It just doesn't make sense to be earning minimum wage and spending $1400/month to live in a 1-bed apartment. There are cheaper places to live elsewhere that are safe to live where you can earn similar wages.

True, sure they could move to Idaho or Montana, but many people have roots and strong family ties, which bind them to a small geographic area, so to them leaving simply isn't an option to them anymore than going and living on the moon would be (and I mean that almost literally). I have an uncle that's never left the state and considers a "city" an hour away an exotic location.

For example 46% of midwesterners live in the same community their entire life (http://pewsocialtrends.org/files/2010/10/Movers-and-Stayers....), even though many of them could probably move elsewhere when the finish school (HS, Tech, College, Uni, etc.) and get much better jobs than they could locally.

That was exactly my thought when I read this paragraph.

>Candelaria shares a one-bedroom apartment with her husband and two teenage daughters. They struggle to get by even though she and her husband both work -- she as a janitor at night, and her husband as a tree-trimmer during the day.

What a harsh point of view. When does that cycle end?

Now they can't live in MV, next they won't be able to get on the list in East Palo Alto because it's too long already, soon they'll be living in South San Jose or Morgan Hill, but their job is still in MV, so now they're spending three hours a day commuting each way and can't spend time with their family/children at all.

And every time they move they're forced into lower and lower quality neighborhoods, exposing their children to more violence and illegal activity because at that level of living the risk/reward level for legitimate work starts tipping to make crime more attractive even if they dislike the idea.

There's a lot of major social issues that become very difficult/intractable when entire regions undergo gentrification.

>Now they can't live in MV, next they won't be able to get on the list in East Palo Alto because it's too long already, soon they'll be living in South San Jose or Morgan Hill, but their job is still in MV, so now they're spending three hours a day commuting each way and can't spend time with their family/children at all.

If you're working a minimum wage job you can move literally anywhere and get another just like it. There's no reason to commute.