Millennial tech workers are paying an exorbitant amount to live in cramped, dorm-like conditions in San Francisco
Located in the tech-centric neighborhood of SoMa, The Negev boasts on its website that this particular location "is home to dotcom giants like LinkedIn and Dropbox, [and] the San Francisco Giants stadium." There are three outposts of The Negev in San Francisco, in addition to locations in Oakland and Austin.
Residents like 25-year-old Zander Dejah pay about $1,900 a month in rent, according to Reuters.
The home has three floors and roughly 50 rooms.
The Negev prides itself on creating a community that's ideal for young tech workers to brainstorm ideas and write code for apps.
The house hosts parties on weekends, and a communal dinner is served every Sunday night. Residents gather in the common space.
Dejah, who was born and raised in New York, graduated from McGill University with a degree in computer science and math last year. He's now a virtual reality engineer at consulting firm moBack.
He described The Negev house to Reuters: "It's basically an extension of college. We sort of live in a frat house."
Most of the residents are in their mid-to-late 20s. They're often software engineers, UI designers, operations analysts, or virtual reality engineers.
Local housing advocates have spoken out against this type of communal living. Sarah Sherburn-Zimmer, executive director of the Housing Rights Committee of San Francisco, said to Reuters, "The Negev house takes affordable housing and makes it unaffordable. All they've done is take away housing from people who had it and loved it and pushed them out to make a quick buck."
Alon Gutman, a cofounder of The Negev, said to Reuters, "We have never made somebody move out of that building, we are trying to solve the housing crisis and increase density in a positive way."
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