Tech workers live 40 to a house in high rent San Francisco | Hacker News Reader

Tech workers live 40 to a house in high rent San Francisco

venturebeat.com

17 pointsedward8 comments

I used to live with someone who had stayed at the Negev in the Tenderloin, and he took me to a party there.

It's not something most people who are out of college would choose, and really is fairly close to something you'd see in a frat house. The rooms that I saw are about 12x15ish with two bunk beds each (so 4 people) IIRC. There was a large communal living room/kitchen area on the bottom floor that I didn't get to judge fairly because when I was there every surface was sticky with alcohol. Fun party though.

He told me that most people go there to do a coding bootcamp who just need somewhere to sleep for a couple months, then move out after. Also people from out of state/country who found a tech job and needed to find a place very quickly, since trying to find housemates through Craigslist is a full time job itself. Very high turnover. He himself only stayed for about 3 months.

Generally the people there are highly social compared to most techies and the average age was mid 20s, lots of people right out of college. It seemed like something that might be fun to do when you're that age, but gets old quickly.

I think it definitely fills a much needed niche in the housing market and if you're sharing a room it's much cheaper than anything else you'll find. It's a fantastic place to make friends and connections if you're landing in San Francisco with none.

I lived in a similar venue a couple of blocks away during my first month in SF, and the "social community" aspect gets old very quickly due to a lack of basic amenities. It was less of a house, and more of a warehouse with bunkbeds in it. As a further indicator of quality - on the day I moved out (to an actual house, with cheaper rent), the place was being fumigated for cockroaches.

The title here is a tad click-baity, but these places are somewhat exploitative indeed.

Ha, I actually lived in one of the early iterations of the Negev. There were 15 of us in a 2 bedroom loft. 10 people shared a single room filled with bunk beds, and paid about $1k/mo each.

Shitty conditions helped form strong bonds between us - met some of my best friends in life that summer.

This has to be sensationalized right? $1,900 a month to live with forty (!) other people?

From the article: "It has three floors and roughly 50 rooms"

How they can state something like that and not give SOME visual indication of what these supposed rooms look like sounds like theres some obvious context missing from those statements.

I found some additional links:

http://sfist.com/2014/11/21/tech_co-op_the_negev_faces_furth...

https://www.thenegev.com/#/building/negev6

If you look at the first link there appear to be four floors. There's a 3d view in the second link. It looks like that bottom floor visible from the street is the main communal living space. Below that is a basement with laundry, workspaces, and theatre. The three floors above those are the actual "apartments". I'd guesstimate they are about what you'd expect from a dorm room in size.

Thanks there is actually a room tour link on the page. Looks about a double bed, desk and a small amount of floor space. Bigger than a dorm room I had to stay in at least

Sounds like a lifestyle choice.

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