6 ms·

She puts the Lord in 'vanlord.' Palo Alto wants to ban her business

24 points by harambae 1y ago

pavel_lishin 1y ago
Huh. I noticed a lot of RVs and camper-style vans parked in San Mateo - is this a similar situation, where they're people's primary residences?
- Schnitz 1y ago
  Yes, they are. People are living in them. Street parking RVs is illegal in San Mateo, they should increase enforcement.
wpm 1y ago
Palo Alto should build some goddamn housing then.
- rus20376 1y ago
  I know I risk getting down voted to oblivion, but I truly do not understand this sentiment. There are plenty of places I cannot afford to live, so I live somewhere I can afford. Every time I hear about a "housing crisis" all I see are people demanding government mandated development in some fancy place (Manhattan! San Francisco!) that is out of touch price wise for almost every human being on Earth. This idea that people are demanding Palo Alto or some other high end desirable community to build them a place to live makes no sense. I understand some community they can afford like Fresno or somewhere may be less desirable, i.e. fewer millionaires as your neighbors, but if that's what you can afford then that's where you go, right? If someone wants to explain why a high end and highly sought after community needs to use the power of the government to force development for anybody at all please do let me know. Explain it like I am five. Also include in your answer why just living somewhere affordable is no longer an option, seeing as that is what seemingly everyone else so far in human history has done. In fact, it wasn't all that long ago that Palo Alto itself was just some undesirable hayfields. Every place you don't want to live is just a few decades away from being someone else's coveted dream home.
  - ronsor 1y ago
    I dislike people all bunching up into cities (we have plenty of free space), but consider that there are many jobs in places like SF, even low-paying ones, that the richer residents do want filled. You're not getting a barista to commute 2 hours because the only alternative is living with 6 roommates. It's not going to happen. So, do you still want your coffee?
    - bryanrasmussen 1y ago
      >I dislike people all bunching up into cities environment wise though bunching people up in cities seems the most efficient thing to do. on edit: clarified what was quote and what my response.
    - itake 1y ago
      > we have plenty of free space Where? SF and Manhattan are surrounded by water on 3 sides. Seattle has water on 2 sides. Other areas: LA, Boston, Miami, Portland, Denver, Chicago, have similar geographic limitations. If you were to flatten cities out (see Atlanta), jobs will still concentrate downtown. If jobs concentrate in one area, home prices in that area will also elevate (downtown, buckhead, etc). > You're not getting a barista to commute 2 hours because the only alternative is living with 6 roommates Personally, I wish I had 6 roommates. People aren't getting married in their 20s, so if they aren't living with their wife/husband, why shouldn't they want to live with friends?
      - ronsor 1y ago
        > Where? SF and Manhattan are surrounded by water on 3 sides. Seattle has water on 2 sides. Other areas: LA, Boston, Miami, Portland, Denver, Chicago, have similar geographic limitations. All those places you listed are the cities with high cost of living and many people. "Where" is outside those cities--somewhere else. America is mostly empty space, even excluding parks, national forests, etc.! > Personally, I wish I had 6 roommates. People aren't getting married in their 20s, so if they aren't living with their wife/husband, why shouldn't they want to live with friends? It's fine if you do, but I feel like most people do not, and I do not. Being friends and being roommates can often be two very different experiences.
modeless 1y ago
Wow, I see these dilapidated RVs all the time. I had no idea people were renting them out like apartments or hotel rooms. I am against letting people live in RVs parked on city streets whether they own them or not. But the solution here isn't just making it illegal. The solution is making it legal to build actual housing.
- rus20376 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - kelnos 1y ago
    Maybe instead of shitting on people you don't know, have a little empathy and compassion, and acknowledge that just because you don't know the reason someone might do something, it doesn't mean there's no reason, or the reason is a bad one. Oh, and Fresno and Modesto are not "in that area", not by any stretch of the imagination. But some people who would love to live in the bay area, and have jobs in the bay area, do live out in Fresno and Modesto because that's all they can afford. When people have to drive 3 hours each way during rush hour to get to their job because there isn't enough housing available closer to work, that's a dysfunctional society.
  - khuey 1y ago
