San Jose homeless encampment moves to property owned by Apple

The city of San Jose has a homeless problem. But the vagrants involved in the dilemma have taken it upon themselves to relocate.

The hundreds of homeless people who loitered around Mineta San Jose Airport have now, in some cases, migrated to property owned by Big Tech company Apple.

According to the local CBS outlet for San Francisco, officials had until the end of July to tell the Federal Aviation Administration what the city planned to do about the homeless people who camped out in the runway area. Official counts estimated between 400 to 500 homeless people residing there.

"Apple, they're not doing anything with this land right now. Why not let people stay until they do?" said inhabitant Lynn Shipman, who now resides at the sprawling Apple property in north San Jose.

According to VICE's reporting, at least one person has lived on the Apple site for almost two years. The individual receives disability payments from the city but can't afford to actually live in the region where she was raised.

City councilmember David Cohen told the outlet they're trying to figure this out, too. Apple representatives confirmed the same.

The moment the city of San Jose began its "enhanced cleanup" procedure, roughly 30 (and up to 100) individuals made the trek to the property owned by Apple, three miles away from the airport location.

What's their mindset for preferring this sort of inhibition instead of low-income housing? Property storage. "The issue is you can't bring anything with you. Most of the time, you can't bring nothing with you. Cars clothes and that's it. A lot of own RVs and everything else. It takes a long time to get an RV. And when we do, we don't want to let it go," responded Apple site dweller Robert Carlson.

The San Francisco Chronicle recently noted that Apple has spent $1 billion USD to improve Californian housing access. The outlet's reporting says a majority of that cash has gone towards "down-payment and mortgage assistance for first-time buyers and to fund new affordable housing projects."