San Francisco is pouring millions of dollars into an RV park for the homeless, while young people trying to get a break in their careers are reduced to living in 4-feet high by 3.5-feet wide “pod” spaces for $700 a month.
The city opened a “safe parking site” at Candlestick Point in January 2022, which is home to 30 RVs — each of which cost the city $12,000 a month to keep there, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
The site, named the Bayview Vehicle Triage Center, has been recommended to be opened for another two years, which will cost the city at least $12.2 million.
Despite living rent-free and having 24/7 security, some residents at the RV park don’t enjoy it.
“It’s like living in a prison,” said Bayview resident Enrique Olivas. “I’ve been here for a year and it’s been difficult. There are so many rules, like I can’t park my truck inside. I’ve had to park my truck on the street. It’s already been broken into three times, so sometimes I sleep in my truck instead.”
Olivas, who lives in the Triage Center with his dog Suave, added: “You can’t have visitors, and if you have too much stuff, they take it away from you.
“They bring us food, but the food is not something I can really eat because I have no teeth. Even my dog won’t even eat it.”
Joyce Knighten, 85, owns the Double Rock convenience store less than a mile from the RV park. She said while she understands people there need help, they should also be required to get jobs to keep their spots.
“What they should do is clean it up and make it nice for people to live. They need to make it so they need to get a job and be a participating and tax-paying citizen, like the rest of us.”
Lewis said the space is “like a hacker incubator,” and many of the residents are highly educated people who just need a space to crash while they are working on their various projects.
“It’s living in a capsule and modeled after Japanese homes,” Lewis told The Post. “There are people fighting for affordable housing in this city, but when we actually try to find something that makes it work, we get criticized.”
The pod-living environment has drawn some criticism on social and mainstream media, with some calling the steel and wood bunk beds “glorified coffin homes” that are not the answer to San Francisco’s housing crisis.
Brownstone co-founder James Stallworth told The Post many of the renters are students, researchers and entrepreneurs who are breaking into the world of Artificial Intelligence and can’t afford median rents in the city.
“Some people think it’s great, others think we are doing something terrible housing is such a huge barrier for people if you are trying to live in the epicenter where people can network and build their companies.
“People criticize anyone who is doing something about this issue, and that’s fine. All that matters is the residents are having a good experience and they are getting what we set out to provide,” he said.
Meanwhile Olivas said some of his friends don’t want to park their trailers at Bayview because of its rules. That’s why he’s trying to get the city to find him somewhere else to live, either in his own apartment or one of teh city’s Single-Resident Occupancy rooms.
“They try to get you housing, but even that takes a long time,” Olivas said. “Everything they have promised, we haven’t seen and it has been so frustrating. We need help.”
Source: New York Post
