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Apple

Apple Is Preparing To Begin Construction Activities At Its North San Jose Office With a Portion Devoted To Affordable Housing (patentlyapple.com) 76

Posted by BeauHD from the latest-developments dept.
NicknamesAreStupid writes: As a follow-up to [last week's story about a large homeless encampment growing on the site Apple earmarked for its North San Jose campus], Apple appears to be using the promise of building affordable homes as a part of moving the current homeless encampment out. [According to Patently Apple, "Apple is preparing construction activities at its huge north San Jose office campus, a move that could bring thousands of jobs to the mixed-use tech hub." The company says it "would spend millions to reach out to and relocate residents of a homeless encampment that has formed on the company's land." Specific plans and details have yet to be released.]

This raises the question: will companies revert to a new form of "company town" used by the coal and oil companies during the 20th century? Instead of villages in remote locations, will tech companies build urban islands of homes for employees, effectively subsidizing their housing in a manner similar to subsidized healthcare of the mid-twentieth century? Of course, the catch is that if you leave the company, you lose your home.
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Apple Is Preparing To Begin Construction Activities At Its North San Jose Office With a Portion Devoted To Affordable Housing More

Apple Is Preparing To Begin Construction Activities At Its North San Jose Office With a Portion Devoted To Affordable Housing

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  • Go look up what a company called Blackrock (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Is doing, where they buy every single single family home that hits the market outbidding any individual buyer. They then rent these homes back to people. You know all those stories you keep seeing about how your own nothing and like it? Propaganda.

    If you're older and you already bought your home when they were still affordable they're not done with you. Eventually you're going to need medical care, or one of your family members will. Insanely high cost of medical Care means eventually you'll be forced t

    • Re: Go look up what a company called Blackrock (Score:4, Insightful)

      by saloomy ( 2817221 ) on Wednesday August 18, 2021 @08:43PM (#61706521)
      Youbact as if black rock has unlimited funds. It does not. And, you can outbid them if you really want to. Question is, why? Housing shouldnâ(TM)t be a supply constricted commodity. It is in CA where I am from because of regulations. Anyway. If I want to buy my own house. I will. If I were offered terms to work and live on company housing, I would have to make my value judgement and decide what works best for me. I do not think such arrangements are always bad nor do I think they need to be outlawed.
      • They're just one example of what he's talking about. Also, if they're doing as he claims, they'll be getting richer and richer off rent, which gives them more money to suck up more houses, which they can rent, and so on. This shit has been going on for quite some time now, it's just that people are starting to notice. If we're not careful, we might find ourselves in some kind of modern version of feudalism.
        • The more expensive those houses get, the more property taxes they will have to pay, and if the cost is too high, people will just move to new housing or build their own. It is fairly trivial to buy land and get a construction loan if you can quality for the house any way.

      • Youbact as if black rock has unlimited funds. It does not. And, you can outbid them if you really want to. Question is, why? Housing shouldnâ(TM)t be a supply constricted commodity. It is in CA where I am from because of regulations. Anyway. If I want to buy my own house. I will. If I were offered terms to work and live on company housing, I would have to make my value judgement and decide what works best for me. I do not think such arrangements are always bad nor do I think they need to be outlawed.

        California real estate tends to serve as a warning to the rest of the country, so probably not the best example to try and compare anything to.

        Let's be specifically clear as to what Blackrock is doing. Millions of Americans were forced out of work as entire industries shuttered due to the pandemic. Blackrock is taking that "golden" opportunity to prey on vulnerable people who they know are being pushed into a horrible financial situation with government funding drying up, jobs still shut down in many area

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dknj ( 441802 )

          All those houses being bought on sub 3% jumbo loans. That's basically free money.. when interest rates start ratcheting up, blackrock turns into a lending arm and makes $$$ on the 10% interest thats coming soon to a country near you.