    Fresno is a 3 hour drive from Palo Alto. Acting like a home in Fresno is a substitute for one in Palo Alto is absurd.
    - rus20376 1y ago
      Living in a permanent structure where you can afford isn't as good as living in a gross RV on a street someplace and fruitlessly demanding the government build you a house?
      - modeless 1y ago
        I'm not calling for the government to build houses. I'm calling for the government to stop making it illegal for people to build significant new housing on the land they supposedly own.
Schnitz 1y ago
That’s some third world stuff right there. This of course should be illegal. She’s taking a public resource (street parking), privatizing it by occupying it with her RV and then charging rent for it. Godspeed if you live on the street where she does this.
- lmm 1y ago
  Everyone who lives in a house on a piece of land is privatising a public resource. Yes, it should be illegal, but equally Prop 13 should never have been passed.
- rus20376 1y ago
  apparently the other option, as seen in the comments, is that the government bulldoze the houses on that same street to build a highly dense row of flophouses like I said elsewhere, just move where you can afford. wherever that is, it's probably a few decades away from being some future generation's dream home
  - palmfacehn 1y ago
    I would like to see her expand onto the water with housing barges and eventually decommissioned cruise ships.
  - tomjakubowski 1y ago
    The other option would be more like, incumbent Palo Alto single family homeowners can sell their homes at a huge premium to developers who want to build multi-family homes there to satisfy the obvious demand for more housing.
  - wpm 1y ago
    The two types of houses: 60's starter homes breathed on by rich corpos like in Palo Alto Flophouses You must be a property owner, these are all just the same tired NIMBY talking points
- Terr_ 1y ago
  My gut reaction is that (A) yes, it's an improper exploitation of public resources, and also (B) the severity of depends a bit on whether anyone else wants to use the space, varying between "hell no" versus "who cares". With respect to (B), the article says: > on the street in the East Meadow neighborhood of Palo Alto Perhaps a Palo Alto native can chime in, but my remote map-searching suggests she's putting those RVs in areas [0] (18,20,21,28) where it seems reasonable for other people to complain, as opposed to some disued access road. [0] https://paneighborhoods.org/neighborhood-map/ https://paneighborhoods.org/neighborhood-map/
Fomite 1y ago
"But her take-home is next to nothing because on top of parking tickets, repairs and other maintenance on her vehicles, she also donates at least $800 each month to her ministry, Spread the Name of Lord Jesus" So her take-home is at least $800 a month (which is still very modest), she's just chosen a very specific way to spend it.
- patcon 1y ago
  I think you get it, but in case others aren't reading between the lines: a sham ministry is a great way to be a tax-free landlord. I've heard of people in Nevada doing it for a collectively-managed home
untrimmed 1y ago
On one hand, she's providing shelter. On the other, she's using public streets as her business asset and mixing faith with rental agreements. I'm genuinely not sure if this is selfless service or just late-stage capitalism with a halo on top.
ezoe 1y ago
If true self-driving car become a reality, there will be people living in a car constantly driving around the city. If the cost of fuel and car maintenance are lower than land and house, it's inevitable.
- vunderba 1y ago
  Reminds me of people found trying to live on the NYC subways.
- strken 1y ago
  I dunno why you'd tell your self-driving van to do laps for eight hours when it could just drive somewhere outside the city and park, unless you live in a city where the commute time is more than four hours each way.
  - spwa4 1y ago
    What would it matter with a self-driving car if the commute is four hours? No-one will care. Notice how it's often "worth it" even now to drive for half an hour or so to get cheaper fuel. Except, with no rent in the picture, it will be far more worth it. Add to that that Americans aren't willing to give up bigger cars ("easy-ish" to live in) and ... Self-driving will just become a way to use more public resources for specific people. I just pity the people who still expect to normally get through traffic.
    - strken 1y ago
      It would matter because sleeping in a moving car in traffic in the middle of a city sucks in comparison to sleeping in a parked car in a quiet street on the outskirts, and also uses more fuel and wears out the car faster. There's no gain to driving around in circles while sleeping compared to having your car go and park somewhere.
chopete3 1y ago
Drive for Doordash/Uber, eat at a food truck in the gas station/street and sleep in the vanlord RV. All of them are skirting local laws until they gain exploitative advantage to pass laws to protect themselves. Exploitative capitalism in action.

