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I live in SF and while I don't spent a lot of time in Atherton, but homeless is most definitely visible even in the wealthy enclaves. Even before covid there was a small but visible homeless population in downtown Palo Alto (univ ave) and more recently there are tents on the sidewalk in Cupertino just down the street from Apple's spaceship campus. I think it must have become less acceptable to "move them along" during COVID.

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Correct. Atherton isn't a great example. There's literally no downtown, so any homeless people would have to set up camp right outside some (very rich) person's (giant) single family home on a street with no sidewalk. Even in less affluent parts of the Bay Area unhoused people typically cluster in business or industrial districts rather than residential neighborhoods filled with single family homes.

You see unhoused people in downtown Menlo Park, Palo Alto, and Los Altos which are almost as wealthy as Atherton, and there was temporary outrage last year when it was reported that Menlo Park PD had paid for a one-way cab ride for one of the regular unhoused residents up to Pacifica (they claimed that she asked them to get her there so she could get her hair cut by a friend).

South Bay homelessness has adapted to car culture. A lot of South Bay homeless live in cars or campers permanently parked on city streets adjacent to parks, school fields, and/or business parks. I think most South Bay cities have a "you have to move a vehicle that's parked on the street every 3 days" law intended to discourage this, but it doesn't seem to be enforced.

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