          Now I understand why the advice for the past two years was leverage your eyeballs out

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Ichijo ( 607641 )

          Blackrock is taking that "golden" opportunity to prey on vulnerable people who they know are being pushed into a horrible financial situation with government funding drying up, jobs still shut down in many areas, and eviction waivers expiring.

          But many of those are the same people (NIMBYs) who got filthy rich on paper by effectively denying home ownership to young, poor families, all in the name of "community character." And as a result, now they are poor themselves! How's that for karma?

          You didn't propose

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Let's say somehow magically housing supply was not constricted, that would still leave the issue of location. Many people don't want to live in the middle of nowhere. Building a new community is not trivial, it needs all sorts of amenities.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by whitroth ( 9367 )

        As far as anyone posting on slashdot is concerned, BlackRock *does* have unlimited funds. It bills itself as "the world's largest asset manager...." According to wikipedia, "BlackRock is by far the world's largest asset manager, with just over $10 trillion in assets under management as of October 2021."

        So, yes, jerk, they *do* have unlimited funds. And if they're buying 15% of all housing that comes on the market every year, how long will it be before they *are* the market?

    • To add on to this, it's really important that Apple calls it "affordable housing" but what is their definition for "affordable housing" in fucking California? Without details, it's a bunch of hot air. If "affordable" is $1500 a month for a 200 square foot studio they can fuck right off, because that is not "affordable" to minimum wage workers in California. "Affordable" would be $750 a month which is a fuckin pipe dream.

      And they're going to "relocate" all the homeless people? That certainly sounds a

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Owning a home is one of the principal ways people have built up wealth since the end of WW2. The value of property keeps increasing, and as boomers paid off their mortgages and saw their general wealth increase they started buying property to rent as a retirement plan.

      Now corporations are getting in on it too.

      We need something to make owning property to rent out unattractive, and make buying cheaper. I would suggest that only non-profit housing associations be allowed to rent property out.

      The situation in J

  • for the homeless on some of the land as far away from HQ as possible.

    Toss in some bodegas and a whole foods or costco in the middle.

    • Re:Why not just build trailer parks (Score:5, Insightful)

      by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Wednesday August 18, 2021 @09:03PM (#61706561)

      If that's all it would take the problem would be easily solvable. The city of San Francisco alone (not even the whole bay area) spends $1.1 billion a year on homelessness management. Reference: https://www.sfchronicle.com/ba... [sfchronicle.com] .) Given that there are 30,000 homeless people in the entire San Francisco bay area (Reference: https://sf.curbed.com/2019/7/2... [curbed.com] ), we could build a huge refu-- err, homeless shelters about 20 to 50 miles from the bay area. We could put 20,000 UN shelter-in-a-box homes that cost $2000 each (which includes basic amenities). Reference: https://bettershelter.org/ [bettershelter.org] Let's assume the labor cost for setup and site prep add another $2000. That means total expense would be $80,000,000 ($4,000 x 30,000 = $120 million.) Then, let's throw in $20,000,000 for administrative expenses. That's $120 million one time expense, followed by $20,000,000 a year for administrative expenses (100 to 150 employees). We could even offer all the residents free transportation to the bay area for $5 million a year (25 buses.) We can also have job training programs for an additional $5 million.

      So basically, I am saying instead of $1.1 billion a year just for San Francisco, the problem is theoretically solvable for $120 million one-time expense and $30 million ongoing expense.

      Of course, it will never work .. the camps will be drug havens and crime hotspots. Also, people won't be happy with living in the UN shelter housing -- pretty sure there will lots of protests about how inhumane they are (nevermind that living under a bridge or in a tent is worse.)

      • Mountain View (about halfway between San Francisco and San Jose) is trying something like this [mv-voice.com]. They're using modular units [lifemoves.org] which are much nicer than the UN ones - they're permanent structures with hard walls, insulation, large windows, and more. They're also considerably more expensive at $100k per unit, but that includes permanent installation costs, etc. I'm interested to see how it goes for them.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Some countries have tried just giving homeless people a home, unconditionally. It works and is cheaper than the alternative.

