As California’s housing crisis has reached epic proportions, some San Francisco residents have resorted to extreme measures to save money and survive the city’s skyrocketing rents.
Meet the people who are willing to shell out a staggering $900 a month to live in 4-foot pods, and discover the innovative solution that’s taking the city by storm.
The California housing crisis has reached such a fever pitch that it drove a mass exodus from the state.
In a two-year period, 500,000 more people left California than arrived. The dream of living in the Golden State has become increasingly elusive, especially in the notoriously expensive city of San Francisco.
Enter Brownstone Shared Housing, the brains behind a creative “solution” to San Francisco’s overpriced housing market: communal living pods.
These pods are a mere 3.5 feet wide and 4 feet tall, just big enough to squeeze in a twin mattress and certainly not spacious enough to stand up in.
While the $500 to $900 monthly price tag might seem steep for what essentially amounts to a glorified row of bunk beds, packed in with other people like sardines, it’s a relative bargain compared to other rental options in the city.
The pods. Brownstone Shared Housing
For $900 a month, you could secure a full-fledged studio apartment in major US cities like St. Louis, Cincinnati, or Nashville. But San Francisco residents have grown accustomed to high price tags and lower living standards as the city grapples with homelessness and rising crime rates.
However, it appears that not everyone is on board with the pod revolution. San Francisco officials are now investigating whether the developers had the correct permits to construct these pod complexes, despite them providing some of the city’s most affordable rents.
The inspiration for these tiny living spaces comes from Japan’s “coffin houses,” which emerged during Tokyo’s recession in 2009.
According to property-finding website Zillow, the average San Francisco studio apartment commands a staggering $2,200 a month, while in Palo Alto, the heart of Silicon Valley, the median studio apartment rents for even more, at $2,300 a month.
The communal living area. Brownstone Shared Housing
Despite their diminutive size, these tiny living spaces offer basic amenities such as charging stations, LED lights and individual climate control systems. Christian Lewis, the founder of an AI start-up, embraced the pod lifestyle, stating, “I actually pushed off coming to San Francisco for a really long time, but it has been absolutely net positive without a doubt. Just for the first couple of days, I met some of the smartest people I’ve met in my entire life. That’s the reason I came and that’s the reason why I’m staying. That’s the reason why I’m living in a pod.”
Lewis recently announced his intention to spend 30 days living in the San Francisco pod community at a cost of $700 a month, and so far, he’s been enjoying his stay, describing the experience as a chance to meet “a lot of cool people.”
San Francisco is now the third most expensive place to live in the US, trailing only New York City and Honolulu. Yet, it also has one of the highest homeless populations and is witnessing a surge in crime rates. Data from January to September 2023 reveals a 15.9% increase in robberies and a 10.8% increase in motor vehicle thefts. Viral videos of smash-and-grab crimes are circulating with alarming frequency.
A recent study by McKinsey found that 70% of San Francisco residents cite homelessness as one of the city’s top three problems. On any given night, a staggering 38,000 Bay Area residents are homeless.
San Francisco has seen a surge in homelessness over the last decade. AP
Democrat Mayor London Breed, however, refused to acknowledge that San Francisco is alone in its struggles, stating, “Sometimes [negative stories and videos]… that you see go viral, those aren’t always just in San Francisco.”
Local residents, tired of paying exorbitant prices to live in a city overrun by crime and homelessness, are voicing their frustration. A hospital worker remarked, “They defecate, they urinate on the street. They do drugs on the street. The mayor isn’t doing anything, and it’s been like this for a very long time.”
The founders of Brownstone Shared Housing, James Stallworth and Cristina Lennox, were inspired to create a solution to unaffordable housing after facing similar challenges themselves. Their innovative idea of shared pod houses emerged during their time working together in the California State Auditor’s office in Sacramento.
They launched their first affordable communal home in Palo Alto in 2021, blending the concept of pod living, popular in parts of Asia, with the comforts of a fully furnished home. The success of their first pod-house prompted them to expand to San Francisco, Bakersfield and San Jose.
Tour walk through the Tenderloin District in San Francisco, California on Saturday, August 26, 2023. David G. McIntyre
Stallworth explained, “We created these sleeping pods that landlords can put in their houses. Instead of renting to a smaller group of people, it allows more people to share a home. The price that we end up charging for a sleeping pod is a fraction of what people would pay if they were splitting a room in a house … which would be closer to $2,000.”
In addition to personal amenities, the communal living at Mint Plaza includes shared living spaces, which have become hubs for networking in San Francisco’s burgeoning tech and artificial intelligence industries.
These pods may remind some of the living conditions faced by many in China due to overpopulation and unaffordable rents and property values. As San Francisco grapples with its housing crisis, it remains to be seen whether these tiny living spaces will become a long-term solution or merely a reflection of the city’s desperate struggle for affordability.
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