Homeless In Seattle, Part 2: Tech Sucks The Soul Out Of The City

Townhall.com ^ | October 10, 2019 | iLANAMERMERCER

[Kaslin]

Trust the late Anthony Bourdain, the Kerouac of cooking, to blurt out the truth when nobody else would. 

Following his Jack Kerouac wanderlust, Bourdain had arrived in Seattle to spotlight the manner in which high-tech was changing the city, draining it of its character and of the many quirky characters that made Seattle what it was.

“Microsoft, Google, Twitter, Expedia, and Amazon are the big dogs in town,” mused  Bourdain. “A flood of them—tech industry workers … derisively referred to as tech boys or tech bros—is rapidly changing the DNA of the city, rewiring it to satisfy their own newly-empowered nerdly appetites.”

That the “tech boys” “are so dull,” as members of a Seattle band say—and sing—in no way assuages their heated effect on the housing market. A street artist called “John Criscitello … told Bourdain how the high-tech influx has driven up housing costs and forced artists [like himself] out of the neighborhood.”

Yes, Big Tech is exacerbating homelessness in Seattle and the surrounds. While correlation is not causation, the ongoing and never-ending, annual importation of a sizable feudal elite from China and India must surely be factored in the homelessness equation.

“Buoyed by the city’s thriving technology industry, Seattle has consistently been the hottest housing market in the nation.” Commensurate with the explosion in the number of Seattle neighborhoods in which homes cost $1 million has been an explosion in the region’s homeless population.

“Households must earn about $140,000 a year to afford mortgage payments – nearly double the city’s typical income,” but on par with the “average base pay” of a software engineer in the Seattle, WA area.

Some consciousness of guilt was evinced by Microsoft. The company threw money at a problem to which it has greatly contributed. In 2014, Microsoft allocated $500 million toward low-income housing, because,

[I want the USA back]

It correlates very well with LIBERAL GOVERNMENTS! San fran, baltimore, detroit, newark, bridgeport, etc.

[Be Careful]

There are 4 legs to the stool: Rampant Drugs Tech. Airbnb and Sanctuary Policies that destroy affordable housing for average citizens

[Vendome]

Total BS

Housing get more expensive every year and has been here in Silicon Valley since the 1970’s.

Get a job losers.

I’m not homeless because I aspire to have that roof over my head every night...

[mmichaels1970]

Wouldn't have anything to do with this, now would it?

Seattle taxes ranked most unfair in Washington — a state among the harshest on the poor nationwide

[Buckeye McFrog]

Same thing is going on here in Pittsburgh. Lots of young techies coming in from elsewhere to take these jobs.

In addition to replacing the old-time cigar chomping union Democrats who used to get elected with a Soy Boy Mayor who wants to take everyone’s guns, they are driving up the cost of housing to levels never before seen here.

The results are mind-bending. There is a run down former steel neighborhood called Hazelwood that abuts some of the growing tech areas. The low-income residents are so terrified of gentrification that they’ve formed a Save Our Slums committee, and actually convinced the city to legally hamstring any sort of constructive development there.

[cuban leaf]

When I lived in the Seattle area, I actually rented between 1997 (when my wife divorced me), through 2011, when I moved out of the city to KY with my current wife of over 21 years.

Rent’s stayed ridiculously low because the home buying boom was draining the rentals of customers. We Actually lived in a very nice tri-level, three bedroom house on Mercer Island, two blocks from Paul Allen for $1400 a month.

The most we ever paid for a place in that time frame was $1600, and that was for a five bedroom with three full bathrooms and a large two car garage.

Then we left.

Then everybody had to leave their house and it all started again. My daughter (who moved to KY a year ago to be near us), was paying $3,800 a month for a tiny two bedroom house with limited street parking and no garage.

It’s even worse now.

But here’s the rub: These tech kids are not making much money. They are in those new apartments near where they work. It’s almost like the old coal mining housing and company store thing. They are nothing more than worker bees paid just enough to stay alive, but with a “glamorous” job at a “glamorous” company.

But, truth be told, there is really nothing glamorous about the job. It’s a bit like being an engineer for the design of the latest Bugatti, and you designed the spring for the trunk latch..

[N. Theknow]

Code 16 gigabits and what do you get?

Another day older and the deeper in debt.

[Danette]

Was in Seattle last month. My son is employed in the tech industry. Downtown is a bustling town with lots of foreigners and young people. 100’s of city busses efficiently crisscrossing the city. I saw a few homeless, but no tents. Was a nice city to visit....but would not like to live. Too expensive. My son lives north of Seattle where he could afford a home. He takes the city buss into work.

[PIF]

and drove less affluent people and families into the less populated parts of western Washington, driving prices beyond what locals can afford while bucolic back roads became chocked with bumper to bumper traffic, etc.

And the $72,000 home became the $300,000 (abt) home in towns whose main remaining job base revolves around paper mills, having had their previous economic bases (timber and commercial fishing) crashed by a influx of wealth Californians in the mid 80s.

[Steve_Seattle]

Last week I attended a festival at a Russian Orthodox Church located on the fringes of downtown Seattle. I have been going to that festival off-and-on since the early 80s, but hadn't been there in three or four years.

That church is now pretty much the only remaining older building in that neighborhood, and it is surrounded by five-to-ten story apartments, condos, and a few bars and restaurants catering to the hi-tech crowd.

It is not a suitable environment to raise children, and even on a late Saturday morning there were few signs of life. Although no homeless people were evident there, and the streets were clean, the neighborhood has an aura of deadness to it that is palpable.

[Steve_Seattle]

"I saw a few homeless, but no tents."

I live a mile or two north of the city, and when I drive through downtown, I see many tents and encampments lining the freeway corridor. In my area, it is increasingly common to see people living in old RVs, cars, and even school buses.

There is an off-street bike trail running through the city, and it is populated by the homeless and drug addicts. You find syringes, beer cans, food wrappers, coat hangers (from stolen merchandise), shoes, underpants, and pajamas lying around. There's a joke that dogs need to be careful or they'll step in human waste.

[Freedom_Is_Not_Free]

I lived on the Olympic Peninsula in 1982. Bellevue was a small city and there was not a homeless person in sight in all of Seattle that I could see. They must have been there, but they were probably isolated to uncharted backwaters I had no occasion to travel through.

I visited ten years later, and already the waterfront parks had a sprinkling of homeless bums hanging out but were really few and far between. Sure has exploded since then.

Seattle’s mayor in 1982 was an Independent, not a Democrat. Beginning in 1990 with Democrat Mayor Norm Rice, it has been nothing but commie DemocRATS every since.

[americas.best.days...]

” Trust the late Anthony Bourdain....”

I was told to never trust a junkie.

[Borderline]

I call full BS on the authors assertion that the homeless are not druggies or alcoholics. Waste of time pointing anyone to this article.