I am no expert, but isn't this likely to add to the gentrification of these areas? As more and more people want to work for Facebook they will want to live in an area where they can get a foot in the door.

Whereas it may help traffic when Facebook hires local residents, it may not help those who have lived in these areas all their lives as there is more competition for the vacant homes and rents and house prices skyrocket.

>>isn't this likely to add to the gentrification of these areas

Call it what it is: violent displacement.

"gentrification" sounds so civil - what's happening is anything but. To answer your question: no, it's already happening so fast, this will not make a noticeable difference in this ongoing destruction of people's lives.

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vi·o·lent ... ˈvī(ə)lənt
adjective
(especially of an emotion or unpleasant or destructive ... force) very strong or powerful.

My bad, I should have added a positive note for balance!

Don't worry, FB will throw a couple more parties in their parking lot to assuage their guilt.

Web Link

There. All better, now...

Does this program allow people to apply for any job opening within the company, or only low-paying manual labor jobs?

Sorry, I find this troubling. Why discriminate against people who don't happen to live in EPA, No.FairOaks, & Belle Haven? Surely there are people in need of jobs who live in Redwood City& other nearby communities. Special application portal? Different standards for job skills?

@Chip - there are plenty of tech companies in Redwood City that locals can work for (Oracle, etc). It is really not fair or a big employer to move into city and force all the local residents to lose their homes through gentrification.

Facebook should be hiring locals in full-time software engineering positions, not in low-paying contract or vendor positions.

@Chip and resident, I agree with both of you.

The big tech companies have been spreading misery and creating poverty all over the Bay Area by relocating people to here from far away places instead of boosting local communities by giving jobs to locals. A longtime Redwood City resident who commutes to Menlo for a Facebook job isn't what causes gentrification - by the same token, a longtime PA or EPA resident can similarly commute to RWC, and both can keep their homes. The tech-induced gentrification is caused by the hundreds of thousands (is it millions by now?) of people from across the country and around the world that the tech companies squeeze into our small, geographically limited and already built-out region while pushing us locals out.

If FB is sincere in their effort to hire local Bay Area natives instead of bringing in yet more outsiders then good on them. If this is just another oh-so-clever PR stunt, then, well, the leopard will never change its spots, will it?

@Juan, I agree with you as well. Big Tech should stop tax-sheltering their billions of profit (that they clearly don't need and are able to park unused in tax shelters) and pay their taxes fair and square so we can - for example - start bringing our state institutes of higher learning back to where they were before their budgets were raided. Then local high school students of all income levels would be able to go on to college and get the education needed to qualify them for those full-time software engineering positions.

(Did you know that in past decades any California high school student who had _either_ good grades _or_ high SAT scores (yes that's right, only one or the other was needed) could simply sign up for Berkeley and go. There was space for everyone who qualified, and tuition and fees were affordable token amounts. We have lost so much.)

Juan, you hit the nail on the head.

I wonder how many software engineers live in EPA and these other areas? Don't you think that now they will want to live there so they get the opportunity to work for Facebook? What do you think that will do to the cost of housing in these areas as software engineers move in to enable them to get preferential employment opportunities over those that live elsewhere in the Valley.

I’m not eligible because I live on the west side of the 101. That’s where I found a cheap for the area apartment. It’s not like I live downtown in those $3k plus apartments near the train, supermarkets, mom and pop grocers, restaurants and Stanford. I get it. I’m unemployed but not poor because of where I live. I love how hypocritical some on the left are.

@Anke that must be how I got into UCLA. As an LAUSD student, I was woefully unprepared but I had awesome SAT scores. I just didn’t know how to study and took the GED and walked out because LAUSD was so not challenging.

Oh right, I got into UCLA, they don’t want me. I’m privileged enough to have a brain and project management skills. That takes away from being a part POC female. The don’t like minorities who can think outside the box. They can’t be the great white savior with people like me. We’re exactly as loathed as a fully white person to them. They can’t use the stupid, illegal or hood minority narrative with people like me. I see biotech in my future.