SAN JOSE, CALIF. –  The Increase of cost of living in the Bay Area is leading to a spiral in homelessness and it is becoming almost impossible for young people to move out of their parents homes and be financially independent. 

Many people from institutions of higher education throughout all of the United States are moving to work for the growing high-tech industry in the Bay Area. This is causing Bay Area natives to be pushed out of their homes.

Because it directly affects our future prospects and choices, the rising cost of living in the Bay Area, particularly in areas like San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose, is a crucial subject for us to understand. It might be challenging for us students to afford to live, work, and go to college in the place that we have all come to call home.

I think this is a very critical issue. It makes me concerned about my future. It makes me concerned for all my peers and just my community overall. Imagine being born & raised in the Bay Area, the only place you know,  and watching all these prices go up in your own eyes. Seeing everyone in your life being bought out or evicted. Watching entire neighborhoods being completely torn down and rebuilt for new Google and Facebook parking lots. It even trickles down to the mom and pop shops or restaurants that make our cities unique. They are all getting closed down or increasing in prices. Your favorite $5 burrito from childhood is now $13.

The average single family home in East Side San Jose is worth over $1M. Many students and families in East San Jose are barely making it. I see multiple cars parked inside 1 driveway. There’s never parking, due to the streets being flooded with cars. Multiple families are living in one home. That’s how many of us San Jose, Califas are surviving today. This applies not only in San Jose but most of the Bay Area. Because of this reason, it has caused an explosion of homelessness.

According to a new study, The nonprofit United Way of the National Capital Area, San Jose has landed the No. 1 spot of the highest ratio of unhoused young adults in the USA, specifically those between the ages of 18 to 24! 

In comparison to New York City, the second-highest city on the list, which has around 36 homeless young individuals for every 100,000 people, the city has nearly 50 more young people suffering homelessness per capita. With 32 homeless young adults per 100,000 residents, Los Angeles comes in third.

This report also noted the need for additional affordable housing, homeless services, and policies that address systemic hurdles, saying that “this is stressing the need for more effective solutions to address adolescent homelessness in this area, particularly for young people of color.”

According to an article on the San Francisco Chronicle by Noah Arroyo, a respondent who requested anonymity, said, “Unfortunately the pessimist in me is, more people who have lived here for a long time, or just people who don’t make a lot of money, don’t make $150,000 a year, will be pushed out of the city,” and “People of color will be pushed out of the city, if things keep going the way they’re going, if we just let the market run the way that it is. And that’s really sad and not the way it should be. It’s not good.” 

The cost of living in San Francisco, C.A. is 38% higher than the state average and 94% higher than the national average. San Francisco housing is 238% more expensive than the U.S.A. average, and San Jose’s cost of living is 53% higher than the national average.