Ferbruary of 2013: After living in Oakland CA for six months, I purchased a 3/4 ton 2004 Ford Econoline van with the intention of starting a light hauling business. If you have a vehicle with substantial cargo capacity, there will always be people who need something moved from "point A to point B."
This basic economic principle served me well on the east coast, bringing in 200-300 per week in profits, as well as allowing me to pay a good friend a minimum of 15.00/hr. to help. Oakland was different. Competition was fierce, and money was scarce. I managed to do two moving jobs as well as a scrap metal run. On the second moving job, the customer said the was unable to pay the 19.00/hr base rate, and handed me 60.00 for a nine hour job, saying she would get the rest to me later. She kept putting me off, and eventually became unreachable. I continued to advertise, placing flyers all over Telegraph Avenue, and got calls from people looking for work for the most part.
I wasn't ready to give up, however my wife had other plans. Two weeks after I started the business, she announced that she was going job hunting in NYC, and caught a flight out early on a gray and wet morning. She returned with two job offers, one in upstate NY, another in Harlem. She chose the Harlem job, working for a harm reduction group located close to the notorious intersection of 125th and Lexington Ave. She found housing, first in a filthy basement in Queens, that proved to be unlivable, and unworkable,
moved to a tiny room in Washington heights near Yeshiva University, and from there asked that I load up the van with everything we had, excluding a couple of large pieces of furniture and head east again. There was no realistic alternative; I could not pay the rent on our tiny two-bedroom apartment located in the barrio, a few blocks from the infamous Fruitvale BART station. My stepdaughter was close to finishing her first semester at the San Francisco Art Institute, a good but very expensive school, which she'd been able to attend through scholarship, and assistance from grandparents from both sides. She was also recovering from a failed romance, and enthusiastic about continuing her studies in New York. If I wanted to stay on in California, I would be on my own.
