16,000 people in L.A. live in cars, vans and RVs. But safe parking is limited
latimes.com
latimes.com
In LA, that is.
For the estimated $20-30 per night the article states this might cost, we could get these people into actual housing in the midwest.
Until they've tried that, I don't really care what problems people in LA have. These people are addicted to LA/California.
We're eventually going to get over trying to let everyone live in the most popular cities in California and we'll be better for it.
The challenge is: how does a city figure out how to treat its car campers as first / second class citizens?
Meanwhile new grad with a fancy degree from Northwestern, you can afford the rent, so they get to live in LA.
------------------------------------
I understand what you're saying. While many people would like to live in California, there's only so much room. At the same time I have a hard time swallowing the idea that "These people are addicted to LA" if they grew up there and spent their whole lives there.
The US coasts have not been building enough new housing to keep up with demand [0] for the past several decades. We treat housing like an investment and restrict supply to increase property value to the point that it is difficult for people to find places they can afford to live.
Some people may have to leave the town where they grew up to find somewhere to live and work. Some people may have shown up in LA with unrealistic dreams and should probably leave.
I only ask that you don't discount the role housing policy has played in creating this situation. The issue is more nuanced than "people addicted to California."
[0] - https://www.brookings.edu/research/cost-crowding-or-commutin...
These people would never afford whatever becomes available in an open market anyways. Cut the prices a bit and it'll be me moving to LA and I can outbid anyone living in a car out of necessity.
So, we're left with trying to make constant concessions just because people were born here (well, maybe) or we can cut them loose until they move.
If I can grow up in the Midwest and move away from home (nearly all of my hometown friends too) to progress my career, people can pack it up to progress their lives. There was no government intervention to keep families and friends together in the Midwest. Probably because we weren't addicted to Ohio.
People born in LA that can't make it either squandered a huge head start being born and local to LA or their family screwed them by staying in a bad situation and should have moved decades ago. What is so sacred about being born there? Their local friends/family are letting them live out of a car or a tent. What love will be lost?
They can't afford to live where they were born. Deal with it. It's over. Grind out a year or two in the heartland and move back with a better job if you really miss it that much. I don't think that's too tough of a pill to swallow.
Are there no prisons, are there no workhouses? Right, Mr. Scrooge?
I really have to wonder about the unreal world the privileged live in. Do they realize how many of the services they take for granted will be unavailable in their future? I can only look forward to their pitiful attempts to repair the streets, make the clothes, run the gas stations, pay the police, grow the food.
I brought up native Angelinos as a counter argument to the idea the people there are somehow foolish for wanting to live in LA so bad they sleep in their car. If your family, friends and job are in a place, I can understand wanting to stay even without a roof over your head. It's not all starry eyed, actor wannabe's in that situation.
Here's my question: what is your vision of LA going forward? If there is no new housing it will just get more expensive. Where will the service workers live? Who's going to cook the food, clean the offices, and take out the trash?
I don't think "grinding it out for a year in the heartland" is going to suddenly give blue collar workers a place to live in the city.
You never finished that sentence with a "then" clause.
Here, let me help you out:
"...then I am a very privileged person compared to people who don't have the opportunity to do so for a multitude of reasons that I didn't have to deal with."
It looks like you never had the incentive to consider why other people don't move when you could do it.
Something tells me if I paid you $10 for each good reason you find that makes a cross-country move difficult for someone who's struggling (and is older, and doesn't have the background you have), you would come up with plenty.
Perhaps consider it as a form of charity, and trying doing it on your own as an exercise? Take as an the internet challenge of the day.
Sure. But are you going to pay for their relocation package, plus unemployment benefits until they find a job at their destination?
No?
Oh, then perhaps let's stop suggesting that moving cross-country is easy or cheap for people already living month-to-month at best.
And that's without taking into account that some of them:
1. Have family in the area that they can't just give up;
2. Have their social support network in the area that they can't just give up;
3. Might be a part of someone else's support network that they can't just abandon;
4. Grew up in the area and thus will be forcibly displaced by your suggestion.
I know two people living off a van / RV in the Bay Area.
Both are Bay Area natives. One can afford to rent an apartment, but his work as a bus driver makes the morning commute three hours long. He lives in an RV close to work on weekdays.
Another was renting until recently, but doesn't make enough money as a musician / audio technician. So he's effectively on a permanent tour.
Both are in their 40's and have children.
I guess you can say that they are "addicted" to their families, to their hometown and community, and to their jobs.
Or you can say that they live here, and stop giving infeasible suggestions like "Move to Midwest".
But are you going to pay for their relocation package, plus unemployment benefits...
Local government doesn't pay UI benefits, and UI is transferrable across states now with no policy change (and with no rate reduction.)
How about would you be willing to provide for them while they are looking for a job at a different state.
And that's, of course, only one of the reasons why it's difficult to move. Got any answers for others I mentioned?
DC, NYC... We've got our modern hoovervilles too.
Screw LA and what it turns you people into.
I think this article misses a major problem that people in precarious circumstances in their lives face when trying to secure housing that isn't either traditional residential mortgage or rental in corporate owned apartment complexes... and that is exploitation.
Until exploitation of the working classes is reduced there are going to continue to be problems with housing.
Also, I'll tell you that trying to start a business, even a side business, in a country you're not already really familiar with can be really painful.
I think I'm working class... I certainly work a lot and I go to work during the day :-)
Suffering from the delusion that you're not a member of the proletariat when the plain fact is that you are is the path to bankruptcy and poverty.
I do not currently live in America and I have no plans or interest in living any where in or near California. I am leaving a part time job working on industrial sensor development and a full time income producing hobby of metal working to go to a small town in Tennessee to care for my remaining parent while she lives out what's left of her life.