Cleaning crew started to clean up the place called The Jungle in Silicon Valley on Thursday, while former residents finally started to leave the temporary encampment that had served as their homes for several years.

At its peak, about 350 lived in 68-acre shantytown which is just a short drive from the headquarters of giant information technology companies such as Apple, Google, Yahoo and eBay, reports Chron.

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In charge of clearing the area and seeing to it that every illegal occupant leaves The Jungle are more than 30 cops, dozens of construction workers dressed in the hazmat suits and 15 social service staff.

The Thursday clean-up is also the deadline for the remaining 60 people to leave or be arrested for trespassing. Their ultimatum was to be out by Thursday dawn.

On Thursday morning, the residents started to finally leave, lugging with them suitcases, shopping trolleys and bicycles. By the middle of the morning, a number of them were on the sidewalk but have left their things there to seek new shelter.

Before the city closed The Jungle, it spent $4 million in the past 18 months relocating its temporary residents and connecting them to services. Of the 300 plus residents, 114 found housing, over 50 received rent subsidies but don't have a place to move in yet.

Some turned down the offer to live in shelters for various reasons such as safety concerns, owning pets and dislike for house rules on drinking. Some said that even if they would get jobs, they would still remain homeless because of the high cost of homes.

The median home price in the area is US$700,000, while average monthly rent for apartments within a 10-mile radius of San Jose was US$2,633 in September, up from US$1,761 in 2012 due to the influx of workers in the area, reports LA Times.

Multibillion dollar companies and filthy areas that pass off as residence of people with no roof over their heads is the irony of Silicon Valley, which Jennifer Loving described as "a perfect storm of extreme wealth a booming tech community and people priced out of the market." Loving is the executive director of Destination Home, a partnership between the private and public sectors that aim to end homelessness in San Jose.

Tagsthe jungle, homelessness, san jose