The project, which would house the homeless and low-income residents alike, would be called “Innovation Place,” Bloomberg reports.

It’s an admirable proposal in many ways. While the idea of using shipping containers sounds somewhat dystopian, the concept has been successful in the past, including in Orange County, where dozens of prefabricated modules will soon house homeless veterans. Sobrato, who stepped down from running his company in 2013 to focus on philanthropic endeavors and has said he plans to give away his entire fortune, says the housing development he seeks to build doesn’t even necessarily have to be built out of shipping containers; the structures could be built from the ground up instead. Still, the optics are a troubling reflection of the vast income inequality exacerbated by Silicon Valley—a wealth-generation machine unlike any other in human history, but one whose benefits have done little to address homelessness or poverty. In Santa Clara County, median rent is now $3,520 a month, while the homeless population last year reached 6,500, one of the highest totals in the country.

Part of the problem is California’s NIMBY culture: The San Francisco Chronicle reports that Mountain View built just 779 housing units between 2012 and 2015, at the same time that it added 17,921 new jobs. Another is Silicon Valley’s larger failure not to live up to its own ideals. The issue isn’t that John Sobrato hopes to house the homeless in shipping containers; it’s that, in one of the wealthiest enclaves in the United States, such a solution is needed at all. Perhaps if more Bay Area geniuses spent half as much time trying to save the world as they do trying to change it, they might repair the social safety net in their own backyard.