Facebook employee is homeless, lives out of her car | Hacker News Reader

Facebook employee is homeless, lives out of her car

ktvu.com

27 pointsrmason34 comments

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Her LinkedIn profile

https://www.linkedin.com/in/unique-parsha-64833361/

She has a degree in Sociology and her listed experience is customer service.

Other articles mention she is a contractor.

As a contractor, she might not even be working for Facebook (might be a temp agency).

ETA: People living in the area are competing for housing with some of the highest paid people in the country. Probably the employers in the area aren't going to solve this problem. Perhaps FB should be setting up these jobs in an area of the country which has lower living expenses. Then solve local labor issues through automation (like Japan is looking to do due to an aging workforce).

From https://www.facebook.com/careers/locations/ there are openings in Austin, Fort Worth, New Mexico and Iowa among other lower-priced (so excluding NYC, LA and Seattle) locations.

Sure, and if they only took in contractors working from these other relatively cost of living areas, then we may not see these sorts of articles. That's not to say that people working for Facebook won't be homeless at times, but at least the the pay might be above the living wage water line.

She's also only been working at Facebook for 2 months, if that.

This whole article is clickbait. Whoever wrote this should not call themselves a journalist of any kind.

I can confirm she is a contractor @ FB as I've seen her work in my building. The whole article is misleading saying she is an employee. Being a contractor for that team I think she gets paid ~$25 an hour. She says she doesn't want her coworkers to know that she's homeless but now we all do...

This is why I generally look down upon the valley and its "leadership." There's a very good chance she's a contractor which means it's an easy excuse for Facebook to pay her less and not give her benefits.

These "leaders" donate money to causes, yet ignore the people right in front of them. They could lobby the cities in and around the bay area to allow for more affordable housing (or to building more housing period, I'm looking at you SF). Instead they're more concerned with the marginal increase on their property value than the well being of those around them.

For so much money in that area to have anyone willing to work, and try hard, not live well is quite frankly: fucking disgusting.

Google is fighting tooth-and-nail to build 10,000 housing units:

http://www.siliconbeat.com/2017/06/26/mountain-view-google-c...

Facebook isn't Google, but they have the same incentives: Zuckerberg's wealth is not in his house, so he shouldn't care if his property values sink a bit. It'd be far more useful to him to have 10,000 extra employees.

Housing is something every potential employee would ask about, so I'm surprised you think the company doesn't care about it.

It's not that I think they don't care, I just think with companies like this caring is proportional to their investment in it. We often see how much SV company X is investing in lobbying, R&D, etc but we see very little how much their investing into their local municipalities to make living better.

Perhaps I'm being ignorant, it wouldn't be the first time, but it seems like, to me, that they don't care proportional to their capital. When companies have $30-40 billion plus in cash holdings, it makes issues like these seem rather... baffling. Not to say money solves all problems, but it sure does help. Though getting anyone to invest in the long term is something unlikely to please investors, financial analysts, or executives protecting their jobs.

The argument the politicians gave was that Google is already the largest employer, and adding an extra 10,000 people means that Google could swing the elections by telling their employees who to vote for.

How would you turn an unlimited amount of money into a counterargument for those scared politicians?

There should be an Amdahl's law for lobbyists: If you have 12 politicians and it takes 9 months per politician to convince them, increasing the number of of lobbyists loses effectiveness once you have 1 lobbyist in every politician's office 24/7.

Please identify a couple of the politicians who said this.

They have been lobbying for a bit http://www.mercurynews.com/2015/03/15/facebook-floats-idea-f...

One might be on the Forbes list and hold weekly meetings with Presidents and religious leaders, but in the eyes of Menlo Park City Council they're just another dude with strong opinions about housing.

It's a great way to save money. I'd probably almost double my take-home amount (after taxes and food) if I could skip rent in the south bay area.

Homelessness isn't a life hack.

I've been homeless, I've slept rough. No-one with a choice makes this choice even though they may have an ethic that attempts to make the best they can of it.

It can be, with the right vehicle. And if you're single.

Yea, I wouldn't mind living in a large fancy RV. There are apartments which feel more cramped.

There's a difference between being homeless and being homeless. Living on the streets or at the mercy of others is one thing when you have to, but couchsurfing or choosing to live out of your car (emphasis on choosing) is something different.

I've never been homeless, but I've worked with the homeless. That's something no one in their right mind would ever choose. However, I have chosen to live with friends, live out of my car, and at one point, live in a tent longer-term. It was my choice and I made the decision with a lot of planning ahead of time and figuring out where I would shower, how to store food, etc.

Being homeless isn't a life hack, but finding alternative living arrangements certainly is, especially when you're talking about the Bay Area.

I find myself periodically fantasizing about building a skoolie, or buying a sailboat and going live-aboard.

The East Bay was still somewhat affordable when I last lived in SV. Walnut Creek is not a bad option, but commute time could very well be suboptimal.

Walnut Creek to Palo Alto is a bit more than "suboptimal". Google maps says driving and mass transit could both take two hours, if not more, depending on traffic.

That means leaving at 6:30 to be at the office by 9:00. Yes, it's the Silly Valley, so 9a is early. Counterpoint: it's generally the lower-paid people who need to live further out, because the prices are so ludicrous, that also have more scheduled hours.

especially if you're going from WC to Menlo Park. That's an hour each way without traffic

I live in WC and worked for a while in Palo Alto - and THAT took two hours on a good (week)day.

In just the last five years my anecdotal experience is traffic in my local South Bay neighborhood has skyrocketed on weekdays. I imagine that translates to a much longer car commute than what you remembered.

I'm curious what her salary is. I doubt everyone at Facebook pulls in the salary of a rockstar software developer.

What's the point of this article? What's makes her case different from for example person working at 7-11 in New Jersey and struggling to pay rent in manhattan? It's her choice to work there and to live in a place that she can't afford.

Hey look I want to live in Battery Park in manhattan but can't afford it on my job, I will live in my car - write an article about me.

What does she do at Facebook, the article did not mention it. I find these headlines a bit misleading when they refer to contractors as opposed to full time folks at these companies, not to say that the pricing in the Bay area is out of control but I feel like these headlines are in bad faith.

Contractors still deserve a livable wage.

You can state that categorically? All full and part time employees and contractors deserve a ‘livable wage’ regardless of their role or the value they add to the company?

Yes.

What if their contract is to load paper into printer once every other week? Do they still deserve to be paid salary that'd allow them to rent property in one of the most expensive places in the country?

That seems a bit idealistic, don't you think? A business needs to make profits.

Wait, so all I gotta do is work 10 hours a week and I should be able to feed my family and afford a house? That’s an amazing world you live in.

Every discussion I've seen of livable wage starts from the concept of being able to meet reasonable necessities - food, shelter, transport, healthcare, etc. - from full-time employment.

I suspect you know full well that folks talking about a "livable wage" aren't saying "if you work an hour a week you should make $40k".

Nothing in the article indicates this woman has full time employment, and yet GP is upset that she can’t afford a home.

What if the job they do is only worth the wage they can get to do it? What if economic reality means that either they take the market rate for the job - or the job is no longer available?

Why should anyone pay more than the economic value for goods and services?

Then the economic system that allows this to pass is unnecessarily endangering human lives.

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