All of that is about to change, however. Citing safety and sanitation concerns, the city of San Jose says the Jungle\u2019s inhabitants must move out by Wednesday; whatever they can\u2019t take with them will be demolished and hauled off before Christmas.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s hard for us to find spaces for folks, especially when they are competing with young techies.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThese people have houses, and even though they are not traditional homes, they have been living here for years,\u201d says Robert Aguirre 60, an unemployed electrical engineer who has camped in the Jungle for six months. \u201cAnd now they are going to kick them out and they are going to be completely homeless.\u201d<\/p>\n
San Jose is spending $4 million to give 200 Jungle residents vouchers for subsidized housing. But it\u2019s far from enough, residents say. Overwhelming demand for vacant apartments allows landlords to rent to people with perfect credit histories and known addresses. \u201cSaying, \u2018Oh, well, I live in the Jungle\u2019\u2014that\u2019s unacceptable,\u201d says Agurirre, who has been using his voucher to look for a place to live since July.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s hard for us to find spaces for folks, especially when they are competing with young techies,\u201d admits Ray Bramson, the city\u2019s homelessness response manager.<\/p>\n
Despite Silicon Valley\u2019s immense wealth\u2014or, perhaps, because of it\u2014San Jose and surrounding Santa Clara County have the nation\u2019s highest rate of homeless living on the streets. And despite popular perception, most of these folks didn\u2019t move here looking for a free ride. Three-quarters of its 7,500 homeless residents were born in the county, and most live in one of the county\u2019s 247 tent cities, not in homeless shelters. Many of them have jobs, yet don\u2019t make enough to afford housing.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s salary as a full-time medical clerk wasn\u2019t enough to pay the bills. For more on how the couple gets by, read his first-person account of life in the Jungle.<\/a><\/p>\n
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