Amazon Begins Housing Homeless In Seattle (jeffreifman.com)

reifman writes: Amazon announced that it will commit one of its buildings to housing 200 Seattle homeless people for the next year, allowing a nonprofit organization to oversee the facilities... With more than 4,505 living on the streets, Seattle's mayor recently declared a homelessness emergency... More than 45 people died on the streets in 2015, heroin related deaths in King County are at a 20-year high, and neighborhoods are up in arms about homeless drug use, crime and people living in cars.
The Seattle Times notes that Amazon's construction on the lot isn't scheduled until 2017, so they reached out to the homelessness nonprofit to temporarily offer its use, hoping to later offer the group a second site. (The nonprofit will pay the site's utility bills).

Comments

Buying off the poor

[Anonymous Coward]

The gap between poor and rich is ever increasing. Eventually all major companies will be doing this to sedate the poor from revolting.

Re:Buying off the poor

[fyngyrz]

Better to "buy them off" than let them starve and suffer exposure and disease.

Pretty obvious, really.

Re:Buying off the poor

[ShanghaiBill]

The gap between poor and rich is ever increasing.

People are not homeless because they are poor. They are homeless because they are mentally ill, usually combined with alcohol and drug abuse.

We need to address both poverty and homelessness, but they are two very different issues.

Re:Buying off the poor

[Anonymous Coward]

That isn't always true. There was a time when I was poor, sleeping in my car and taking showers at a friend's flat. The job I had then was best I could find at the time but it didn't pay enough to be able to afford a place to live. This was in the San Francisco bay area, where rents are extremely high. After living that way for some time, I eventually saved enough to move to a distant location that wasn't so expensive.

As far as I know, Seattle is even more expensive, so it's entirely possible that people are homeless because they are poor.

Re:Buying off the poor

[Anonymous Coward]

Not always. Money exhausted by medical bills and a disabling condition after 30ish years as a software dev.
I came very close to homeless and use no drugs and drink little alcohol. Don't generalize.

Re:Buying off the poor

[Anonymous Coward]

How many homeless people have millions in the bank? According to you, plenty!

Re:Buying off the poor

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

People are not homeless because they are poor. They are homeless because they are mentally ill, usually combined with alcohol and drug abuse.

We need to address both poverty and homelessness, but they are two very different issues.

This is often true, and the homelessness/poverty cycle is a vicious circle. Mentally ill often self medicate with alcohol and drug abuse, which can quickly lead to being unemployable (if they weren't already unemployable in some fashion), and being unemployed they have little or no money, certainly not enough to afford housing. No housing means you're gonna be living on the street, which can exacerbate both mental illness and a state of being unemployable. It's an ugly cycle, very difficult to extricate yourself from once you've fallen into it.

There are, however, some people who genuinely do want to be homeless, but in general they're a fraction of those who are homeless. Most would prefer to have shelter and some sort of place to call home.

As far as Seattle goes, I've been seeing more and more people hanging out at freeway entrances/exits looking for handouts in the last few years. I don't recall seeing nearly as many of them 10 years ago, or even 5. Homelessness has definitely gotten worse here as far as I can tell.

Re:Buying off the poor

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

As far as I know, Seattle is even more expensive, so it's entirely possible that people are homeless because they are poor.

Living in Seattle is more expensive than San Francisco? I'd be surprised if that was true.

  Seattle is expensive, but San Francisco is nearly off the charts.

Re:Buying off the poor

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks to steady Democrat rule in Seattle/King County (including an actual Socialist (not the Sanders kind) on the city council), Seattle has become a cesspool. "Sanctuary city" status plus homeless handouts have resulted in tent cities not only under freeways but also suburban encampments with the attendant rise in criminal/drug activity. Other cities know that Seattle has these programs, so they ship their homeless to the Pacific Northwest.

Re:Buying off the poor

[AuMatar]

SF is much more expensive. I've lived both places in the last 5 years. In Seattle I owned a condo just north of downtown- a 2 bedroom 1100 sq foot one that rented for 1900 a month. In SF a 1 bedroom goes for 3500-4000. a 2 bedroom would be beyond 4k.

Re:Buying off the poor

[tlambert]

People are not homeless because they are poor. They are homeless because they are mentally ill, usually combined with alcohol and drug abuse.

The trope that all drug abusers are abusing because they are simply uncared for mentally ill persons is really pretty bogus.

Having worked with chronically mentally ill persons, the primary self-medication is alcohol, because it's socially acceptable for drunks to talk to themselves or people who aren't there. Not all alcoholics, nor are most other drug users, such as heroin junkies and meth heads, self-medicating mentally ill persons, they are persons who have a substance abuse problem.

When you blame all drug abuse on mental illness, you are doing a disservice to the mentally ill, just as when you blame untreated mental illness on an uncaring society, rather than on the supreme court decisions regarding involuntary treatment of the mentally ill brought by the NY ACLU and amicus curie'd by the Church of Scientology.

We need to address both poverty and homelessness, but they are two very different issues.

That's something on which we can definitely agree.

Re:Buying off the poor

[Locke2005]

Seattle is probably the 3rd most expensive city in the US to live in, after San Francisco and New York. Seems like it would make more sense to house homeless someplace cheaper to live, where they could maybe have gardens.

Re: Buying off the poor

[Type44Q]

Homeless people aren't the poor downtrodden peasants you seem to imagine they are.

Ten years ago, this might have been true...