        Yeah, some will still do crimes. People who own houses or who pay rent do crimes as well. They still need support, but it's so much easier and cheaper if they have somewhere to live. Much easier to find work if you can take a shower and put on some clean clothes for the interview, get a decent night's sleep and not be the victim of crime yourself.

    • I love you

  • will tech companies build urban islands of homes for employees, effectively subsidizing their housing in a manner similar to subsidized healthcare of the mid-twentieth century?

    A better question would be, who cares if companies choose to do this?

    Companies should be free to offer this benefit to their employees, or not.

  • Company towns still exist in a form in Australia. One example is Tom Price which is controlled by Rio Tinto and has a population of about 3000 people. You can though buy houses there if you wish but real estate prices are not much lower than the capital city in Perth due to the very high salaries on offer there.

    To be fair it's in a part of the world where you would not find settlements without mining unless they were Aboriginal in nature.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dohzer ( 867770 )

      If only the governments were interested in housing people instead of simply protecting the ridiculous money that is now invested in existing properties.

  • Company town? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by PPH ( 736903 ) on Wednesday August 18, 2021 @08:47PM (#61706533)

    Not really. Maybe for a few of the gardeners and janitors. But most of the people in the homeless camp are not likely a good fit for Apple jobs. And I suspect that the quality of the housing built to suit the homeless is not the sort of thing that Apple employees would be satisfied with.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by jlar ( 584848 )

      Not really. Maybe for a few of the gardeners and janitors. But most of the people in the homeless camp are not likely a good fit for Apple jobs. And I suspect that the quality of the housing built to suit the homeless is not the sort of thing that Apple employees would be satisfied with.

      Maybe they should just learn to code?

  • Thanks, Prop 13! (Score:4)

    by Ichijo ( 607641 ) on Wednesday August 18, 2021 @09:10PM (#61706577) Journal

    In most states, when property values fall, so do property taxes. So people don't mind too much when developers add more supply to the housing market.

    But in California, adding housing supply has no such upside for property owners. And so they vote out anyone who supports a market-based solution to the housing crisis.

    How's that for unintended consequences? Thanks, Prop 13!

    • In most states, when property values fall, so do property taxes. So people don't mind too much when developers add more supply to the housing market.

      Citation required. I don't know of anyone happy their net worth drops in exchange of a pittance of a tax reduction.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Ichijo ( 607641 )

        I don't know of anyone happy their net worth drops in exchange of a pittance of a tax reduction.

        Well it's like having a porn buddy [fandom.com]: your best friend's dead, but there's an up side!

    • In most realities, when property values fall, property taxes rise to offset the lost money. The logic here is that if property values are falling, more people will need government assistance. So really, when property values fall, the government should increase property taxes even more. Second, government spending and programs never get smaller.
  • Post went from âoeApple claims theyâ(TM)re doing something to solve the homeless problem in their areaâ to âoe will companies like apple crest 19th century indentured servitude towns?â Iâ(TM)m sorry, did Apple imply theyâ(TM)re planning to enslave said homeless people? Who chooses the posts here? This is Fox News type stuff? Why do I still read this garbage?
  • Affordable housing isn't going to do anything for most of the people living in that camp. The vast majority of people living in homeless camps are not candidates for affordable housing.
  • 100 dollhairs for the homeless thanks apple
  • Still, fuck Apple. They're on a fuck roll
  • You can build all of the 'affordable' housing that you want, but ppl will buy these places and then in several years, sell them for millions.
    The ONLY way to keep these affordable is put several requirements on them:
    1) these must lived in by the owners. IOW, they can not be bought and then rented out.
    2) upon selling the house, the price paid my ONLY go up by inflation. So, if you sell in 10 years, and assume that inflation was a total of 10%, then you can sell the place for 10% more, nothing more.
    3) a

    • If you build more housing the prices WILL come down. Supply and demand. Economics 101. From 2012 to 2016, the San Francisco metropolitan area added 373,000 new jobs, but permitted only 58,000 new housing units. That obviously means bidding war for those units. Now imagine they built 1,000,000 new housing units .. you're saying the housing prices would go up? That makes no sense dude.

