Berkeley, Oakland, San Francisco: The Bay Area's Poorest Neighborhoods

The Bay Area's Most Dire Situations

There are fewer pockets of extreme poverty in the Bay Area than there was a decade ago, according to reports -- but there are still five census tracts where over 40 percent of residents live below the poverty line.

These places are downtown Berkeley, uptown Oakland, Alameda Point, part of West Oakland and San Francisco's Hunters Point, according to the Contra Costa Times.

Some of these areas have been in the news quite a bit lately: uptown Oakland is where Frank Ogawa Plaza, the epicenter of Occupy Oakland, is located. The poverty line is $11,000 a year in income for a single person, meaning folks there have something to kvetch about indeed.

The good news is that very few places in the Bay Area have such poverty, according to the newspaper, which reviewed a study undertaken by the Brookings Institution. The bad news is that the federal poverty line is extreme poverty in the Bay Area.

"Being a family of four in the Bay Area, making $22,000, is considerably more difficult than being that same family with that same income in Greenville, S.C.," said Brookings Institution researcher Alan Berube.

The stats also confuse some residents to hear that their surroundings are the poorest of the poor: 14-year old Jessica Vasquez moved from East Oakland to the area in West Oakland described as poorest -- and she thinks her new surroundings are better.

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