Thanks to the rebounding tech industry, California’s Silicon Valley’s economy is booming again, but poverty and homelessness are also on the rise. The region is adding jobs faster than it has for a decade and fortunes are soaring, yet at the same time, food stamp participation just hit a 10-year high, homelessness has risen 20 percent in two years, and the average income for Hispanics, who make up one in four Silicon Valley residents, fell to a new low of about $19,000 a year.
Near San Jose’s international airport, authorities are trying to clear out a sprawling and trash-strewn 28-acre tent city. But tent residents told Fox News that times are so tight they have nowhere else to turn.
“This is the most ridiculous place ever,” said Kristina Erbenich, 38, clambering onto her bike, a heavy pack on her back. The former chef said she spent $14,000 on hotel rooms before her savings ran out. “If everyone around here is so rich, why can’t they do something to help?”
United Way Silicon Valley CEO Carole Leigh Hutton wonders the same thing.
“How is it that in an area so very rich, we have so many people so very poor? Why can’t we break that cycle? With all the brain power in the Silicon Valley, we should be able to solve these problems. But what we need is the collective will.”
Experts blame the region’s high cost of living. The median home price is $550,000, and rents average just under $2,000 a month for a two-bedroom apartment in this region that is home to many of the nation’s wealthiest companies including Facebook, Apple Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co. and Google. For a family of four, just covering basic needs like rent, food, childcare and transportation comes to almost $90,000 a year, according to the nonprofit Insight Center for Community Economic Development.