Re:Buying off the poor

[guruevi]

Sleeping in a car is imho not really homeless; you still had options, you could've moved to a much cheaper living area away from SF (perhaps the mid-west), found a job there. There is a substantial amount of social welfare services that are easily accessible in the US as well if you (really) don't have a job.

The problem in the US with homelessness is that although there is this huge amount of money being pumped in it, the abuse of the system is rampant on both the giving and receiving side and there is really no help for people that don't have the mental capacity to figure out how the system works (the paperwork).

Re:Buying off the poor

[thinkwaitfast]

Moving to a completely new area without any funds to float you until you got settled would be foolish.

Much like all the people moving to the US from Mexico, right?

Re:Buying off the poor

[flyingfsck]

In the bronze age, Aristotle wrote in Ethics: "The poor will always be with us." (To be repeated a few times in the Christian story books much later). So this is a rather old problem.

Re:Buying off the poor

[Anonymous Coward]

Happened to me as well, twice, both times in my mid-20's, also in the San Francisco region where I grew-up. This was back in the late 80s. The first time I became homeless, I lived in a men's shelter in San Jose for about three months. The second time, I ended-up living in my car for nearly nine months because, by then, most of the homeless shelters in the area had closed.

Each of the two times I became homeless, I was working part-time and going to college, but just couldn't make ends meet. I dug myself out by dropping out of school and going to back to work full-time... a stressful period in my life for sure. It was very difficult holding-down a full-time job in those circumstances, and I eventually put school on the back-burner when it became clear that I just couldn't support myself and go to school at the same time. It wasn't until I was in my late 30's that I had the time and money to go back to school full-time to get my degree. I'm proud I did it, but it was undeniably a tough road.

So I speak from experience when I say that not all homeless people are homeless due to mental health issues or, as many seem to believe, a simple unwillingness to work. Some folks are, in a word, poor, and that's why they're homeless.

Re:Buying off the poor

[matbury]

Yes, but I wonder how many homeless people and people currently struggling to make ends meet could be helped more efficiently through state and national public services if Amazon and other corporations paid their fair share of taxes? The US poverty and homelessness rates are almost as shocking as the amount of money that is being taken out of public circulation (i.e. to serve everyone's interests) so that a small number of oligarchs and bankers can play on the Wall Street casinos.

Re:Buying off the poor

[Rockoon]

Seems like it would make more sense to house homeless someplace cheaper to live, where they could maybe have gardens.

..and someplace that has jobs for the people you are trying to help.

What doesnt happen when you put poor people all in the same area... is jobs.

Re:Buying off the poor

[shawn2772]

Not always. Money exhausted by medical bills and a disabling condition after 30ish years as a software dev. I came very close to homeless and use no drugs and drink little alcohol. Don't generalize.

One counterexample doesn't disprove the general truth... and you aren't a counterexample. You came "very close" to homelessness, but didn't get there, and if you had you'd have found many programs that would help a rational but penniless person to get assistance (or maybe you did, which is why you didn't get there). Your story may even support the GP's argument.

Re:Buying off the poor

[phantomfive]

Also worth adding that not all mentally ill people are homeless (most aren't)......and to some degree most of us probably have weirdnesses going on in our heads. We've just learned to deal well enough with them to manage life.

The ones who are homeless almost all are homeless because they also have poor money management skills.

Re:Buying off the poor

[Nethead]

Other cities know that Seattle has these programs, so they ship their homeless to the Pacific Northwest.
Citation needed.

Re:Buying off the poor

[Nethead]

I've been seeing more and more people hanging out at freeway entrances/exits looking for handouts in the last few years.
I think that's more to do with the heroin problem. People trying to get money for their next fix before they get sick. At least they are asking for money instead of doing petty theft. Even the exits up in Marysville and Arlington have folks flying signs. The street I work at in Everett (Chestnut, just south of Hewitt) had all sorts of the stolen bike crew hauling junk to the scrap yard or just hanging out. Since it's closed the street is a lot cleaner and I don't have to collect used syringes in the morning.

Re:Buying off the poor

[SirSlud]

*facepalm*

Re:Buying off the poor

[phantomfive]

No joke, that's my experience with homeless people, they have poor money management skills. A lot of them actually have skills and can make plenty of money (I know one guy who can pull in $2000 a week), but when they get money it burns a hole in their pocket.

If you know homeless people who aren't like that, I would love to meet them.

Re:Buying off the poor

[dbIII]

In a country with hundreds of millions of people there are a lot of "one counterexamples".

Re:Buying off the poor

[omfgnosis]

Salt Lake City, liberal for Utah but not exactly a leftist utopia, proved a solution that nearly ended chronic homelessness in their city. The solution is simple and cost-effective, when compared with basically every other city's approach: give homeless people homes. While chronic homelessness is basically a fact of life in major urban areas, SLC saw reductions of 91%. And they did it with lower costs than any other program.

The sad fact for Seattle is that we actually pioneered the program, as Housing First, before we abandoned it for programs that are far more expensive and far less effective. It was a small pilot program, but in its scope saw similar success. But Seattle, despite having a fairly left-leaning population, is not administered with the same leanings. One of the tent cities you mention was specifically named after mayor Greg Nickels whose policies on homelessness were to undermine programs designed (albeit poorly) to help, and to send cops out to slash up people's tents and confiscate property of the inhabitants. He explicitly called for shipping homeless people *out* of the city, hardly a sanctuary.

