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$70k is a living wage in Los Angeles; he his homeless by choice. To be clear, I’m not saying he is not underpaid. He might need a roommate and to live in a crap

$70k is a living wage in Los Angeles; he his homeless by choice. To be clear, I’m not saying he is not underpaid. He might need a roommate and to live in a crappy apartment and not in Westwood to make it workable, which does not seem fair for a PhD teaching physics. But it’s not homeless level.

cute_boi 2y ago
People seem to think it is easy to have roommates. My roommates were horrible, they wouldn't clean anything, blast music and always a privacy risks.
- cafard 2y ago
  For some years I lived in a group house in a close-in suburb of Washington, DC. Some roommates were horrible, for a while I was a horrible roommate. But somehow I got by nine years.
- stavros 2y ago
  > People seem to think it is easy to have roommates It seems to me that they think it's easier than being homeless.
  - Agentus 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - stavros 2y ago
      I think I'll take the roommates.
- newyankee 2y ago
  It is also that US is mostly filled with either very large single family homes or apartments in areas where rents are generally always high. A focus on efficient, individual space that is like 400 sq ft. dense studios but which actually translates into lower rent (e.g. 2500$ in the example to somewhere 1000-1500$ is needed). A lot of reforms and time needed for this.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - linguae 2y ago
    This is one of the things I miss about Tokyo: there are plenty of small apartments there at relatively affordable prices. I personally would rather have a 400 sq ft unit to myself than to live in a shared house or apartment.
- zrobotics 2y ago
  OK, I also live with roommates while I'm saving up a downpayment and waiting for mortgage rates to drop. But c'mon, there's a huge difference between being homeless and having roommates. I've been close to being homeless before, and at that point I would have been happy to have even the shittiesy roommates if it meant not sleeping on the streets. I'm disgusted at the implication that 70k isn't enough to live in LA. Yes, it may not be enough to meet some arbitrary standard, but it's insane to say that the alternative is being homeless. This is just a spoiled rich kid who isn't making enough to keep their previous standard of living. There's tons of working class people in that same community getting by on way less than 70k who aren't getting articles written about them.
  - ghaff 2y ago
    Well, he even says one of his criteria is he doesn’t want a long commute. There’s cheaper housing in LA. You just won’t favor it given other options.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- didgeoridoo 2y ago
  When I was living in Cambridge (MA) in the early 2010s, it was unthinkable to not have a flatmate or four. By far the most economical situation was to rent a 4 or 5 bedroom house. Doing this, you could easily have a sub-1k rent within a 10 minute walk of the Harvard or Central T stops. Not to “kids these days” it or anything, but the entitlement over not being able to afford a private, one-bedroom apartment in a fantastically-popular city center is just absolutely mind-blowing.
  - cxr 2y ago
    > the entitlement over not being able to afford a private, one-bedroom apartment in a fantastically-popular city center is just absolutely mind-blowing I used to think this way—that is, just like you—in my 20s. From my experience growing up, I was used to not having nice or even merely adequate things, and it was the norm to go without. I'm less cavalier about declaring it entitlement now. Why shouldn't an adult, even a brand new (i.e. young) one, not have their own place? I realized that I didn't have a good reason to justify the status quo (where a home of your own is out of reach), only that it was the status quo, and the thrust of my old position really just came down to something akin to the old saw that Hardship-<X> is good for you because "it builds character"—even though I'd never really found that argument persuasive when I'd encounter it elsewhere. (Just like the old retort "life's not fair", it seemed I'd only ever encounter it from someone in the process of actively trying to screw you over while trying to paint your indignance about it as unreasonable.) Not saying everyone should expect the works, but I can't exactly fault anyone who would be content with a 12x10 kitchen attached to an 8x10 office that doubles as a bedroom but isn't able to have it. And that's without even addressing the fact that we're likely talking about a situation where you're losing all this money on something you didn't even get equity for!
    - didgeoridoo 2y ago
      I don’t know man, it’s not like I said the peasants should be content with their gruel. A private apartment in the center of one of the most desirable ZIP codes on the planet is an inherently limited good. Believing you deserve it (over, say, a family with kids who truly do need the space and privacy) is kind of the definition of entitlement. And it’s not like it was a barely tolerable existence — I wouldn’t trade my five years living in a glorified flophouse for anything, even after that time my housemate attempted to clean their vomit off the bathroom floor at 3 in the morning with the communal Roomba. I guess that was hardship of a sort, but hardship creates friends and memories — I don’t think I built an ounce of “character”, but I had a hell of a time.
- linguae 2y ago
  It’s not always easy living with roommates (I don’t like it myself), but we all have to make choices. Unless we’re wealthy, we can’t have it all. For many people it’s either roommates or a long commute, and I know people who have roommates and a long commute since that’s all they can afford. It still beats homelessness.
ensignavenger 2y ago
Zillow lists over 1300 places for rent in Los Angeles for less than $1600 a month, which is easily affordable on a $70k salary.