24 points by harambae 1y ago

Huh. I noticed a lot of RVs and camper-style vans parked in San Mateo - is this a similar situation, where they're people's primary residences?

Schnitz 1y ago
Yes, they are. People are living in them. Street parking RVs is illegal in San Mateo, they should increase enforcement.

wpm 1y ago

Palo Alto should build some goddamn housing then.

rus20376 1y ago
I know I risk getting down voted to oblivion, but I truly do not understand this sentiment. There are plenty of places I cannot afford to live, so I live somewhere I can afford. Every time I hear about a "housing crisis" all I see are people demanding government mandated development in some fancy place (Manhattan! San Francisco!) that is out of touch price wise for almost every human being on Earth. This idea that people are demanding Palo Alto or some other high end desirable community to build them a place to live makes no sense. I understand some community they can afford like Fresno or somewhere may be less desirable, i.e. fewer millionaires as your neighbors, but if that's what you can afford then that's where you go, right? If someone wants to explain why a high end and highly sought after community needs to use the power of the government to force development for anybody at all please do let me know. Explain it like I am five. Also include in your answer why just living somewhere affordable is no longer an option, seeing as that is what seemingly everyone else so far in human history has done. In fact, it wasn't all that long ago that Palo Alto itself was just some undesirable hayfields. Every place you don't want to live is just a few decades away from being someone else's coveted dream home.
- ronsor 1y ago
  I dislike people all bunching up into cities (we have plenty of free space), but consider that there are many jobs in places like SF, even low-paying ones, that the richer residents do want filled. You're not getting a barista to commute 2 hours because the only alternative is living with 6 roommates. It's not going to happen. So, do you still want your coffee?
  - bryanrasmussen 1y ago
    >I dislike people all bunching up into cities environment wise though bunching people up in cities seems the most efficient thing to do. on edit: clarified what was quote and what my response.
  - itake 1y ago
    > we have plenty of free space Where? SF and Manhattan are surrounded by water on 3 sides. Seattle has water on 2 sides. Other areas: LA, Boston, Miami, Portland, Denver, Chicago, have similar geographic limitations. If you were to flatten cities out (see Atlanta), jobs will still concentrate downtown. If jobs concentrate in one area, home prices in that area will also elevate (downtown, buckhead, etc). > You're not getting a barista to commute 2 hours because the only alternative is living with 6 roommates Personally, I wish I had 6 roommates. People aren't getting married in their 20s, so if they aren't living with their wife/husband, why shouldn't they want to live with friends?
    - ronsor 1y ago
      > Where? SF and Manhattan are surrounded by water on 3 sides. Seattle has water on 2 sides. Other areas: LA, Boston, Miami, Portland, Denver, Chicago, have similar geographic limitations. All those places you listed are the cities with high cost of living and many people. "Where" is outside those cities--somewhere else. America is mostly empty space, even excluding parks, national forests, etc.! > Personally, I wish I had 6 roommates. People aren't getting married in their 20s, so if they aren't living with their wife/husband, why shouldn't they want to live with friends? It's fine if you do, but I feel like most people do not, and I do not. Being friends and being roommates can often be two very different experiences.

modeless 1y ago

Wow, I see these dilapidated RVs all the time. I had no idea people were renting them out like apartments or hotel rooms. I am against letting people live in RVs parked on city streets whether they own them or not. But the solution here isn't just making it illegal. The solution is making it legal to build actual housing.

rus20376 1y ago
[flagged]
- kelnos 1y ago
  Maybe instead of shitting on people you don't know, have a little empathy and compassion, and acknowledge that just because you don't know the reason someone might do something, it doesn't mean there's no reason, or the reason is a bad one. Oh, and Fresno and Modesto are not "in that area", not by any stretch of the imagination. But some people who would love to live in the bay area, and have jobs in the bay area, do live out in Fresno and Modesto because that's all they can afford. When people have to drive 3 hours each way during rush hour to get to their job because there isn't enough housing available closer to work, that's a dysfunctional society.
- khuey 1y ago
  Fresno is a 3 hour drive from Palo Alto. Acting like a home in Fresno is a substitute for one in Palo Alto is absurd.
  - rus20376 1y ago
    Living in a permanent structure where you can afford isn't as good as living in a gross RV on a street someplace and fruitlessly demanding the government build you a house?
    - modeless 1y ago
      I'm not calling for the government to build houses. I'm calling for the government to stop making it illegal for people to build significant new housing on the land they supposedly own.