Like you, Nickels complained of "handouts". As if taking the only remaining resources away from people will promote their success. The effect is predictable: people who have nothing left to depend on find alternatives. This is the "criminal/drug activity" you speak of. You can't expect people with the fewest resources in society to thrive as you kneecap them. And you can't make them go away.

What you can do is do the fiscally conservative thing: choose a solution that works, costs the least of all existing programs, and eliminates huge swaths of bureaucracy and corruption. Give homeless people houses.

By the way, Sawant is hardly representative of the city council. The fact that you have trouble distinguishing her from the rest of the city leadership, despite distinguishing her from Sanders, shows how little you understand about how this city operates.

Re:Buying off the poor

[qbrick]

And sometimes both groups, the poor and the mentalliy ill, overlap with the former being a dominant marker in the process of becoming homeless - at least in a a welfare state like Germaany this is happening. How much more so in the US.

Re:Buying off the poor

[SuricouRaven]

There's more to conservatism than fiscal policy. I read right-wing media, and they often regard benefits as a moral problem, because they come from taxation. It's the government saying 'I'm going to steal your stuff and gunpoint and give it to someone who did nothing to deserve it.' They admit homelessness is a problem, but the protestant work ethic makes it clear that giving someone resources they didn't work for is out of the question - unfair to the giver and degrading to the recipient. It's quite common to see benefits described as 'government slavery' because it deprives people of the dignity of work and independence. Rather than redistribution, the conservative approach to poverty is to increase jobs by removing all the regulations that hold back industry - like environmental protection laws, the minimum wage, mandatory employment benefits, health and safety regulations, and so on. This will then create lots of new jobs. Not good jobs, they admit that, but a person working twelve-hour shifts packing boxes and making just enough to live hand-to-mouth is still a person living independently and free of government control, which is morally far preferable to a person living in benefit slavery off of the hard work of other people.

Re:Buying off the poor

[umghhh]

They can adapt their drones to make them robotic revolt prevention systems (RRPS) on the cheap. This whole AI thing is perfect for that. Unless of course the AI instances reach the consciousness and start thinking about ethics and morality - the effects probably will depend on the libraries they were fed and if they were meant to be solitary or cooperating units. Still we are far from that but close to RRPS so bozos and other owners of the world can rejoice - time of reliant police workforce is near.

Re:Buying off the poor

[umghhh]

Germany is cheap and they are still open unless you try to come by foot trough Balkans.

Re:Buying off the poor

[KGIII]

You wouldn't happen to know anyone affiliated with this, would you? I'd be willing to send 'em a couple of bucks to help pay for the utility bills seeing as the non-profit will be the one that's covering those expenses. I should think that Amazon would be happy with the goodwill and trivial expense (unless power is outlandishly expensive there) but it would appear not. If you happen to know someone whom I can contact then I'd be interested in sending a few dollars there way to help cover the utility bills for the duration of their stay.

Re:Buying off the poor

[ThatsMyNick]

Amazon doesnt make a profit, because they invest every penny back into the company. Their fair share of taxes is zero. Dont club them with other tech companies.

Re:Buying off the poor

[KGIII]

It should also be noted that most people that are homeless aren't homeless for very long. It's the chronic homeless that are the ones with mental illness and/or addiction issues. For better or worse, we can not force them into treatment and into receiving medical care (which is actually available - though there's often a bit of a wait as beds are limited) unless they're a danger to themselves or to other people - and provably so, to a judge.

People like to blame it on Reagan but (and I support this) it was actually really started with a few suits and some publicity in the early 1970s, maybe the late 1960s. The ACLU brought a number of suits, notably in New York State being one of the first, which basically resulted in a couple of different things happening. One, they had to start treating the patients like humans and stop abusing them. Two, they had to let them go if they weren't an obvious danger to themselves or others - and that was a pretty low bar (and still is).

It made housing and processing them very expensive. They let 'em loose and some even got bus tickets to new jurisdictions. California's thought to be warm and was a popular destination as was Arizona, Nevada, and Florida.

At any rate, the chronically homeless (a different subject altogether and needs to be addressed differently) is usually due to mental health issues. We, as a country, have decided that we can't lock people up against their will. This is the result of that. We can'tn force them into residential treatment. We can't force them into community housing. We can't force them to do much of anything unless they're judged to be incompetent. Some will view that is inhumane and others will view that as freedom. It's complicated but I'm in the freedom camp and side with the ACLU on this one. Sometimes, you accept the greater of two evils for the sake of principle.

Re:Buying off the poor

[Rob Lister]

Salt Lake City, liberal for Utah but not exactly a leftist utopia, proved a solution that nearly ended chronic homelessness in their city. ... While chronic homelessness is basically a fact of life in major urban areas, SLC saw reductions of 91%. And they did it with lower costs than any other program.

Chronic homelessness is a politically defined subcategory of homeless in general. If you look at the chart on page 5 of their report ...
https://jobs.utah.gov/housing/...
It is clear that they did not move the actual homeless needle much at all. Overall homelessness in Utah steadily floats between .05%-.06% of population since 2005. So of their overall homeless population of ~15k, only ~2k are counted as chronic, and they reduced that number by ~90% to ~200.

But the other ~90% of the overall homeless remain homeless so the effect was to reduce homelessness in general from ~.6% to .5% of the population. Given their change in the accounting method during the study period combined with sme pretty tall error bars, I'd say their solution statistically meaningless.

Re:Buying off the poor

[Rob Lister]

Edit to correct. The .05 and .06 number in para 1 should read 0.5 and 0.6.