cute_boi 2y ago

People seem to think it is easy to have roommates. My roommates were horrible, they wouldn't clean anything, blast music and always a privacy risks.

cafard 2y ago
For some years I lived in a group house in a close-in suburb of Washington, DC. Some roommates were horrible, for a while I was a horrible roommate. But somehow I got by nine years.
stavros 2y ago
> People seem to think it is easy to have roommates It seems to me that they think it's easier than being homeless.
- Agentus 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - stavros 2y ago
    I think I'll take the roommates.
newyankee 2y ago
It is also that US is mostly filled with either very large single family homes or apartments in areas where rents are generally always high. A focus on efficient, individual space that is like 400 sq ft. dense studios but which actually translates into lower rent (e.g. 2500$ in the example to somewhere 1000-1500$ is needed). A lot of reforms and time needed for this.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- linguae 2y ago
  This is one of the things I miss about Tokyo: there are plenty of small apartments there at relatively affordable prices. I personally would rather have a 400 sq ft unit to myself than to live in a shared house or apartment.
zrobotics 2y ago
OK, I also live with roommates while I'm saving up a downpayment and waiting for mortgage rates to drop. But c'mon, there's a huge difference between being homeless and having roommates. I've been close to being homeless before, and at that point I would have been happy to have even the shittiesy roommates if it meant not sleeping on the streets. I'm disgusted at the implication that 70k isn't enough to live in LA. Yes, it may not be enough to meet some arbitrary standard, but it's insane to say that the alternative is being homeless. This is just a spoiled rich kid who isn't making enough to keep their previous standard of living. There's tons of working class people in that same community getting by on way less than 70k who aren't getting articles written about them.
- ghaff 2y ago
  Well, he even says one of his criteria is he doesn’t want a long commute. There’s cheaper housing in LA. You just won’t favor it given other options.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
didgeoridoo 2y ago
When I was living in Cambridge (MA) in the early 2010s, it was unthinkable to not have a flatmate or four. By far the most economical situation was to rent a 4 or 5 bedroom house. Doing this, you could easily have a sub-1k rent within a 10 minute walk of the Harvard or Central T stops. Not to “kids these days” it or anything, but the entitlement over not being able to afford a private, one-bedroom apartment in a fantastically-popular city center is just absolutely mind-blowing.
- cxr 2y ago
  > the entitlement over not being able to afford a private, one-bedroom apartment in a fantastically-popular city center is just absolutely mind-blowing I used to think this way—that is, just like you—in my 20s. From my experience growing up, I was used to not having nice or even merely adequate things, and it was the norm to go without. I'm less cavalier about declaring it entitlement now. Why shouldn't an adult, even a brand new (i.e. young) one, not have their own place? I realized that I didn't have a good reason to justify the status quo (where a home of your own is out of reach), only that it was the status quo, and the thrust of my old position really just came down to something akin to the old saw that Hardship-<X> is good for you because "it builds character"—even though I'd never really found that argument persuasive when I'd encounter it elsewhere. (Just like the old retort "life's not fair", it seemed I'd only ever encounter it from someone in the process of actively trying to screw you over while trying to paint your indignance about it as unreasonable.) Not saying everyone should expect the works, but I can't exactly fault anyone who would be content with a 12x10 kitchen attached to an 8x10 office that doubles as a bedroom but isn't able to have it. And that's without even addressing the fact that we're likely talking about a situation where you're losing all this money on something you didn't even get equity for!
  - didgeoridoo 2y ago
    I don’t know man, it’s not like I said the peasants should be content with their gruel. A private apartment in the center of one of the most desirable ZIP codes on the planet is an inherently limited good. Believing you deserve it (over, say, a family with kids who truly do need the space and privacy) is kind of the definition of entitlement. And it’s not like it was a barely tolerable existence — I wouldn’t trade my five years living in a glorified flophouse for anything, even after that time my housemate attempted to clean their vomit off the bathroom floor at 3 in the morning with the communal Roomba. I guess that was hardship of a sort, but hardship creates friends and memories — I don’t think I built an ounce of “character”, but I had a hell of a time.
linguae 2y ago
It’s not always easy living with roommates (I don’t like it myself), but we all have to make choices. Unless we’re wealthy, we can’t have it all. For many people it’s either roommates or a long commute, and I know people who have roommates and a long commute since that’s all they can afford. It still beats homelessness.

ensignavenger 2y ago

Zillow lists over 1300 places for rent in Los Angeles for less than $1600 a month, which is easily affordable on a $70k salary.