San Jose and the Bay Area are undergoing a housing crisis. There are over 4300 unhoused people living in San Jose1. The city is far behind its goal of building 20000 affordable houses by 2022, and the median price of a house in San Jose currently stands above one million dollars2. Historically, cities that have hosted large tech campuses by Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon have seen housing prices skyrocket as tech workers move in. Local residents can no longer afford the cost of living and rent in these cities and are forced to move out, displacing themselves hours away from their jobs or moving out of the Bay Area entirely. A tech campus in San Jose would only accelerate the displacement of the city’s poorest residents as they struggle to live in an increasingly unaffordable city.
The negotiations for this development lack transparency. The Mayor of San Jose and several city council members have signed non disclosure agreements while discussing the development with Google3. Furthermore, the negotiations have excluded the low-income communities that would be at risk of displacement from the development: of the 38 members of the Station Area Advisory Group, only 3 are non-profit groups4
Serve the People San José is a grassroots formation of community members organizing to stop Google from coming to San José, but also for a future of self-determination where the people decide how public lands and resources should be used. Silicon Valley DSA stands in solidarity with Serve the People San José and opposes the construction of the planned Google tech campus near Diridon station.