Re:Buying off the poor

[KGIII]

Yup. They tell me that I'm sane and I've made sure to get second, third, fourth, fifth, etc. opinions on it. (I go talk to a therapist fairly often when I'm home, I find it good to have someone objective to talk to.) Yet, I was a functional addict and alcoholic for years. I would literally leave meetings and shoot up in the bathroom. I kept rigs in my office. I was into Fentanyl (80x stronger than heroin) so I could wear a patch if I had to travel. I also drank. I drank for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We had a bar and a pool table in the back of our home office. I used it often.

I functioned just fine. It wasn't really a problem. In fact, I did quite well. It was when I retired that something broke in my head. I didn't actually use more drugs or drink more alcohol (I don't think) it's just that my body/brain somehow knew it didn't actually have to function any more. I turned into a sloppy drunk and was nodding out and drolling on myself with a rig in my hand and blood staining my trousers. My neighbor, I've mentioned her many times, used to come check just to make sure I was alive - she's the same person I call my house cleaner 'cause I pay her and that's what she does. Sometimes she lets me pretend to be the boss.

Anyhow, it was weird. It's like my brain flipped a circuit. I was no longer a functional alcoholic, I was just a drunk. I was no longer "chipping." I was a junkie. I put shitloads of money in my veins and up my nose - obscene amounts. Like, numbers that would scare people. I've tried to figure it out, using averages and average street prices (I tended to buy in bulk) and the numbers are too shameful for me to actually mention.

But it was something about the no longer needing to be functional, no longer having people depend on me, no longer having a company to keep afloat, no longer having to worry about money, no longer having to worry about appearing to be "normal." That just snapped. I went, without changing usage quantities, to dysfunctional and junkie stage. (Gotta be honest, there were some good times, good times indeed.)

And yes, they insist that I'm sane. I started the alcohol as a kid and the opiates while in my early teens when I broke an ankle and then a wrist in short succession. At first it was the codeine and that warm blanket feeling. Then I pretended that made me sick so they gave me stronger stuff - but I kept the first script, and it just worked its way through that. They didn't do much testing in the military so I kept on going - the corpsman was my friend. Then, 30 years later, I'm strung out and puking and shitting at the same time trying to quit. *sighs* Never again... I don't ever want to go through withdrawals again.

But yeah, they assure me that I'm perfectly sane. I'm not sure that I agree with them so I keep getting second opinions but, so far, they all tell me that I'm not just sane but that I'm pretty much the definition of sane. I'm not sure how they come up with that considering the drug and alcohol abuse/addiction but they're the experts and I'm the junkie.

I did do rehab, by the way. I was on a monster dose of Suboxone for quite a while but I've been weaning myself off of them. I haven't actually taken any in a while now but I have been smoking a bit of weed and I'm in Florida so I can't admit to it but there's all sorts of Bolivian Marching Powder in the area.

They're quite convinced that I'm sane. Three out of the four voices in my head seriously disagree with the sentiment! ;-)

Hmm... I should probably post this as an AC but, alas, I am not a coward and I'm always suggesting that people accept responsibility and be accountable. It would be hypocritical for me to post this as an AC. Well, that and my particular posting style would likely give it away. So, here it is in all its glory.

Re:Buying off the poor

[KGIII]

That doesn't make him any less correct.

Re:Buying off the poor

[Daemonik]

Have you ever been homeless? Because you sound clueless. Are there social services? Yes, if you fit certain categories. Women with children top the charts (as they should). Out of work men, not so much.

Moving and getting established in a new area takes.. *drumroll*! ... MONEY. What good does it do you to hitchhike to a lower cost area if you don't have money to afford shelter there? Zero!

Also, ponder why it's cheap in other areas.. perhaps because THEY aren't so economically amazing themselves and there might not actually be any jobs, or the jobs available never quite match your qualifications. Sorry you're too old, oh you're too educated, oh you don't have the right qualifications, oops you're inexperienced/overexperienced.. etc etc.

The problem with homelessness is it's pervasive and its mutability. It's not a problem with one quick easy tweetable answer and a lot of people want the homeless to just go away more than they want a solution to homelessness. Gotta have somebody you can look down on after all.

Re:Buying off the poor

[Daemonik]

They admit homelessness is a problem, but the protestant work ethic makes it clear that giving someone resources they didn't work for is out of the question - unfair to the giver and degrading to the recipient.

Funny thing is, these same people will throw money at a church to do the same thing the government is doing. Guess they're okay with being slaves to their God.

Re: Buying off the poor

[Daemonik]

Aristotle didn't know jack shit. Even what we call poor today is 1000 times richer than he can even imagine.

So effing what? The rich today are 1 billion times richer than he could ever imagine. It changes nothing. The poor are poor by our standards, not Aristotle's.

This argument that the poor aren't reaaaallly poor is some conservative nonsense to justify being tightfisted a-holes incapable of empathy. It's the modern equivalent of the welfare queen myth.

Re:Buying off the poor

[SuricouRaven]

It's a moral thing. Look at it in the same way they do:

Giving your money willingly to help another is a good act and makes you a better person.

The government coming and stealing your stuff to give to someone else does not make you a better person, and is nothing but legalised thuggery.

The money has to be given freely, otherwise it doesn't score morality-points. You don't get credit for an act you were forced into. Worse, if the government takes your money that means you can't then voluntarily donate it to a charity - which means they have deprived you of your chance to up your score.

