Actress Susan Sarandon shared a video of a street lined with tents and debris on her Twitter account.
The Oscar winner and activist did not comment on the video in her tweet. The video, apparently shot in Oakland, appears to have been first shared on TikTok by user Jeffrey Long.
Sarandon shared the video from the account of Thomas Wolf, whose account says he is a recovery advocate in San Francisco.
“This is not a slum in India,” Mr. Wolf wrote in his tweet. “This is Oakland, CA. Our generation’s crisis. #homelessness.
The Bay Area as a whole, including San Francisco and Oakland, has some of the highest housing prices in the country and some of the highest rates of housing insecurity. According to San Francisco Chronicle20,000 people in the city will experience homelessness this year, while more than 2,000 are chronically homeless.
Oakland, which has long been a more affordable alternative to San Francisco, has also seen housing costs rise dramatically in recent years. The city, as it is known, has seen its homeless population increase by 24% over the past three years, with more than 5,000 people without homes in February. There were more than 9,000 homeless people in all of Alameda County at the time.
The economic deprivation in the Bay Area stands in stark contrast to the wealth enjoyed by many people in the region. The Bay Area has the highest rates of economic inequality in California, with research from the Public Policy Institute of California finding that the region’s highest earners earn 12.2 times more money than the lowest earners.
Overall, California is one of the most economically unequal states in the country. Only the District of Columbia, Missouri, New Mexico, New York and Louisiana have higher inequality rates than the Golden State, which also has the highest median rent in the country.
Although the problems of housing insecurity in the United States are not limited to California, the state has become one of the faces of the homelessness crisis, especially among conservatives, who attribute the difficulties of the region to the Democratic leadership of the state.
Sarandon, however, is not a conservative. A vocal supporter of left-leaning candidates, including Sen Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Sarandon has frequently clashed with liberals online over his politics.
