But WePark—a project led by San Francisco-based web developer Victor Pontis—was actually a manifestation of an idea that has become more popular in the last few years: Cities use space inefficiently and prioritize cars over people. The people at the desks were attempting to reclaim a sliver of space for human use. "Car parking squanders space that can be used for the public good—bike lanes, larger sidewalks, retail, cafes, more housing," Pontis said. "Let's use city streets for people, not cars." (There are also WePark franchises in France as well as Santa Monica.)

Pontis said he got the idea from a Twitter exchange in which Github's Devon Zuegel pointed out that eight bicycles could fit in one park spot instead of a car. Urbanist Annie Fryman, responded, suggesting that the metered parking spot be used as a coworking space instead.

Source: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/pajgyz/rogue-coder-turned-a-parking-spot-into-a-coworking-space

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Apple wants affordable housing in California—but laws stand in the way

Apple has pledged $2.5 billion to help address California's affordable-housing crisis, the company announced on Monday. In recent years, the San Francisco Bay Area has become the most expensive housing market in America. Los Angeles also suffers from housing costs far above the national average.

Apple's $2.5 billion package includes several different initiatives. Apple will offer a $1 billion line of credit to organizations building housing for low-income people.

[...] Apple's commitment follows on the heels of similar announcements by other technology giants:

• In January, Microsoft said it would provide $500 million in grants and loans to promote affordable housing in the Seattle area and aid the homeless.
• In June, Google announced a $1 billion initiative, including $750 million worth of Google-owned land, to support the development of at least 20,000 new housing units "at all income levels" in the San Francisco Bay Area.
• In October, Facebook unveiled its own initiative to offer $1 billion in grants and loans to support the construction of 20,000 housing units in the region.

Apple's initiative is larger than the other programs and appears to be more focused on low-income housing.

But there are some problems that can't be immediately solved with money: