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Homeless encampment grows on Apple property in Silicon Valley
- yuppie_scum 5y agoIts easy to be a saint in paradise
- swiley 5y agoI wonder how long before the doughnut gets taken over or burnt down.
- hourislate 5y agoApple should house these poor people at HQ. With employees working from home they should have a lot of office space that could be converted into rooms for the homeless. I'm sure there are fitness facilities they could use for basic hygiene and plenty of cafeterias that could feed them.
- Breefield 5y agoPoe’s law strikes again.
- Wowfunhappy 5y agoRespectfully—I knew they were joking, but it wasn’t funny and it doesn’t add anything to the discussion.
- swiley 5y agoThey could ease the housing pressure there by going permanent WFH, but I doubt they'll even do that.
- xycodex 5y agoBtw Amazon actually did this, they have space for 200 a night right in one of their hq buildings in downtown Seattle called Mary’s place.
- whynotminot 5y agoImagine being this clueless about how cafeterias work when the employees aren’t in the office.
- hourislate 5y agoImagine being so dumb to think some aren't open since there are a handful of employees there or opening a few since there would be homeless there.
- whynotminot 5y agoWhen there’s a “handful of employees there” cafeterias aren’t open and you’re lucky to have the staff keeping the coffee pots going. Have you not been to “the office” even once over the last 18 months?
- jdavis703 5y agoCupertino has one of the worst jobs to housing imbalances in SV. This is inevitable if there’s a shortage of homes.
- na85 5y agoInstead of stroking his ego by racing Branson to space, Bezos could personally buy each of these people a home in the Bay Area and wouldn't even notice a difference in his lifestyle. Tax the rich. Spend it on social programs.
- lettergram 5y agoThat’s not why they are homeless.
- na85 5y agoA lack of social funding in America is, in fact, contributing to the homelessness epidemic.
- sitkack 5y agoYou are answering a question that wasn't asked. Did the poster make a causality statement?
- edgyquant 5y agoThe implication was that if they just had a house their lives would turn around. This isn’t the case for a lot of people as it’s an addiction or mental illness problem.
- sammalloy 5y agoMultiple case studies and real world examples show the opposite. It's cheaper to provide housing for the homeless, there's more success with drug/alcohol/mental illness programs when they have housing, and many of them do get a chance to re-enter the job market.
- edgyquant 5y agoCan you link me to some of these studies?
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- blamazon 5y agoThis is tangential, but I’ve always thought that disused office space would make an okay crash pad if I ended up homeless. Parking lots make scouting easy, and nondestructive entry is easy on most lower-security offices. Put on a hard hat, like 10 bucks at Home Depot, walk right in and out. If things get hot, hop to another office building.
- lumost 5y agoI knew someone who worked at a particular office which had a computer lab as the IT person. This lab had a server room that served as an office and had just enough room to squeeze in a sleeping bag. This person lived in that space for 6 years. I’m not sure if their boss ever figured it out or simply remained willfully ignorant.
- samirsd 5y agocan't even read the article, so many popups
- nradov 5y agoA lot of South Bay residents are still unaware of how many homeless people are living here. If you want to see the real extent of the problem go for a bike ride along any of our creek trails. Some areas are packed full of tents and makeshift shelters. If you're in a position to donate some money I know HomeFirst Services does good work. https://www.homefirstscc.org/ https://www.homefirstscc.org/
- hamburgerwah 5y agoI could not conceive of a more poetic example of silicon valley dystopia than the richest entity in the history of the world stymied to come up with a solution to help 35 people suffering on it's throne room doorstep. What a terrible joke silicon valley has become.
- awsthro00945 5y agoI read this, and my first thought was "what are they supposed to do? buy houses for all these people? Yea, Apple could afford it, but then they'll be sending the message that if you want Apple to buy you a house, all you have to do is pitch a tent on their lawn". And then it reminded me of a quote from The West Wing, after Toby uses the president's name to pull some strings for a random homeless person he happened to run into: > President Bartlet: "Toby, if we start pulling strings like this, you don't think every homeless veteran will come out of the woodwork?" > Toby: "I can only hope, sir." I know that "solving" homelessness isn't really as simple as just having the wealthiest company on the planet buy homes for people, but... it could be a start.
- chrismcb 5y agoIsn't that what Amazon did? Week they did buy homes, but they provide a homeless shelter
- oliv__ 5y ago"Clearing the camp likely will be difficult both logistically — it’s more challenging to remove structures and vehicles that don’t run than tents — and ethically — there are few places for the displaced residents to go." This might be an unpopular opinion, but since when did kicking "a sprawling camp of dozens of people, a maze of broken-down vehicles and a massive amount of trash" off of your private property become unethical? I sure as hell wouldn't want to live in that kind of "ethical" world.
- sp332 5y agoThe problem is in the part you quoted - when you get them off your property, they don't stop existing. Where do you want them to go to?
- rlp 5y agoThe property owner should not be responsible for answering that question.
- Teever 5y agoThe property owner in question has evaded paying billions of dollars in taxes, taxes that could have gone to fix the systemic issues in America that perpetuate homelessness. Think different indeed.
- me_me_me 5y agoBut Apple does it legally so its ok. And I am sure the hopeless can pull themselves by their bootstraps. If they cant eat bread, why don't they eat cake?? If you are homeless just buy a house! Its that simple. /s Jezz, I am reading through the comments here and i am not sure if i am on HN or subreddit for edy teens with the shallowest and one-dimentional view of the world.
- guerrilla 5y agoSome people having millions of times more than they could possibky need while these people don't have the basics is the cause of the problem.
- morpheos137 5y agoHomeless people don't work from home.
- jxramos 5y agoI was wondering when this would happen. There's been a steady sprawl of camps on all the highway exits/entrances by 280 and 85 in all the bush and trees that grow there. Cupertino seemed to keep it more or less contained and off the sidewalks, but that was about 2 years ago. When you ride on the high double decker buses you can see all the camps not visible at car height level that line the freeways. It's nuts. Wait the article is actually talking about a San Jose location, the homeless camp is even visible via satellite view: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Component+Dr,+San+Jose,+CA+95131/@37.380204,-121.9286875 https://www.google.com/maps/place/Component+Dr,+San+Jose,+CA...
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- AndrewKemendo 5y agoMeanwhile, San Jose is gearing up to clear a much larger camp at West Hedding and Spring streets, near the San Jose airport. That clean-up, which comes at the behest of the Federal Aviation Administration, could displace more than 200 people — some of whom might move to the Apple camp or other nearby camps. You could pluck that right out of some dystopian future novel. I think we live in those worlds now actually - it's just unevenly distributed.
- guerrilla 5y agoThe double-speak of "clean-up" in these articles is just the cherry on top.