When young people think about apartment living, what comes to mind is Monica and Rachel’s spacious New York apartment in “Friends” or Jess’ loft that she shares with three men in “New Girl.” But in real life, some young workers, particularly those who work in tech companies or start-ups, are living in less glamorous and cramped spaces to cope with high rental fees.
According to Business Insider, millennials are going to great lengths to live in San Francisco to pursue their careers in Silicon Valley. As the city has the second-highest median rent in the U.S., new graduates are said to be spending up to 79 percent of their salary on rent. To deal with this problem, some have opted to live in boats, tiny homes, and some young workers have even created a form of shelter using homemade wooden crates.
Some young tech employees have resorted to living in dorm-like apartments such as The Negev, a communal living space that markets itself as a home for millennial tech workers to brainstorm ideas and create apps. In exchange for living in this stimulating environment, residents have to sleep in bunk beds and share toilets and bathrooms with everybody else.
For some tech workers, living at The Negev is almost like a dream come true, akin to living in a “Melrose Place”-type setting without all the drama. A resident named Dalton, who has been living for almost a year at the apartment complex, took to Yelp and said that he has made “around 40 new friends” within two weeks of moving in.
“I had late night discussions ranging from social issues, to details about people’s startups/projects, to the plot holes in a movie,” said Dalton. Another resident named Alejandro said that The Negev is “filled with a diverse group of very diverse people.”
Meanwhile, Sabin gave a detailed account of the living situation in the complex. It was said that people normally stay two-in-a-room in bunk beds, and there are shared showers and bathrooms. There is also a large communal living room and kitchen, and a basement with more working space and a movie and video game room.
The Negev is situated in San Francisco’s famous South of Market, or “SoMa,” right on Folsom street. Renters pay $1,900 a month to stay there, and Dejah, who landed a job as a virtual reality engineer at moBack, told AOL that he thought that New York was expensive before coming to live in the apartment.
“It’s basically an extension of college,” said Dejah. “We sort of live in a frat house.”
For more, check out Jobs & Hire’s report on Mark Zuckerberg and what he learned more from his side projects than he did at college.
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