WELCOME TO 'THE JUNGLE': The Largest Homeless Camp In Mainland USA Is In The Heart Of Silicon Valley

[xchrom]

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-jungle-largest-homeless-camp-in-us-2013-8?op=1

Business Insider visited The Jungle several times in mid-July to talk to the people who live here and see what their lives are like




The conditions here are deplorable



Yet people still live out their daily lives here.



There is no "type" of person who lives in The Jungle.

[madrchsod]

1. thank you for posting

we debate going to war while we have people who are living as refugees of the economic war in the usa.

[xchrom]

2. ...

[Starry Messenger]

3. k&r

[Earth_First]

4. $12 billion dollars to sustain a limited incursion in Syria...

We have our own refugee crisis right here in The United States.

It's the refugees who have been forced out of society and forced to live on the fringe due to government policies that have made it nearly impossible for these individuals to escape these situations.

It's heartbreaking and maddening to see the concentration of wealth surrounding us while this occurs.

[cantbeserious]

6. What Happened To All That Hope And Change For Americans

eom

[RandiFan1290]

11. Hey, he made the Bush tax cuts permanent!

We should be grateful that Gore lost so we could have our precious tax cuts for the rich! They were so important that Obama, Pelosi, and Reid felt they needed to be permanent.

[cantbeserious]

12. Right - Americans Duped By A Con Man Yet Again

eom

[Auggie]

15. +1

[Agony]

5. meanwhile... repuglicans are attacking SNAP

and my local food bank is trying to serve more people than ever...

[Douglas Carpenter]

7. I suppose in an economy where economic recovery requires ever increasing housing cost - it becomes

inevitable that many people will not be able to keep up - especially in place like the Bay Area where jobs that pay in the lower 30% to 40% percentile cannot possibly provide anything resembling respectable housing. The ever spiraling speculative based casino capitalism that to a large extent replaced production based capitalism under the support of both leading political parties is simply going to make scenes like this common place.

[Enthusiast]

8. Those people made bad life choices.

They deserve suffering. Cut entitlements, now!

[paleotn]

18. Yea, like not winning the birth lottery. (nt)

[Enthusiast]

23. Hey, those people worked hard for their inheritance!

[gtar100]

9. Meanwhile our Military teaches all recruits that we are the greatest nation on earth.

They, the defenders of freedom, our mighty military, have become nothing more than tools for a few wealthy people while the great swath of this country, its people, lose more and more of those freedoms our military claims to protect. All that pride rings hollow out here. They have failed to protect the United States from the forces that are destroying it. Big failure!

[Johnny Ready]

10. 14 Years - Of Silence 14 Years of Pain

Imagine playing in the NFL for 14 years at 5 mill per year. 70 million dollars to play the game we love more than oxygen. It's "fair" because the owners make much much more than that.

In my opinion all celebrities or professional athletes who make millions performing should voluntarily concede a very small percentage to the homeless. One way or the other. I'd like to see someone like Lil Wayne, Kobe Bryant or Rob Gronkowski initiate a challenge to all other entertainers to match or exceed their efforts. Something that minute could set off a very heart warming trend.

[99Forever]

13. Billion$ for war, nothing for our citizens.

Thanks Barack, you're the bestest.

[marmar]

14. k/r

[workinclasszero]

16. No worries folks...we got a BILLION dollars a month to set up a no-fly zone in Syria

Billions and trillions..money raining down from the sky for war and the MIC but not ONE DAMN DIME for our fellow citizens who are dying from lack of healthcare, shelter, food and jobs!


45000 a year die in this country for lack of healthcare and no one gives a damn! But oh hell lets piss away a billion a month plus in Syria to be al-quidas fucking air force!?

This country has gone stark raving mad!

[heaven05]

17. geez

I hope they're not 'cleaned out' now and scattered to the four winds by the 'protect and serve' forces because they are an embarrassment to some local government or official. Not saying this travesty shouldn't have a light shone on it though. Just know how amerikkka deals with what's under it's slimy rocks.

[jsr]

19. Well, they could have sat at this table if they had taken personal responsibity

[historylovr]

20. K & R

We have a humanitarian crisis of our own in this country. Unfortunately there's no profit in doing anything about it.

[City Lights]

21. Thank you for sharing this.

Incredibly sad...

[mountain grammy]

22. There aren't too many of us who can't say "there but for the grace of God go I"

There were many times in my life when we were one paycheck away from the street, and, once you get there, it's hard to get back.

As the income gap in America grows ever larger and tax rates remain low for those with most of the money, necessary public services become more scarce and more people end up living in a tent, or in their car, or worse. This is the cost of redistributing wealth to a few.

In my resort community, we have million dollar mansions that sit empty 10-11 months out of the year while many locals live in substandard housing during the winter and camp during the summer.

[gristy]

24. There's a larger one in Fresno (or was, anyways)

http://www.fresnobee.com/2013/09/03/3476492/fresno-workers-prepare-for-cleanup.html

The sprawling camp on Santa Clara, E and F streets, with more than 250 people, was eliminated last week in a major display of City Hall force and resolve. A camp on H Street south of Ventura Avenue is next Monday's target.

My guess is there are larger ones all over the country.

[Le Taz Hot]

30. It must be nice to live in a city

where there's no homeless. How DO you do it? I'm waiting with breathless anticipation.

[Egalitarian Thug]

25. In the heart of the greatest concentration of billionaires on earth.

Will Americans ever wake up, or will they just quietly accept the end of freedom hoping that they will escape unnoticed?
& R

[Safetykitten]

32. And they buy electric cars! This will obviously help these people.

[warrant46]

26. Appalling and Nauseating

Not even Christ with 2 small fishes and 5 loaves could deal with this

Pretty soon this will be VERY COMMON in amerika

[Warpy]

27. I wish I could say I was surprised but I'm not

Reagan made it acceptable to have working class people become homeless, often whole families with their kids in tow.

There are colonias here in NM that rival the photos of the worst slums outside Rio, derelict trailers out in the desert with no power or plumbing inhabited by families of working adults and their children.

Other countries subsidize housing for marginal workers who do the jobs at the bottom that keep everything else running smoothly. This country would rather spend the money on death overseas.

I'm also not surprised to see this in Silicon Valley, where digital billionaires have made even crummy suburban tract houses unaffordable for many of their employees.

[Rex]

28. How much does the city waste every time they

'clean up' and try to throw away perfectly good citizens? I guess it wouldn't be enough to help 100 - 200 homeless people get permanent housing and work, nah better to just keep knocking down their shelters and avoiding the topic of poverty altogether.

Not like it will ever affect city officials. And if it ever does tough shit kids...probably made bad choices, oh got laid off? Meh, we need to talk about something else.

[gopiscrap]

29. Wow and to think what we could do with that 93 billion dollar

slush fund the military has sitting idle?

[Safetykitten]

31. Now tell me why we should listen to billionaires? The transit shit in a tube variety?