Seems reasonable enough to me as an option staff can take up, but don’t need to if they have other accomodation or would rather live somewhere not operated by their employer.
Based on the article it seems the cost is reasonable for the area. Having a cost on the accomodation rather than it being free probably helps stop an influx of people with suitable accommodation already cancelling lease or subletting, to come stay at that building and limiting access to those that need it more. That and no doubt people who couldn’t take it up may feel shafted that their colleagues are getting a $700 a week perk if Google made it free.
No doubt one can argue the often polarising merits of office work versus remote, but if they’re going to have people come to the office having accomodation available, paid or not, no doubt would be helpful and something many other employers going through a similar transition may not be able to offer.
Google isn't getting into the hotel industry to help out an overburdened housing market. This is solely designed to make their immigrant workers more reliant on the company than they already are, while creating a legal loophole to pay them less than the agreed upon rate.
It also suggests they intend to up the usage of immigrant workers, which will further displace the local housing situation and likely further rise homelessness within the county (and I imagine a rise in white supremacist thinking and action in response.
This isn't rational on Google's part, this is a potential human rights crisis in the making that we really need to speak out against. 21St century company towns will not be different from 1800s company towns in any true meaningful way.
When we poach the top talent from other countries by selling them on the American dream, we can't bring them here to have them be an invisible class fully dependent on private corporations. We have to actually let them have the American dream we sold to them.
This is solely designed to make their immigrant workers more reliant on the company than they already are
Tell me you know nothing about the H1-B program without telling me... If Google terminates an H1-B worker, they get at most 60 days to find a new sponsor or they get deported. It's already an extremely exploitative situation.
Housing precarity is the norm for every renter in that area, unfortunately. This is not moving the needle at all. Hell, I'll take it a step further: not being stuck in a lease is actually a good thing in this situation. They were living in a furnished hotel room, probably literally out of a suitcase. They have minimal things to pack. They can find a cheap short term rental in the Central Valley. They don't need to be paying $4k a month for a 1br apartment in Mountain View while job hunting 12 hours a day. All that's doing is digging them a deeper hole. They also don't have to pay thousands of dollars (that they might not have) to break a lease if they find an employer to sponsor them in NY or TX.
My understanding is that a sponsor is generally expected to honor the timeline of the agreed upon conditions of the sponsorship unless a fireable offense on the part of the sponsee was comitted, upon which a review for possible deportation would be opened.
I also dont think.most people consider housing security as a burden.