Sounds like a cheap shot, John. The NYT story that I read described several people who chose to live in Silicon Valley and it suggested that the conditions in many of the homes are barely better than conditions outside. So a choice to live outside would seem sensible in many cases. Perhaps you read a different story.
A more interesting aspect of the story, which should have attracted your attention, is the high land prices. The demand to live in some locations is higher than the demand to live in other locations. In the case of Silicon Valley, the reason for this has little to do with nature. Instead it is the fact that in the past, the owners of complementary human capital (i.e., specialists related to the computer industry mainly) decided to locate there. This made the location attractive to the suppliers of other complementary resources and to the businesspeople who supply their consumers' wants. Many of the poor who migrate to Silicon Valley and those existing residents who are less able or willing to earn income cannot afford housing there because the resources they own earn less income than those owned by the computer industry migrants.
Now you, more than most on the list, should see this phenomenon as a part of the competition for scarce resources in a capitalist society. Those who believe that they can use the Silicon Valley land most profitably (and who can access the money capital) or who have the highest consumer demands outbid their counterparts.
The competition for scarce land adds another wrinkle to the homelessness (or more correctly, the poverty) story in a capitalist society. It shows that in order to maintain one's standard of living in a competitive world, one must be alert to new opportunities and to the disappearance of old opportunities. And one must stand ready to adjust. Capitalism is nothing like the traditional society and the socialist society. These societies are characterized by guarantees to the population that the same conditions that their parents and grandparents faced will be present for them. (If their great grandparents had a 51 Chevy and a 7-inch black and white snowy TV, they also can expect these.) This is yet another reason why poverty and temporarily homelessness will never disappear in a capitalist society. But the opportunity to live a better life than great grandpa will also never disappear.
-- Pat Gunning, Sultan Qaboos University, Oman Web pages on Subjectivism, Democracy, Taiwan, Ludwig von Mises, Austrian Economics, and my University Classes http://www2.cybercities.com/g/gunning/welcome.htm http://www.fortunecity.com/meltingpot/barclay/212/welcome.htm