Posted on 03/25/2016 3:06:37 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Palo Alto officials are considering providing subsidized housing for people earning up to $250,000, as rent and home prices soar in the Silicon Valley city.
The plan is a among a series of proposals being mulled by the Palo Alto City Council to provide affordable housing to those considered middle class in the area - families making between $150,000 to $250,000 annually.
The median household income in the U.S. in 2014 was about $52,000, according to U.S. Census Bureau statistics.
The proposals include building about 2,000 new units that would be made available for those earning less than $250,000, as well as the construction of tiny apartments known as micro units in the San Francisco Bay area city....
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
We already know the answer.
Interesting concept. I can envision more and more of this in locales like SF and NYC where making $249,000 annually puts you in the poorhouse (which is true!). In fact a combined gross income of $500K in these high tax, high cost areas isn’t close to enough, especially if you have children that cannot use a bad public school system.
A big problem in Silicon Valley (and I suspect in similar expensive areas) is that the Morlocks who have to clean the garbage, cook the food, and teach in schools have to travel so far just to get to work; they are priced out of anything nearby. There are people in northern NJ who commute to NYC to clean offices; I couldn’t imagine that. The commuting costs alone should make that prohibitive.
Both ends of this spectrum amaze me. So, as others point out, if you "only" make 245K a year or so you are considered so bad off you would qualify for subsidized housing? It is also interesting that they feel they need to subsidize the middle class...
Or, if you are making 145K a year or so you don't even qualify as middle class there? {expletive}! Every one of the people working under me has a college degree and makes less than that. They are all very comfortable here, but would be basically destitute in Palo Alto? Here they are all in the range of mid middle class income to upper end of middle class income. SMH...
but we're still poor by California standards..
How can these expensive places even have a middle class??
Based strictly on the money situation, these expensive places should be hemmoraging(sp?) all but the very wealthy.
If you earn an upper middle income salary, say over $100,000, but can’t afford a decent place to live, and you can go somewhere cheaper in the country, and be able to easily afford a nice house, shouldn’t we see huge numbers of people do just that?
I know the weather is nice in California and all that. I live here myself, partly due to that. But at some point, won’t those who are able to do so, just up and leave???
And when critical numbers up and leave, won’t the housing prices have to come down, based on supply and demand???
Clearly some places such as Silicon Valley are just out of control, relating to real estate. There’s got to be other factors involved. Are there certain high tech jobs in Silicon Valley which just aren’t found elsewhere??? Is it possible that some of these six figure earners can’t find a corresponding job elsewhere, for example????
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.