Wow! Quite a patchwork quilt of factoids!
The "standard 'fixed income' is under 1k/month"? Really? I have my doubts, but if so, that is way under the cost of housing in the SF Bay Area, but what obligates taxpayers to subsidize those people's choices to live in the most expensive part of CA, to the tune of $2000-$3000 per month per household?
Notice how the DU-person slippy-slides from "homelessness" to "poverty", as if those were identical, and giving the false impression that 800000 people are homeless in the SF Bay Area. The largest proportion - probably the majority - are the mentally ill and the chemically-dependent, who either are incapable of living an ordinary lifestyle or choose not to. Giving such people government goodies and housing will solve nothing, and the housing will be trashed and destroyed. I'm not being heartless, just realistic.
Now, other than Berserkeley being a neighbor city to Oakland, how'd dtw slippy-slide from Oakland-SF issues to Berserkeley? Other than that (s)he wanted to rant against Mayor Tom Bates?
"... while Mayor Bates of Berkeley builds $6000/month shoebox condos ...". Mayor Bates has been Mayor of Berserkeley for 12 years, and is somewhere between very liberal and very "Progressive". IOW, pretty much what the lib/Prog Berserkeley students and profs want and have voted for in 4 successive elections. Own it, Ds, libs, and Progs! Bates is your boy! As to "$6000/month shoebox condos", I don't have to go to the Oakland Tribune or Craig's List websites to know that is at least double the ordinary rent for reasonably pleasant SF Bay Area apartments. And I seriously doubt the City of Berserkeley is building luxury condos. Berserkeley may permit such high end housing to be built, but that is very different. IOW, exactly the kind of dishonest hysterical misrepresentation I would expect from a Prog such as dtw (who probably doesn't ... work). I don't care for Tom Bates or the City of Berserkeley, and seeming to "defend" them feels weird, but if you're going to slam them for something they're doing, it should be something they're actually doing, IYKWIM.
The SF Bay Area is a very expensive area to live. Foreign competition has forced Silicon Valley electronics companies to do manufacturing overseas. High wages forced Ford and GM to close their manufacturing plants in Milpitas and Fremont, respectively. Many residents of the South Bay are high-paid engineers, sales/marketing, and manglement people. OTOH, the various cities restrict where housing can be built and shake down developers and builders of housing - make building new housing very expensive. So, on the Supply side, government makes housing artificially scarce and costly to make; on the Demand side the people seeking to buy or rent are high-paid and bid up the price. Further government interference and shake-downs will only make things far worse.
BTW (I've mentioned this several time before, but it is relevant to what I've posted), the "SV" in my forum name refers to where I live, Silicon Valley, and I've lived here since the Carter Administration.
