Homeless increase: more RV dwellers

press release

news story

Pacifica is second-worst in the county.

Comments

[Alan the Kiwi]

It's no surprise that more folks are choosing to live in RVs. If you're a regular wage earner, there's simply no way you can afford to rent on your own anymore, even in Pacifica. A half-decent 2-bedroom apartment will fetch $3500/month, 1-bedroom $2500. What cashier/teacher/mechanic earns that?

You're right, Peter, bogan is the sketchy guy with the AC/DC t-shirt, Ford Falcon up on bricks on the overgrown front lawn. The flatmate from hell.

[Dan Stegink]

In 2015, Pacifica’s mass evictions of 93 units of the Pacific Skies Estates mobile home park permanently removed every single “very low income housing” from its housing plan, doubled its homeless population overnight, and to this day homeless camps line Pacifica State Beach. Six of those folks who were evicted have since died.

If lawmakers knew these mass evictions weren’t just displacing folks, but were sentencing many of them to death, they’d never get a good night’s sleep again.

[Peter Loeb]

Bogan is Australian and New Zealand slang for a person whose speech, clothing, attitude and behaviour are considered unrefined or unsophisticated. Depending on the context, the term can be pejorative or self-deprecating. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogan

[Alan the Kiwi]

If you're living in an RV, you are going to want free air conditioning. Ignoring the rust, Pacifica is the perfect climate for doing so. I would move here just for that.

Additionally, while I understand the need to count RV dwellers as homeless, having lived in a large, well-appointed caravan many years ago for a year or so, there is no better way to save money while still maintaining personal space. It got me out of a financial hole very quickly, and was quite comfortable.

I certainly never considered myself homeless. In fact, my quality of life was better than many of my equally underpaid young peers who were forced to flat with bogan university students, and spend a good chunk of their income for the privilege of doing so. Society maintained my life was somehow shameful, and yet I held down a job and was a good little taxpayer. Eventually I moved career and could afford a nice place, but I have absolutely zero regrets about my year in a box.
And kind of miss it in a way, too.

[alan wald]

SMC's most unsheltered homeless city, Redwood City, has more than double the population of Pacifica. So, measured per capita, #2 Pacifica easily moves into #1 position.