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.

[rightisright]

Actually, in this couples defense, the article did state:

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.

So, it's not about the parents leaving the daughter nothing, but the parents not planning properly for themselves and forcing the kids to pay doctors bills, operations, etc.

[rightisright]

$2300 a month isn't living extravagently?

Hate to break it to you, but in most big cities during the boom, $2300 would barely get you a one bedroom in a decent neighborhood

[FITZ]

I've lost much of my 401K too ---but you're not going to see me crying about it. I knew the economy wasn't good when I put that money in there so it was a poor decision on my part. I paid off my debts, stopped using credit cards completely and quit buying almost everything plus I decided to get used to working two jobs.

The stock market was a gamble all along.

[FITZ]

... put their money in a mattress ...

Probably they should have all paid off all their debts instead of trying to get wealth from the stock market. It's better to live in a trailer park and own your place than be so far in debt that you'll lose your house when you lose that first paycheck.

[537 Votes]

Meanwhile, illegal immigrants are sneaking across the border from Mexico -- crowding Americans out of jobs we need to survive, soaking up welfare, burdening the civil infrastructure, driving uninsured cars -- and then returning to live like kings in Mexico, where the cost of living is much lower than in the U.S.

But I don't say this to express pity for the couple described here. They probably voted for Clinton and Davis, and they deserve what they're getting. So this article is really a story about how what goes around, comes around.

[FITZ]

Besides ---these are just fake people in this story. I'd feel sorrier for them if I believed they really existed but like someone pointed out ---no one would sell a color television and get a black and white one instead.

[clamper1797]

I got into a discussion with a guy from Atlanta about this on FR about two months ago. He said I should shuck my twelve years of college (and degrees) and go into business ... any business for myself. I asked what he did .. he makes decortive wrouth iron and makes about $10 an hour. Woopee. What some out here JUST DON"T GET is that a lot of people who did the right things ... went to school and made something of themselves ... most worked VERY hard all their lives ... built a lifetime career ... saved money for their kids college education and for their retirement have been WIPED OUT. MOST are not spoiled upscale yuppies but well educated upstanding people in their late forties and fifties who have mortgages (yes it's true not everyone lives in a trailer). Most are too old and way too qualified to get hired by Burger King or any other low paying job. People would think that jobs are easy to get for these people don't know what the hell their talking about.

[FITZ]

. MOST are not spoiled upscale yuppies but well educated upstanding people in their late forties and fifties who have mortgages (yes it's true not everyone lives in a trailer)

Say they really exist ---did they care about the factory workers and garment workers who were losing their jobs and homes before them? Didn't they laugh and say they should learn computer programming to get a job? Lots of people foreclosed on their homes in the 90s but they weren't the upscale types so it didn't matter.

[clamper1797]

And how exactly are they going to pay the property tax ... food ... energy. Banks pay 2%.

Though the people in the story are probably fake ... I AM one of those people like the story depicts ... However I was fortunate to finally get a job. One does NOT go to college and work in a high paying job and live in a trailer. Real estate was always a good investment if you had a job. NO one expected the great high tech depression ... anymore than anyone expected the first depression. BTW houses are thru the roof right now. Anyone who bought a house in the last 10-20 years has a mortgage. In Silicon Valley (where the jobs are) the housing is VERY expensive. Sure 40 years ago one could have bought a house there for 40k but that was long before MY time ... and I'm 51.

[clamper1797]

Didn't they laugh and say they should learn computer programming to get a job?

How do you know this ... are you Miss Cleo .... A lot of my friends in the industry have donated a lot of time and money to charities when they had it. I personally was the head of an organization that collects money to charity. My group donated $5800 to the WTC survivors last year. You need to re-assess your thought about most of these people ... cause you are DEAD wrong

[clamper1797]

BTW it was reported in the San Jose Murky news and on KGO TV 7 about a month ago that 42% of the house in Silicon Valley are in distress. 42%

[FITZ]

Charities wasn't the right thing. They should have voted for politicians that cared about Americans having jobs. Service industry jobs won't last long after the manufacturing industry jobs are gone, that's just basic economic facts.

[FITZ]

My grandfather only had a third grade education but he read alot and observed alot ---and he lived through the Great Depression. He always said that if the US gave up the automotive industry we would lose our economic outlook. The automotive industry is the very thing that made us the richest nation and made us a strong middle class nation at one time. We gave all that up.

[clamper1797]

They should have voted for politicians that cared about Americans having jobs.

How do you know they didn't ... Most high end engineers I know are staunch conservatives and donated accordingly ... including myself. I took time off from work to join the bucket brigade in Klamath Falls last year... again you have misjudged

[The_Media_never_lie]

This article reads like fiction. "Clark" and "Carole" sound like what journalists euphemistically refer to as "composites"

I think you are right. The only thing missing from this story is a "blame Bush" angle.

[clamper1797]

I don't kinow about your grandparents but mine ... who also had a hard life ... would have kicked my a$$ if I had NOT gone to college. I was the first person in either side of my family to ever earn a degree. Oh BTW I did a year in Vietnam before going to college ... and I was married .. and I held a full time job the whole time I was in school. No one gave me anything except GI Bill and I earned that.

[balrog666]

The article is a hoax for the most part. The writer seems to believe that a television is some kind of indicator of wealth or financial health which it isn't at all. I've seen color televisions recently for $60 --new.

Exactly. A brand new color TV/VCR combo sells for $90 here at Sam's Club, new TV's $60 and the cheapest VCR is under $50. Go to any TV/Stereo repair shop and you can buy a used color TV for beer money. Nobody would "buy" a b/w TV under any circumstances and nobody would sell their color TV's because they have no value as used equipment, the whole article was made out of whole cloth to manipulate people's emotions.

[stands2reason]

Not in the Bay Area, it isn't. That's about average.

[clamper1797]

the whole article was made out of whole cloth to manipulate people's emotions

You are probably right BUT there are people out here that have gone thru the lay offs and the very real possiblity of losing all they ever have worked for ... I know cause I'm one of them. Granted though I would have kept the big screen ... it would have looked good under the bridge