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Comment by j45 | Hacker News Reader

The costs of living in their area may not be affordable at $15/hr.

Is that Facebook's problem to solve? Part of the Bay Area's trouble with affordable housing has to do with their heavy handed rent control policy (another side of price-fixing), which squashes supply.

It's a mix. It's Facebook's problem to suffer, which means people are going to push them to solve it, even if it's a local government problem.

Yeah, I would say Facebook should get involved in policy because it directly affects their employees and their ability to do business. Also there's a homeless encampment across the street, so it wouldn't be out of line to invest a little in the community they are reshaping. https://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/07/facebook-and-google-are-buil... https://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2015/02/06/exclusiv...

In what way does this affect Facebook's ability to do business? They seem to be doing business just fine with the status quo.

They're trying to expand their campus. They wouldn't do that if it wasn't going to improve their bottom line. Facebook engineers have asked Zuckerburg if the company could subsidize their housing. Employees are leaving because of this problem. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/feb/27/silicon-a...

For every employee that leaves over something like this, there are 10 lined up who would be thrilled to work there.

If Facebook wanted those 10 engineers they would have hired them first. High housing costs are reducing FB's ability to offer competitive wages.

but, the ones who are leaving now -- weren't they initially thrilled too? retention can be pretty important.

Well, if FB doesn't want to do massive wealth transfer to real estate developers and current land owners it would benefit them to get involved. Part of the reason salaries are immensely disproportionate to the rest of the country is cost of housing.

That's not rent control, it's Proposition 13. It incentivizes city councils to build offices (which they can tax) while rejecting housing (which they basically can't, over the long term).

but at some point housing scarcity causes additional housing unit prices to skyrocket. so the property tax basis for those new high priced units must look pretty good to city councils.

i mean, don't city councils also find it highly revenue-enhancing to encourage the replacement of older housing stock and long time owners with new, high priced, units?

If Facebook is paying the high end salaries that cause housing/rents to rise, they certainly are contributing, however indirectly one may believe, to the problem.

The point remains that both groups of workers are essential to have in close proximity.

It may not work for everyone, but where housing is in short supply, and the demand for labour is great, a working dorm/camp setup for those forced to be working homeless might be helpful.

You can make $150/hr, if your living expenses work out to $140/hr you're not making (or keeping) much.

Like co-working, maybe other setups like co-housing setups might need to come up. They obviously may not work for everyone including families.

How do continued subsidies help this problem?

If COL in an area is so high that essential personnel can't afford to live within 100 miles or reasonably commute there, it seems to me like the sort of circumstances that lead to a company moving to a more affordable area.

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