Rising Rents? Don’t Take It Anymore

Remember the unadulterated fury unleashed by the character Howard Beale in the 1976 movie “Network?”:  “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!”  That’s how I feel about a recent reminder of how out of control rental housing prices are getting in Silicon Valley. Well, I’m not ready to flip out on network TV, but angry enough to call your attention to an abomination that someone should put a stop to. Landlords, I’m talking to you.

Last week, the Silicon Valley Business Journal reported that apartment rents in Santa Clara County averaged $2580 per month.   $2580. A month. For an apartment!  As the bedroom community for the Silicon Valley, San Jose rents had skyrocketed to an unprecedented level as the reporter noted that the average had reached $2026 per month for the first time.

These statistics should give us all great concern.  If you are making a $100,000 a year, your housing costs about 25% of your gross income — BUT if you are making, let’s say, $10.30 per hour for a full time job, (minimum wage in San Jose) your annual gross ($21,424) is less than the annual cost of San Jose housing ($24,312).

In order to reach a level so that a still difficult 50% of your gross income was committed to housing, your hourly rate would need to be a minimum of $23.08.  This would leave you about $1000 for all the other monthly living expenses.

But, of course the issue is even worse for part time workers, or those who are not making even the paltry sums noted.  And there is the issue of why landlords feel the need to raise rents to the extreme edge of ridiculous. Anyone care to rationalize that?

We have heard about the growing income inequality in America and that the gap is the highest it’s ever been.  While the gap between CEOs and workers is a Grand Canyon, the stark reality of these housing cost numbers brings home the serious issues that people face every day. How do you house, feed and clothe a working family here in the Silicon Valley?

We need a serious discussion of affordable housing based on the actual wages that working people are earning. We need a serious conversation not about minimum wages, but living wages where the basic necessities of food, shelter, clothing and transportation are met.  We need to focus on solutions to helping people that are being beaten down by the realities of the economy that rewards the very few at the expense of the many.

Turning this quagmire around is not easy, but we must start here in San Jose by voting in November to end the era of economic disaster that the Reed/Liccardo years have brought to our community.

Now, you don’t have to go on network TV to say it, just go to the voting booth November 4th or grab your mail ballot, sit down, fill it out and send it in, and then shout, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!”

 Steve Kline is an attorney and a community activist.

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