Schnitz 1y ago

That’s some third world stuff right there. This of course should be illegal. She’s taking a public resource (street parking), privatizing it by occupying it with her RV and then charging rent for it. Godspeed if you live on the street where she does this.

lmm 1y ago
Everyone who lives in a house on a piece of land is privatising a public resource. Yes, it should be illegal, but equally Prop 13 should never have been passed.
rus20376 1y ago
apparently the other option, as seen in the comments, is that the government bulldoze the houses on that same street to build a highly dense row of flophouses like I said elsewhere, just move where you can afford. wherever that is, it's probably a few decades away from being some future generation's dream home
- palmfacehn 1y ago
  I would like to see her expand onto the water with housing barges and eventually decommissioned cruise ships.
- tomjakubowski 1y ago
  The other option would be more like, incumbent Palo Alto single family homeowners can sell their homes at a huge premium to developers who want to build multi-family homes there to satisfy the obvious demand for more housing.
- wpm 1y ago
  The two types of houses: 60's starter homes breathed on by rich corpos like in Palo Alto Flophouses You must be a property owner, these are all just the same tired NIMBY talking points
Terr_ 1y ago
My gut reaction is that (A) yes, it's an improper exploitation of public resources, and also (B) the severity of depends a bit on whether anyone else wants to use the space, varying between "hell no" versus "who cares". With respect to (B), the article says: > on the street in the East Meadow neighborhood of Palo Alto Perhaps a Palo Alto native can chime in, but my remote map-searching suggests she's putting those RVs in areas [0] (18,20,21,28) where it seems reasonable for other people to complain, as opposed to some disued access road. [0] https://paneighborhoods.org/neighborhood-map/ https://paneighborhoods.org/neighborhood-map/

Fomite 1y ago

"But her take-home is next to nothing because on top of parking tickets, repairs and other maintenance on her vehicles, she also donates at least $800 each month to her ministry, Spread the Name of Lord Jesus" So her take-home is at least $800 a month (which is still very modest), she's just chosen a very specific way to spend it.

patcon 1y ago
I think you get it, but in case others aren't reading between the lines: a sham ministry is a great way to be a tax-free landlord. I've heard of people in Nevada doing it for a collectively-managed home

untrimmed 1y ago

On one hand, she's providing shelter. On the other, she's using public streets as her business asset and mixing faith with rental agreements. I'm genuinely not sure if this is selfless service or just late-stage capitalism with a halo on top.

ezoe 1y ago

If true self-driving car become a reality, there will be people living in a car constantly driving around the city. If the cost of fuel and car maintenance are lower than land and house, it's inevitable.

vunderba 1y ago
Reminds me of people found trying to live on the NYC subways.
strken 1y ago
I dunno why you'd tell your self-driving van to do laps for eight hours when it could just drive somewhere outside the city and park, unless you live in a city where the commute time is more than four hours each way.
- spwa4 1y ago
  What would it matter with a self-driving car if the commute is four hours? No-one will care. Notice how it's often "worth it" even now to drive for half an hour or so to get cheaper fuel. Except, with no rent in the picture, it will be far more worth it. Add to that that Americans aren't willing to give up bigger cars ("easy-ish" to live in) and ... Self-driving will just become a way to use more public resources for specific people. I just pity the people who still expect to normally get through traffic.
  - strken 1y ago
    It would matter because sleeping in a moving car in traffic in the middle of a city sucks in comparison to sleeping in a parked car in a quiet street on the outskirts, and also uses more fuel and wears out the car faster. There's no gain to driving around in circles while sleeping compared to having your car go and park somewhere.

chopete3 1y ago

Drive for Doordash/Uber, eat at a food truck in the gas station/street and sleep in the vanlord RV. All of them are skirting local laws until they gain exploitative advantage to pass laws to protect themselves. Exploitative capitalism in action.