      The ONLY way to reduce prices and make housing more accessible is to allow new housing units to be built. Every other method

      • If you build more housing the prices WILL come down. Supply and demand. Economics 101. From 2012 to 2016, the San Francisco metropolitan area added 373,000 new jobs, but permitted only 58,000 new housing units. That obviously means bidding war for those units.

        They could triple the number of housing permits and still not even come close to bridging that gap, and you come forward with the tired old "supply and demand" argument? What's next, pointing to the Constitution to fix privacy? Government has proven things don't happen overnight and certainly don't happen with drastic change.

        I think traditional arguments can be tossed out the window in certain circumstances. California is certainly well-known to be one of them. And when it comes to overcrowded places on

        • If you donâ(TM)t increase the number of housing units, people will be left in houses. That should be obvious by basic logic. The only solution is increasing the housing units. It has nothing to do with supply and demand. If you have 10 pigeons, and only 5 pigeon holes, some pigeons will be left without a hole. Is that logic too advanced for you?

          • When supply/demand can not hold prices down, then costs will go up, unless it is held down for another reason.

          • If you don't increase the number of housing units, people will be left in houses. That should be obvious by basic logic.

            This sentence doesn't even make "basic logic". People will be left in houses if you don't build more?

            If you have 10 pigeons, and only 5 pigeon holes, some pigeons will be left without a hole. Is that logic too advanced for you?

            Since this solution is so birdshit-simple to you, fly off with it to the local CA town counsel meeting and just slap that common-sense plan down on the table. They should also see the simplicity of it in no time flat, and construction should start by next week. After all, there's plenty of room downtown to build, and I'm certain they'll get the price point down to barista levels.

            The only solution is increasing the housing units. It has nothing to do with supply and demand.

            While you're presenting yo

      • Back in the late 70s/early 80s, I worked on a project in east vail. It was to build a number of 'affordable condos' for ppl that lived there. When they were bought, the agreement was no rentals, owner had to live there and after 2 years, they could sell the place. After 2 years, nearly EVERYBODY sold. What was bought for 75K, was sold to others for over 500K, who then rented it skiiers.

        Failure.

        Now, as to building more, that works great when you have LOADS of land to build out on. The bay area does not

  • Eviction notice (Score:4, Funny)

    by VeryFluffyBunny ( 5037285 ) on Thursday August 19, 2021 @12:26AM (#61706825)
    "We're planning to start construction." = "We hereby serve notice of eviction." That's Apple's PR way of doing it. Now, have a nice day!
    • Yup, more corporate bullshit. Hey Apple how about you just pay your fair share of taxes. This is just like Amazon buying school supplies for teachers instead of paying their fair share of taxes, this is your Mega-Corp new way, they want their god damn cake and eat it too.
  • ...there is the outstanding example of Crespi d'Adda [wikipedia.org]. But it was the product of a very different vision about human work, than the one owned by corporate America. The social experiment unfortunately didn't survive to fascist period.

  • Now the ubergeeks and upper management will have a ready supply of non-customers they can lure into traffic by wadding up cash and throwing it into the road.

  • No one wants to work in them. They should just build housing with really good internet connectivity, so their people can "work from home". Put in a "community center" where their employees can go when they have to meet with others. A wired-for-multimedia gym, so they can work out during meetings.

    So many companies have built large offices in the last decade that stand empty, with few wanting to return to them. Why add to the emptiness?

  • We need to disassociate healthcare from our employers, not tie more necessities like housing to them!

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