Re:Buying off the poor

[guruevi]

I've been "homeless" in the sense I didn't have an address, living out of cars and cheap motels without any friends or family to fall back on. I wasn't eligible for any assistance or unemployment due to being a recently (legally immigrated) alien resident.

I however never got into the situation where I didn't have enough money saved up, just a few hundred to do something like move away from the area and pay 2 months worth of rent on a room. In those situations where I was down on my luck, I got offered but never accepted job offers in places like NYC or SF because I knew that I couldn't survive there if the job didn't pan out.

I don't know how it's possible in the US for a single (mentally capable) person not to survive on part time jobs or minimum wage or even welfare if you're eligible, I've lived in countries with worse net income ($16k/year net income for 2 people, $700 rent for a very tiny apartment and not eligible for any assistance due to 'high wages').

Re:Buying off the poor

[shawn2772]

In a country with hundreds of millions of people there are a lot of "one counterexamples".

Which still doesn't disprove the general statement, or affect its truth in any way.

Re:Buying off the poor

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

You wouldn't happen to know anyone affiliated with this, would you?

I'm sorry, I don't know anyone who's connected with this program. There's probably a way to donate through Amazon, but I don't know how/where to do that.

Re: Buying off the poor

[ctscan]

I live in a European country where it is also not allowed to treat or lock up mentally ill people against their will, but we have a lot less homeless people than they have in the US, mentally ill or otherwise

Re: Buying off the poor

[cthulhu11]

Amazon is following in Microsoft's footsteps, helping turn Seattle into San Francisco and erasing the middle class. If Amazon really gives a shit, they will instead hire those people, but since most of them are citizens they are ineligible.

Re:Buying off the poor

[Anonymous Coward]

That they won't hire you because you have the ability to report them for minimum wage law violations.

They can hire those illegal immigrants because they know that they aren't going to be able to report them for violations without getting deported.

Re:Buying off the poor

[previewlounge]

I disagree with your presumptuously overarching and quite honestly distasteful statement. On a number of levels.

Re:Buying off the poor

[roman_mir]

What is this 'fair share' exactly, when we are talking about a company that actually creates wealth by reducing costs, building services and products, providing people with jobs, providing people with investment and other business opportunities?

AFAIC the only fair tax on any income and wealth is 0.

Re: Buying off the poor

[KGIII]

I'm pretty sure that had I not stopped, I'd either be dead by now or on my way. Something about retiring just made it so that my whole response to it changed. I don't have a clean way to explain it. It's just muddy and I don't really have the words to describe it.

Cool but here's another idea

[inode_buddha]

I call this a beginning at least. Maybe Amazon could offer jobs for the homeless?

Re:Cool but here's another idea

[Tablizer]

Many are probably burnt-out Amazon workers already

Re:Cool but here's another idea

[Anonymous Coward]

I tried helping out some "almost" homeless that were living with various family/friends, get a job at my employer. They wanted a higher paying job than mine, in a management position. Then they had the nerve to ask me why I work, when I could collect welfare instead. They blow their welfare on booze and drugs, living with whoever will take them until kicked out. Never again will I try to help.

Re:Cool but here's another idea

[fluffernutter]

To be fair to these people, I'm starting to wonder why I work when I could collect welfare instead.

Re:Cool but here's another idea

[ShanghaiBill]

To be fair to these people, I'm starting to wonder why I work when I could collect welfare instead.

Go apply for welfare, and you will find out. It is unlikely you will qualify. Neither do most homeless people. America spends far less on welfare than most people realize.

You should apply for SSDI instead. Just say your back hurts.

Re:Cool but here's another idea

[Alypius]

Because you have a conscience and a work ethic?

Re: Cool but here's another idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Social Security Disability claims are often paid on the basis of back disorders like degenerative disc disease. Also, while the State is often a contract adjudicator for initial claims, these are federal benefits with the federal government setting the rules and giving the final decision on appeal. So...yeah, you're wrong. Source: I practice this area of law.

Re:Cool but here's another idea

[geekboybt]

They tried that already: http://kuow.org/post/amazon-hires-homeless-workers-and-everyone-ends-disappointed

Re:Cool but here's another idea

[fluffernutter]

Yes and for all my efforts I don't know if I'll have a job from one year to the next.

This may not end well

[Anonymous Coward]

When Amazon goes to reclaim the property to begin building, they'll be reviled for taking the shelter away...

>> The Seattle Times notes that Amazon's construction on the lot isn't scheduled until 2017, so they reached out to the homelessness nonprofit to temporarily offer its use, hoping to later offer the group a second site.

Re:This may not end well

[tlambert]

When Amazon goes to reclaim the property to begin building, they'll be reviled for taking the shelter away...

Instead of calling them "homeless", just reclassify them as "an invasive species". Problem solved!

Worst case, they are already in an Amazon warehouse; turn the robots back on, and drop-ship them to everyone who has bought on Amazon recently, but who was too cheap to pay for "Prime"...

They can't hover!

[mandy2tom]

The homeless must legally be allowed to be somewhere! It cheaper to house them than to jail or hospitalize them. Some 40% or so are VETS

Re:They can't hover!

[tlambert]

The homeless must legally be allowed to be somewhere! It cheaper to house them than to jail or hospitalize them. Some 40% or so are VETS

I hear Detroit is practically empty...

Re:They can't hover!

[PopeRatzo]

I hear Detroit is practically empty...

