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Refugio works two jobs, sometimes over 60 hours a week. He strongly believes that the university should give its employees a raise, and also help them with housing. He talks about how much rent went up when Facebook moved into the area.
I love it. I love the Bay Area. The weather, the jobs, I just love it. I work for Stanford, and I just love it. Beautiful environment, working around students, yes I have my second job in Palo Alto. It's nice! But affording the rent is very difficult.
I rented a 1-bedroom apartment, at that time it was $950. As soon as Facebook came in, automatically it was $1900. Automatically. And you will stay only if you been living there more than 3 years. Otherwise you have 30 days to leave the premises. So then of course I had to move to a different place. And it was the same thing. I got it ok, it was no problem, the rent I could afford it. But you know, after a year, the rent goes up 100, 200, 300, 400 and up up up. So then I moved again, and when I started it was the same thing, you know. Raised... In a year it can get to $200, $300. Up up up. Right now I rent a room in a family house but I don't know how people can survive making minimum wages and pay 3 or 4 thousand dollars for a 2-bedroom apartment. And I can see, you know, people living 6, 7 people in a 1 or 2-bedroom apartment, which is... People can not afford to live in the Bay Area. It's insane. It's nonsense.
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