Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay

As Silicon Valley remakes the world yet again, swallowing up our water and spiking our electricity bills, homelessness remains endemic to that region of California. It is both a scandal and an illustration of what the endless speculative bubble leaves out, where the system fails—or, perhaps, what it requires: billionaires need their underclass.Joe Kloc’s Lost at Sea: Poverty and Paradise Collide at the Edge of America tells the story of a motley group of outsiders living on derelict boats in the affluent enclave of Marin County, just north of San Francisco: an Eden of redwood hot tubs, liberal environmentalism, and, inevitably, anti-homeless sentiment. Kloc explores the contrasts between the “anchor-outs,” as they’re known in Sausalito, and the “Hill People” living above them. He also traces the connections between wealth and deprivation in the Bay Area to show how the region’s eccentric past and its serial booms and busts produced this unique seafaring community: the losers of California’s golden dream. “Among them are retired mariners, single mothers, runaways, artists, addicts, and many others who caught a bad break from which they haven’t yet recovered: a divorce, a lost job, a...