Less and less. I was there beginning of March, and was surprised to see that neighborhoods that had been wasteland are now showing signs of life. I don't know what's going to happen, but don't count Detroit out just yet. There is investment going on in surprising parts of that city. There are still large tracts that are barren, but people are starting to find a way.

Re:They can't hover!

[sumdumass]

Nah. We have an all volunteer military and if they weren't quality people we would have a draft to get enough of them in. As it is now, we are turning people away.

The issues with vets has to do a lot with transitions from a very structured life to a very non structured life and wars or experiences from wars they were in. It isn't exactly easy going from knowing you could die at any time to relative safe environments with some of the self preservation behavior resurfacing. This causes conflict in some situations where there should be none and behavior that seems strange in others.

I worked with a guy who would duck slightly when loud sharp noises happen. It was more like a startled twitch but we knew it was reaction from Afghanistan and he really wanted to find cover. He would soon after appear a bit anxious and become short tempered. If it wasn't for a supervisor being a veteran too, he probably would either have lost his job or be well on the way to it. We had several vets there (I don't work there any more) and most were perfectly fine while some had issues all were good people.

wonder if Amazon self-insures?

[turkeydance]

my experience (volunteer) with a private business being the owner, but not operator, of a homeless shelter, opens up a "deep pocket" lawsuit probability.

Re:wonder if Amazon self-insures?

[Overzeetop]

File this under "no good deed goes unpunished"

Homelessness in the United States of America

[mandy2tom]

One out of 50 children or 1.5 million children in America will be homeless each year.[4] In 2013 that number jumped to one out of 30 children, or 2.5 million.[5] There were an estimated 57,849 homeless veterans https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik...

Hunger Games

[fluffernutter]

Isn't this pretty much the economic system in the Hunger Games?

Amazon low pay

[mandy2tom]

Average Hourly Rate for Amazon.com Inc Employees Job National Hourly Rate Data Warehouse Associate $10.74 - $14.51 Warehouse Worker $10.45 - $15.29 Picker $10.52 - $13.67 Support Technician, Information Technology (IT) $12.32 - $24.51 4 more rows Amazon.com Inc Employer Wages, Hourly Wage Rate | PayScale

Or

[rmdingler]

I'm tired of these attempts to help the homeless.. so many of them are lost causes.

Let's help the people who still, just barely, have their own housing... we'll see if we can help the nearly homeless before it's too late.

Re:Or

[rmdingler]

You sound like a person completely open to new ideas, so I am encouraged to continue.

How many chances have the homeless had before the present living conditions? I mean, sure, it sucks for them now and it's a terrible shame and stuff, but at what point do you say, "Damn, this person needs to make some better decisions!"

No question, it is a great time to be alive when we can look after the most unfortunate among us. It just seems clear on the order of crystal we need to be teaching them with tough love because the other options have been exhausted.

Re:Or

[BarbaraHudson]

"Tough love?" How is that going to help someone who is homeless because they had a catastrophic illness and lost their job and home? How is that going to help the disabled find a job in this economy, so that they can actually get a place to live? How do you practice "tough love" on the mentally ill, on those who can't keep a job because of side effects of the drugs that help their illness - it's not like taking away their meds is going to suddenly make them employable? How do you practice tough love on a rape victim who has been afraid to get on a bus for a decade so she can look for a job or see the doctor? Or those who are long-term unemployed because they and all their co-workers have been RIF'd and now they are all competing for a much smaller pool of jobs?

It's not like everyone can suddenly become uber drivers to make a few bucks. If they have a car, they're sleeping in it.

I mean, sure, it sucks for them now and it's a terrible shame and stuff, but at what point do you say, "Damn, this person needs to make some better decisions!"

Better decisions? Hey, let's extend that idea. I should have decided to have better parents because they gave me juvenile diabetes. And if I had decided not to be friends with a high school classmate that I didn't know had a long history of schizophrenia, I wouldn't have gotten PTSD when he killed his old man in front of me. And if I hadn't read Dr. John Money's fake research that claimed gender identity was mutable (a whole generation of doctors bought into this before he was exposed as a fraud) I could have decided to transition earlier instead of conforming for as long as I did.

Yep, all bad decisions ... I really need to make better decisions, and that will magically fix everything! It's all my fault. Random chance had nothing to do with it.

Fortunately an amazing therapist who has experience dealing with transsexuals with PTSD who are also victims of sexual assault helped me realize that it's not all my fault, some things are truly random events that you cannot protect yourself from or find a reason for when you look back on them. Not everything happens for a reason, not everything is predictable or preventable. That makes the universe a bit scary, but it's reality. Victim-blaming is seen as ugly for a reason.

Re:Or

[BarbaraHudson]

As a follow-up:

The woman who is afraid of going on the bus for more than a decade never told anyone else about the rape by her ex. She told me 2 years ago. The stigma is that bad, I couldn't convince her to come with me to get some help at the hospital.

Another woman can't walk alone on the sidewalk of any street with traffic since she was hit by a car that ran a stop sign and banged her up pretty good. She couldn't even cross the street to go to church. Her life is basically limited to a few blocks where there is no traffic. Other than that she stays home alone.

Neither of these women were using illegal drugs or booze. So, if they were to end up homeless, what bad decisions did they make? They have withdrawn so far from the world, in self-defense ... they wish they weren't that way, but they have no control over it.

Re:Or

[rmdingler]

You know, the things that happen to you, even and especially the traumatic ones, make you into the person you are today.

