Cookies rule (with ice cream, too) WEEKEND | 17 JULY 26, 2013 VOLUME 21, NO. 26
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High-cost housing creates desperate living conditions CITY INSPECTOR FINDS FAMILIES LIVING IN SHEDS, CHILDREN IN CLOSETS By Daniel DeBolt
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MAGALI GAUTHIER
From left: Polly Caddes, Jennifer Schonher and Tom Schonher stretch out in a lunge position at the new yoga class at Shoreline Lake.
Floating yoga at Shoreline CITY’S NEWEST FITNESS ACTIVITY MIXES YOGA WITH STAND-UP PADDLEBOARDS By Daniel DeBolt
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he newest activity at the Shoreline Lake Aquatic Center is an unusual sight — a Saturday morning yoga class bobbing in the middle of the lake. Making use of stand-up paddleboards, the group of floating yoga practitioners have the
added challenge of not falling into the water. The wind usually blows the group across the lake several times before the hour-and-fifteen-minute class is up. After a class on July 13, participants were enthusiastic. See YOGA, page 13
Memorial named for fallen Marine LOCAL MILITARY PROCESSING CENTER NAMING CEREMONIAL HALL AFTER MATTHEW MANOUKIAN By Nick Veronin
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lthough he is sure his son, who was very humble, wouldn’t have wanted the fanfare, Pete Manoukian said he and his family are honored that the military has decided to name a ceremonial hall inside the San Jose Military Entrance
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Processing Station after his son, Capt. Matthew Manoukian, who died while serving in the Marine Corps in Afghanistan last August. “We were very flattered,” Manoukian said, recalling the day he and his wife, Patricia Bamattre Manoukian, heard that the processing station located at Moffett
Field would be named to commemorate the life and service of their late son. “That’s the facility he went through when he enlisted. We’re just very honored.” A Marine from birth Capt. Matthew Manoukian knew he wanted to be a Marine as far back as age 8, according
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s the cost of living in Mountain View climbs, a city inspector says that in recent years he’s found families living in shocking conditions — children sleeping with their parents in garden sheds and in the closets of cockroach-infested apartments. “The one that was the worst for me was seeing two kids and a mother and father living in a storage shed,” said code inspector Chris Costanzo, recalling a discovery he made in 2012 in the Rex Manor neighborhood. “There was a crib and little tiny bed and it was obvious there was an infant and a toddler and two people living there. It was clean and it wasn’t ratinfested, but it wasn’t habitable. It was like living in something a little bigger than a bathroom, with no true insulation from the elements and no running water. It was pretty sad.” to his father. At first, Manoukian speculated, his son was probably drawn to the heroic portrayal of Marines in the movies Capt. Matthew Manoukian and on TV, just like many young boys. But as he grew older, he never gave up on his childhood goal. “For him it was always like a calling,” his father said. “He just knew that’s what he wanted to do.”
No place like home This is the first in a series of stories about the increasingly high cost of housing in Mountain View. The young couple living in the shed seemed “down on their luck” but were able to find somewhere else to stay pretty quickly, Costanzo said. “They didn’t want to be there because it was cold.” Living situations for poorer Mountain View residents may become more desperate as rents climb at unprecedented rates. According to the data service Real Facts, the average rent in Mountain View for a three-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment is now $3,044 a month, up from $2,295 See HOUSING, page 14
It was just a matter of whether he ought to join straight out of high school or go to college first, Manoukian said of his son. The younger Manoukian originally decided he would go through college before enlisting but things changed after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11., which rocked his conscience shortly after he began his undergraduate studies. He immediately went to enlist, but was delayed because of an See MEMORIAL, page 8