A tour of the WORST areas of Stockton, California - Including a Dystopian HOMELESS CAMP.

Stockton might be the worst place to live in California and that's saying a LOT.

Stockton, California probably can’t be called a city of hope or prosperity anymore. It sucks to hear that, but it’s true. If you live outside of California, you might not have even heard about this city, just outside of the Oakland metro area. Although it isn’t as ugly, dangerous and poor as Oakland is, you could make an argument this is the worst place you can live in California and it would be hard to disagree.

We’re going to drive through the worst areas of Stockton and talk about what’s wrong here and any possible solutions. But a lot of motivated people leaving, and a lot of bad people are moving in. So there might NOT be a solution to change the future of this central valley city.

Stockton has 312,000 people, making it the 11th biggest city in this state. It’s a little bit smaller than Anaheim and barely larger than Riverside. This city filed for bankruptcy in 2012. It was hit hard by foreclosures in 2009, and the city made some terrible investments that went sour during the financial crisis soon after that.

It’s poorly run, broke, exceptionally dangerous and getting worse each year.

The day I chose to drive through Stockton was a very nice one. It was late October of 2021, and the sun was bright. The bright sun served as a spotlight on this struggling city. While dreary and cloudy is easier to record, bright sunshine brings out the details even more. Although I don’t know if Stockton needs a spotlight on it. This place is in a bad way right now.

Ask someone who lives in Stockton where the bad parts of town are, and they might point in any direction. It’s vastly rundown. The bad area we’re going to drive through on is the south side of Stockton in an area that begins just south of the crosstown freeway and continues down to MLK Blvd. This is Census tract 1, It’s an area that is notorious for being the poorest and most dangerous part of Stockton. And that’s saying a lot.

Here’s the route we’ll take for some of the drive later.

But before we get to the dangerous part, I want to talk about the poverty part. There are homeless people all over Stockton and it’s getting worse by the week. Currently in Stockton, the poverty rate is close to 20% which means 1 in 5 residents makes under $13,000 a year, or $27,000 for a family of 4. Now if you live in California you know just how expensive it is there, and there’s no way anyone can survive on $13,000 a year here. But here in Stockton 1 in 5 people is trying to do just that. It’s just mind blowing.

And look at this chart. Stockton’s poverty rate was an astounding 28% just 7 years ago, and then it went down. But while the rest of the country and California continued that trend, here in Stockton, the poverty rate is going back up again. Then on top of that, Stockton has a huge influx of poor people displaced from the bay area less than an hour to the west. Many of the people who can’t afford to live in the bay area or Los Angeles dont come with job skills, or they bring their gang ties with them, too.

The influx of California refugees makes it even harder to afford living in stockton now, driving up the rent and home prices. So the poor are getting poorer.

And as you may know, minorities are much more likely to live in poverty. Stockton was just named as the most racially diverse city in the country. And minorities in these bad parts of Stockton are traditionally hard to reach - it’s hard to get them to fill out census forms so that they can be counted and more federal dollars can flow in to help out. Many areas just like this are rough and dangerous. Cops don’t even want to go in there so why would a census worker want to. And when you knock on a door, people are afraid to open it.

There just aren’t a lot of good jobs here to keep people employed with solid wages. Agriculture isn’t as profitable anymore. This is close to the Bay Area, but there’s no tech jobs here. To address the homeless problem, Stockton spent $12 million. But it doesn't look like it's working.

One study called, the San Joaquin Valley one of the most economically depressed regions in the country, on par with Appalachia. That is just crazy.

#california #moving

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