Down & Out In Silicon Valley - Like striking it rich, being 'almost homeless' can happen to anyone

sfgate.com/San Francisco Chronicle ^ | Sunday, October 13, 2002 | Stephanie Salter, Insight Staff Writer

[American Preservative]

Many middle-class people joke about being "one paycheck away from the street." This is the story of a couple who've slammed hard into that reality.

Over the past 18 months, they've gone from his six-figure salary and life in a tony townhouse apartment complex in Silicon Valley to collecting aluminum cans and sleeping in a 28-foot-long recreational vehicle in a parking lot behind the husband's old office building. Once distracted by VCRs and mega- cable, they now watch local television on an old black-and-white set, stand in line at a public food bank for groceries and do their laundry with a garden hose.

[American Preservative]

SV (Silicon Valley) to RV (Recreational Vehicle) ping.

[EggsAckley]

Boo-Hoo-Hoo
I know a couple over there who have got to "cut back." Their sacrifice? Their season tickets and posh penthouse private seats for the Sharks game. LOL!

[evolved_rage]

I'd have to agree. These people were living beyond their means. I'm sure they had expensive leased cars and the maximum mortgage possible, and he loves CNN, what does that tell you??

[blam]

I left Silicon Valley in the mid-70's and never looked back.

[struwwelpeter]

Carole grew up in a privileged and artistic home in Los Angeles, but her now-deceased parents didn't make the wisest investments.

Oh, that's right! It's not enough just to put the kids through college and make their first home down payment. You've got to set them up with an annuity and bequeath a tidy sum. Otherwise you "didn't make the wisest investments."

Shoot, I don't plan on dying with more then fifteen cents in the bank. Now that's financial planning.

[irv]

This article reads like fiction. "Clark" and "Carole" sound like what journalists euphemistically refer to as "composites" also known as people they made up to make the story better.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I'd bet money (if I had any) that I'm not.

[EggsAckley]

I left Silicon Valley in the mid-70's and never looked back.

I live on the other side of "the hill" from Silicon Valley. Try to avoid it at all costs.

[evolved_rage]

That's right, it reminded me of the Mike Barnacle pieces of down-and-out drivel that he was fired for writing in Boston back in the 90s.

[Carry_Okie]

Imagine what this would be like if they had kids.

[FITZ]

It's hard to feel any pity at all for the people in this story and living in an RV isn't being homeless anyhow. I wouldn't mind living in an RV at all but for now I'd prefer to keep my house at least while my kids are young.

[blam]

"I live on the other side of "the hill" from Silicon Valley. Try to avoid it at all costs."

Yup. I know where you live. Are the two cat statues on hwy-17 (right side, going west, before the summit) still there?

[EggsAckley]

Yep. The Cats are still there. Hard to see, though, due to the all-day dense traffic.

[irv]

I wouldn't mind living in an RV

My wife and I have talked about doing exactly that - but we can't afford it. Some kind of down-and-out life these people have, huh?

[evolved_rage]

What cats??? I'm usually too mesmerized by the tire marks on the concrete highway divider to notice statues. Is that near Redwood Estates???

[SamAdams76]

Carole grew up in a privileged and artistic home in Los Angeles, but her now-deceased parents didn't make the wisest investments. She has worked for long stretches selling real estate and as a secretary-receptionist. The first few years of her married life with Clark were spent digging out of a financial crater left by her mother's final (and protracted) illness.

"Even in the best of times, we never lived extravagantly," she said. "Extravagant to me was redecorating our bedroom in the apartment with linens and curtains from Stroud's."

Oh cry me a river! I'm so tired of hearing stories about these privileged kids getting a dose of the real world and thinking that they are some kind of martyrs.

What does it matter that her parents didn't make good investments? What does that have to do with her? My parents didn't have two nickels to rub together (and still don't) and I've never gotten a dime from them since the time I went in the Marines at age 17. I've never allowed that to be an excuse in my life.

Decorating with Stroud's. Whoopee doo. What's that, some kind of yuppie emporium? I've never heard of Stroud's in my life. When we need curtains, my wife goes to Wal-Mart or Sears and we never felt as though we were making sacrifices.

[Prolix]

This article reads like fiction. "Clark" and "Carole" sound like what journalists euphemistically refer to as "composites" also known as people they made up to make the story better. Maybe I'm wrong, but I'd bet money (if I had any) that I'm not.

It takes money to make money.

By the way, if you could post that article on a liberal forum you might be able to find someone to take that bet. Oh wait. Forget it. They'll never admit that these characters have been "synthesized." It'll be a conspiracy. There's always a conspiracy.

[FITZ]

My Dad has one of the big RVs and I'm absolutely envious. You see those retired people here sometimes moving in caravans, they'll tell you how they were going to winter in Florida but decided they didn't like the weather so they're headed to Tucson. Plus many Walmarts will let them stop overnight for free so you have a place to shop and party with the others. Seems like a lot of fun.

[EggsAckley]

The Cats is a restaurant at the base of the hill, by the first Los Gatos exit. And they ARE hard to see when one is surrounded by a mob of road-raged drivers. LOL!

[no-s]

sleeping in a 28-foot-long recreational vehicle in a parking lot behind the husband's old office building.

I see a lot of these lately (100's to 1000's of 'em), hanging around the office buildings with the "for lease" signs. I found some unbuildable lots in Santa Cruz Mountains (<1 acre, road and services tho) for a song, I was thinking of buying them up and putting camoflauged RV pads on them.

The reality is, why stay in SV if you're truly tanked and living in an RV? There is plenty of nice country to be in, far nicer than SV on $230 a week.

Of course I would be toast if my wife didn't work (an RN), I only have about 500 hours billed for the year to date, none of which has been earned within 50 miles of my house.