Bay Area Housing So Expensive, Residents Living in Boxes

bloomberg

Bloomberg Business reports on the apparently inevitable consequence of the Bay Area housing crisis – people living in boxes. While renting modified shipping containers for residential use is obviously illegal, the founder of Boxouse would rather “ask forgiveness than ask permission”. And perhaps this amounts to conventional wisdom in a sharing economy that often does more to “disrupt” the enforcement of regulations than create value through creative destruction.

Bloomberg notes that Boxouse’s “cargotopia” – currently operating from an undisclosed location – leases these modular homes for $1,000 per month. It also intimates some hypocrisy in enforcement: While officials have already chased Boxouse away from two previous locations, San Francisco is insisting on the continued unlawful, residential use of a commercial building at 1049 Market Street, over the protest of its owner, amounting to what Andrew Zacks of Zacks & Freedman refers to as holding the building “hostage”.

While the future of Boxouse is uncertain, shipping containers are at least a step up in comfort from tents.

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