It seems likely unfortunate if you were handed a life of ease, with no adverse conditions and few adversaries, because in all likelihood, you will possess little character.

Pressure cracks faults, but it makes diamonds, too.

Re:Or

[tlambert]

Of course they need to make better decisions. But.. what if they're not capable of doing that?

Taking someone's decision right from them is called alternately "prison" and "involuntary long term commitment to a psychiatric facility".

Obviously the people making *THAT* decision should think long and hard, and should, of course, be put in power by having their election campaigns funded by private mental institutions and prisons, who want the state paying them to house inmates... right?

Re:Or

[PopeRatzo]

Plus, you have 20-40% of the 1.6 million homeless youth in America who are transgender and whose families threw them out because of their gender status. And later, they get denied apartments because they're transgender.

America is a hard place if you're different. I can only imagine what it's like for someone to be in this position.

http://homeless.samhsa.gov/Sea...

Re:Or

[thinkwaitfast]

My parents threw me out because I was 18 and graduated high school.

Re:Or

[khallow]

They have withdrawn so far from the world, in self-defense ... they wish they weren't that way, but they have no control over it.

Well, there you go. They choose to withdraw from the world. Saying they didn't have control over it is in error. The choice can be very hard to make, but it is still there.

Re:Or

[BarbaraHudson]

Thanks. That's one of the things that came out of therapy - that, despite how hard it sometimes is, if I could go back and change anything in the past, I wouldn't be me ... who knows, I might have ended up an even more arrogant, selfish bitch :-)

On days like today, when it's bright and sunny outside, and above freezing!!! even at night, things just have a way of looking better, and I appreciate it more after another winter of down-in-the-dumps.

Re:Or

[BarbaraHudson]

Family - our greatest strength and our greatest weakness. No wonder we're the apex predator - we'll even eat our young if they p*ss us off.

Re:Or

[BarbaraHudson]

That's like saying that if you whip a dog often enough, it's still the dog's choice if it cringes the next time you approach it. Emotions work below the level of logic. For example, most people who wouldn't blink to kill a mosquito or a fly with their bare hand can't seem to bring themselves to do it with a spider - they go running around looking for a shoe, a newspaper (look out spiders - those ipads are killers), or someone else to kill it, even though the difference between a dead insect and a dead arachnid is insignificant - they're both dead once you hit them.

Re:Or

[BarbaraHudson]

So you would have no objection if you were the first to be put up against the wall and shot, I trust. Live by Darwin. die by Darwin. The elite of France didn't see the revolution coming either.

Re:Or

[khallow]

That's like saying that if you whip a dog often enough, it's still the dog's choice if it cringes the next time you approach it.

There is a logical follow on to that analogy. Pets aren't expected to fend for themselves. So if these people can't do basic functions in society, then that looks an awful lot like a pet without a master.

even though the difference between a dead insect and a dead arachnid is insignificant

The mosquito can't poison you with its death throes.

Re:Or

[raind]

Everyone has the http://thefreedomofchoice.com/

Re:Or

[BarbaraHudson]

In my experience, spiders still squish when crushed with a flat hand. They only crunch under a shoe, probably because the sole is less resilient. Still, I can see that a really big one would crunch. But having a choice between it crawling around on me or crunching it, I'm going with the big crush.

Re:It is good to see a private entity take action

[BarbaraHudson]

The Panama Papers puts the lie to everything you say about it being better in private hands.

High-Tech Housing?

[pipingguy]

Is it like their computer-assisted warehouses with conveyor belts, scanners and automatic pickers and stuff?

Is this really a good idea?

[Locke2005]

Good luck getting them out of there when you're ready to repurpose the property.

Re:Is this really a good idea?

[SuricouRaven]

Most will leave when asked. Any that refuse are now trespassing and the police can be called in to remove them by force. This threat is enough to make sure that most will leave when asked, because staying is only going to result in a police baton to the face.

Re:I assume there is some kind of tax incentive fo

[Locke2005]

Could just be doing it for good publicity, they took a beating in the PR category last year.

Re:Don't be an enabler

[inode_buddha]

NY state already does this. BUT one of the first things they do when you sign up for welfare, is to check you for drugs etc. If you have some prob they send you thru some other programs. FWIW tho, Boeing is the biggest welfare user in that area.

Re:It is good to see a private entity take action

[fyngyrz]

Underrated

Re:I assume there is some kind of tax incentive fo

[waspleg]

Yes, good point, that would make sense.

I already got down voted, though, lol. I suggest those doing so do some fucking research before they exercise their emotions via moderation.

Re: The New Economics

[Type44Q]

Where do our corporate taxes go? The military. Who does our military benefit? Ask Smedley Butler...

Re:It is good to see a private entity take action

[PopeRatzo]

The Panama Papers puts the lie to everything you say about it being better in private hands.

Now that is the truth.

Re:It is good to see a private entity take action

[magarity]

Uhh, the Panama Papers is a leak about how corrupt government officials are hiding their wealth, not about how private enterprise is mishandling what should better be public enterprises.

The libertarian way

[magarity]

CEO Jeff Bezos, traditionally a libertarian

This is an odd bone to toss out; as a libertarian he SHOULD be in favor of private charities running homeless shelters as opposed to government agency run shelters funded by taxes.

