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>San Francisco’s long, complex and often fraught relationship with the tech industry has come to a head with a proposal to levy a “tech tax” on the companies that have fueled the city’s transformation into a place that is increasingly uninhabitable for people on low or medium incomes.
>Every week brings new outrages, whether it’s the tenant in North Beach who, it emerged this week, received a notice informing him that his rent was increasing from $1,800 a month to $8,000, or the kindergarten teacher whose building was bought by two tech workers and, it was revealed this month, is now facing eviction for nuisance violations that include “using appliances”.
>The anger finds its outlet in different ways. Queer activist group Gay Shame regularly plasters telephone poles around town with posters featuring slogans such as “Brogrammers off the block” or drawings of the severed heads of tech CEOs on spikes. In the Mission, a Latino neighborhood being transformed by an influx of tech gentrifiers, including Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, graffiti recently appeared on the sidewalks declaring “Queers Hate Techies”.
>Meanwhile, more than a few tech workers have gained viral notoriety for anti-homeless screeds, such as a February 2016 “open letter” that included the complaint: “I shouldn’t have to see the pain, struggle, and despair of homeless people to and from my way to work every day.”
>A female Google employee stood on the sidewalk one afternoon this week, a block from Twitter HQ, distributing free hot dogs and watermelon to a cluster of homeless and poor people.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jul/01/tech-tax-san-francisco-homelessness-inequality
>Every week brings new outrages, whether it’s the tenant in North Beach who, it emerged this week, received a notice informing him that his rent was increasing from $1,800 a month to $8,000, or the kindergarten teacher whose building was bought by two tech workers and, it was revealed this month, is now facing eviction for nuisance violations that include “using appliances”.
>The anger finds its outlet in different ways. Queer activist group Gay Shame regularly plasters telephone poles around town with posters featuring slogans such as “Brogrammers off the block” or drawings of the severed heads of tech CEOs on spikes. In the Mission, a Latino neighborhood being transformed by an influx of tech gentrifiers, including Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, graffiti recently appeared on the sidewalks declaring “Queers Hate Techies”.
>Meanwhile, more than a few tech workers have gained viral notoriety for anti-homeless screeds, such as a February 2016 “open letter” that included the complaint: “I shouldn’t have to see the pain, struggle, and despair of homeless people to and from my way to work every day.”
>A female Google employee stood on the sidewalk one afternoon this week, a block from Twitter HQ, distributing free hot dogs and watermelon to a cluster of homeless and poor people.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jul/01/tech-tax-san-francisco-homelessness-inequality
