Posted on 07/14/2015 7:42:40 AM PDT by dennisw
Struggling to live in America's $1M city: Photographer captures lives of ordinary San Francisco residents who have been forced to live in cars, trailers, garages and tents following the tech boom
Photographer Wenxin Zhang moved to San Francisco in 2011 Discovered a group of people online that had been forced to find alternative means of accommodation 'I visited them alone with mutual trust,' she said The subsequent photo essay is called Goodnight Stories
A recent report said that a family needs about $200,000 a year to live comfortably in San Francisco, so long as their children go to public school.
And in June the median home price hit $1 million.
Wenxin Zhang understands this better than most.
The Chinese-born, California-based photographer moved to the city in 2011 and started reaching out on internet forums to meet new people.
What she found was a community that had been displaced by a city that has been hit with skyrocketing prices following the tech boom and expansion of nearby Silicon Valley.
Zhang decided to start documenting these people and the alternative means of accommodation they had been forced to find.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Wow, they have to live in an old hotel #AppalachianTrailBackpacker
Curious. They’re all white people.
Every year, thousands of people are forced to live in shelters deep in the Appalachian hills. #WhoWillSpeakForThem
http://www.whiteblaze.net/forum/vbg/showimage.php?i=10903
No thanks!
We have never made 200K, and we raised a family in SF mainly going to private schools.
She is not correct in detail.
It IS expensive and a terrible strain for the lower middle class who can’t get public housing.
In the 1940s? ... With only one child?...
Regards,
Am I missing something here, are they hostages? Is San Francisco holding them against their will?
Not so much of that here in Ohio .... we can get to -30 degrees sometimes in the winter.
Our climate is not attractive for that lifestyle.
A lot of the stuff concerns people living in residence hotels in the Tenderloin and nearby. This is actually an old tradition in SF, and not some result of modern conditions. Artists, starving students, addicts, the insane and eccentric have always lived in residence hotels. At one time I did too.
They're also all creative hippie types. Can't make a living writing poetry.
Not to sound insensitive but . . . can't these people move somewhere cheaper but close to SF? Do they work regular jobs? (Maybe do their creative stuff on the side?)
Our last one just went off to college.
Someone told me SF has most expensive hotels too.
We have old hotels here in our town in the Central Valley that people live in. I’m sure it’s the same everywhere.
As to living on a sailboat......I love our sailboat and just me? I could live on it easily and love it. With Hubby I would require a bigger boat. ;)
Who in the hell would live in SF other than a bunch of LIBS!!!!! they get what they believe in a liberal utopia!!!!! Now they complain!!!!!
I know it is an island and all, but it seems like I recall a bridge or two. Can’t they leave?
Related:
The Shut-In Economy (”Pampered, isolated royalty or 21st century servant”)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/3311456/posts
Thomas Sowell writes about this alot. It is the rent control, zoning, building codes, open space, and a myriad of ridiculously restrictive building practices that drive rents and prices to these levels in SF and the surrounding areas. He’s right.
No one is "forced" to live in any US municipality.
These people would rather live in unpleasant accommodations in their favorite town than pleasant ones in a town that is insufficiently fashionable.
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