patrick.net

Palo Alto just ordered a tent city.

You'd expect more from an entrepreneurial city.

Living in your car is the ultimate way to keep expenses low so you can work on your lean startups.

If you could rent a parked car to live in, in Palo Alto it would be $500/mo.

Most homes in Palo Alto are well over $1,000,000 and their owners don't want the disadvantaged parked on their street. The result will be that they park in Mountain View.

I totally understand them passing this ordinance. It's hard to enjoy your $1.6 million dollar, 1,200 sqft palace on an enormous 4,000 sqft lot when you have these bums and hoodlums living in their car 12 feet from your front door. Sort of dispels the illusion of magnificence that is Palo Alto.

Sleeping is a human right. Any law that prevents sleeping when doing so does not endanger others, such as while flying an airplane, is a crime against humanity and violates the Eighth Amendment.

Furthermore, the reason people are sleeping in their cars is that it is the only safe place for them to do so since house prices are out of control. It's typical of politicians to punish the victims of the housing bubble rather than to simply stop propping up housing prices.

Dan8267 says

Sleeping is a human right. Any law that prevents sleeping when doing so does not endanger others, such as while flying an airplane, is a crime against humanity and violates the Eighth Amendment.

Furthermore, the reason people are sleeping in their cars is that it is the only safe place for them to do so since house prices are out of control. It's typical of politicians to punish the victims of the housing bubble rather than to simply stop propping up housing prices.

Agreed.

Goran_K says

I totally understand them passing this ordinance. It's hard to enjoy your $1.6 million dollar, 1,200 sqft palace on an enormous 4,000 sqft lot when you have these bums and hoodlums living in their car 12 feet from your front door. Sort of dispels the illusion of magnificence that is Palo Alto.

Next ordinance is to allow shooting them from your overpriced cardboard McMansion - AF predictions are coming closer ;) I initially slept in the car In Palo Alto when I moved to the bay area during the dot-com bubble. I recommend old Saabs, very sturdy!

"In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep in their carriages . . ." -- Anatolie France, paraphrased.

Also from him:

"Nine tenths of education is encouragement."

"An education isn't how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It's being able to differentiate between what you do know and what you don't."

"We have never heard the devil's side of the story, God wrote the whole book."

"Stupidity is far more dangerous than evil, for evil takes a break from time to time, stupidity does not."

What I want to do is park a big fat houseboat in the bay, LOL

http://goo.gl/maps/UIzwt

100% capital investment, 0% into land.

Of course, unfortunately, capital generally depreciates as it rots while the land appreciates, since land is a very durable form of wealth (unless you invest in cliffside real estate, LOL)

Don't be this guy:

http://www.redfin.com/CA/Santa-Cruz/100-Geoffroy-Dr-95062/home/2249784

Dan8267 says

Sleeping is a human right.

As is access to the commons. But we've locked that one away, and nobody cares. Well, nobody with any power, since the more power you have the more land titles you tend to own.

Kinda like Monopoly, huh?

Bellingham Bill says

Dan8267 says

Sleeping is a human right.

As is access to the commons.

Not sure I see the connection. A car takes up a parking space whether or not there are people sleeping in it. The car doesn't block right of way because someone is sleeping in it.

That would not be constitutional. Car is considered a place of business, it is legitimate activity. This government has no right to burden it's citizens like that!