the jungle
Inside the Nation’s Largest Homeless Encampment
[santa clara county]
county has some of the highest salaries, google, yahoo, apple.. also – largest homeless encampment.. 65 acre stretch of creek, 300 people
bay area known for its innovation, one of wealthiest, .. if we can’t do it here.. it can’t happen anywhere.. it’s got to happen here…
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via http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/12/jungle-homeless-camp-san-jose-silicon-valley-video
Despite Silicon Valley’s immense wealth—or, perhaps, because of it—San Jose and surrounding Santa Clara County have the nation’s highest rate of homeless living on the streets—7,500 at last count. And despite popular perception, most of these folks didn’t move here looking for a free ride. Three-quarters were born in the county, and most live in one of the county’s 247 tent cities, not in homeless shelters. Many of them have jobs, yet don’t make enough to afford housing.
Aguirre, for instance, did tech consulting for Dell, Apple, and Cisco in the 1990s before losing his business when Valley companies outsourced manufacturing to China. His wife’s salary as a full-time medical clerk wasn’t enough to pay the bills. For more on how the couple gets by, read his first-person account of life in the Jungle.
The Jungle is a forested stretch of Coyote Creek where about 300 people live in tents and shanties. They use the creek as a latrine or to bathe in; they just don’t drink from it. I’ve heard that the Jungle is the largest encampment of homeless individuals in the United States. The city doesn’t refer to it as the Jungle, which kind of connotes wild animals or wild behavior. It’s actually really close to lots of tech campuses. Every day, a Yahoo bus goes by.
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be you. 