It's incredibly sad. When I first moved to the Bay Area a decade ago, there were many houses made up of artists, musicians, anarchists, and punks that held poe

It's incredibly sad. When I first moved to the Bay Area a decade ago, there were many houses made up of artists, musicians, anarchists, and punks that held poetry readings, music shows, fed people (via Food Not Bombs or similar efforts, or just by simply cooking food on regular days and offering it to anyone who happened to swing by), supported people who were struggling (Needle Exchange, mental health support groups, survivor groups), or even provided a temporary place to sleep to strangers in return for abiding by a code of conduct and doing some chores or paying some (truly) nominal fee. Those places, some of which had been around since the dotcom days and had effectively become local institutions, quickly started disappearing as landlords started aggressively serving eviction notices. One notable example that comes to mind was Hellarity [0] -- Hellarity was somewhat exceptional as it was a squat, where most of the houses I'm thinking of weren't. But it was a pretty special place nonetheless. I don't want to glorify these houses too much since there were issues as there inevitably will be with any large, mostly unstructured group of people. There was plenty of shady and unsavory stuff going on. What's sad to me is the loss of diversity of human experiences, and the loss of the resources offered in spaces like this. The loss of these inordinately impacts lower income people. People escaping abusive situations. People who aren't on tech salaries or benefits. People who don't have health insurance at all. Also: a friend of mine who rents space in an art studio in Berkeley that dozens of artists work out of was telling me that the space was just sold, and it's becoming increasingly clear the new owners aren't interested in keeping it as an art studio. The Bay Area kind of bums me out, to say the least. [0]: https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2012/03/07/18708901.php https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2012/03/07/18708901.php