Competing with rich Californians

[thinkwaitfast]

I've been coming to Seattle for forty years and people have been complaining about this since at least the mid eighties. This is happening now in my 'neighborhood' in AZ

Re:It is good to see a private entity take action

[Anonymous Coward]

The panama papers document a grand multinational scheme by the wealthy to ~dodge taxes~ reducing the funding of government world wide and hobbling all respective programs.

Re:A much better idea

[flyingfsck]

Well, actually, they just need a single high dose injection to last them for the rest of their life, but that is probably a wee little bit extreme.

Re:Not the same

[thinkwaitfast]

rapid population growth?

Population would be shrinking in the US, like most of western countries, if it were not for immigration. Replacement fertility ate in the US is 2.1. The actual value is 1.89.

Re: The New Economics

[thinkwaitfast]

The military is 16% of the federal budget. The bulk of that goes to salaries (why they're so interested in autonomous weapons).
United States Department of Defense Overview (PDF)

As a percentage of GDP, 3.3%, the US is not too far out of line with other countries, the US just hapens to have a very large GDP.

Re:Don't be an enabler

[Rockoon]

Please require these people to actively look for work or perform community service.

I'm sure these people have the skills to land one of those $15/h minimum wage jobs in seattle.

Seattle implements $15/h minimum wage. Shortly after Seattle has a homelessness emergency.

Re:I assume there is some kind of tax incentive fo

[Jiro]

Remember back when George Lucas built low income housing? He did it out of spite. His neighbors wouldn't let him build a film studio, so he built the housing instead and there was little they could do about it. (I haven't been following it, I don't know if his neighbors finally gave in.)

I wonder if something similar is going on here. Building housing for the homeless is a great way for someone rich to spite his neighbors. They can't complain because the area is zoned for housing and objecting to helping the homeless makes them look bad. Meanwhile you know very well the housing is going to drive property values down and cause lots of nuisance for your neighbors.

A good start - but their UK cities aer far worse

[BeCre8iv]

Swansea - a historic city with a massive homelessness problem (3k out of 241k population - a third of seattle), and a massive Amazon warehouse which pays poverty wages. Also in the UK, it is illegal to live in a vehicle and in swansea, illegal to feed rough sleepers. As a major local employer, they set the wage with which others must compete - and keep it LOW

Re:It is good to see a private entity take action

[SuricouRaven]

Not just government officials. Lots of non-government wealthy hiding their riches too, for tax purposes. You're just not hearing about them because the papers are not publicly available - they were sent to a few media organisations who are still reading through them and revealing only what they deem to be in the public interest, which usually means politicians. Ian Cameron, for example, was revealed to have secret accounts worth many millions of pounds - the exact amount not being entirely clear - though he never held any political office. His accounts were revealed because, though he wasn't a politician, his son is currently Prime Minister and inherited the accounts that his father set up.

Re:I assume there is some kind of tax incentive fo

[SuricouRaven]

Or it might simply be for PR. Amazon has some land, they have intent to use it for something profitable in a year but until then it's just sitting idle. A homeless shelter costs almost nothing to run and makes the company look really ethically-driven, which means public goodwill and thus both higher sales and more political influence when lobbying. It's a good investment. They can quietly close it down in a year when it's time to build whatever business structure they have planned.

Re:The New Economics

[serviscope_minor]

If we didn't have the highest corporate tax rate in the world, there wouldn't be any need to offer breaks to keep them here.

But you also wouldn't have the infrastructure, functioning legal system, educated populus and facilities required to start all of those business that have to be tempted ot stay in the first place. There's a reason none of those start in super-low corporate tax havens.

Re:Focus on getting them JOBS

[drinkypoo]

Amazon is part of the push to destroy their jobs with automation. Your whole focus on jobs is laughable, because they are going away. We need MGI or we will have thousands starving in the streets, pending another major war.

Only 45 dead?

[hackertourist]

At first glance, a mortality rate of 1% seems lower than average and should not be cause for alarm.

U.S. Hates Poor People

[BrendaEM]

Here in Silicon Valley, you can never even mention in passing that you are poor.

Irony

[Eravnrekaree]

Amazon is one of the top 30 who fires america workers to replace them with H1B foreign workers. Amazon specializes in destroying retail jobs and brick and mortar businesses. Notice the irony of a company that destroys jobs and throws american families onto the street then tries to whitewash itself with fake concern for the homelessness it helps create.

Bring back the sabre tooth.

[Charcharodon]

The problem of homelessness is exacerbated by the extinction of large predators in North America, before that time there was no such thing as the homeless.

While that sounds bazar, essentially natural selection has been removed from our environment and now you are seeing the pile up of people near the edge of being unfit to survive lingering on due to social conditions. Even a hundred years ago things like starvation, exposure, and disease cleared out these groups of people on a regular basis. Now more people are crushed to death by soda machines than starve to death in the US.

The question now is what do we do with them (The chronic homeless)? Temporary homelessness is a different creature that is caused by a combination of poor decision making and simple bad luck on the individual's part compounded by asinine code and zoning rules made by city, county, and state governments that causes shortages of housing. Do we pour resources on a problem that will only grow if we do so? Do we let them be and have to step over bodies in the streets and have to shoot crack heads coming into our homes? Do we reintroduce large predators canine and feline species into our cities or take the dystopia approach and round up people soylent green style with large scooper garbage trucks? Go back to the early 1900's and force them into mental institutions. Go back even farther to the 1700-1800s and dump them off in a convenient 3rd world country? Continue on with our modern solution of prisons, shelters, and vagrants. Do we meet some place in the middle by offering them treatment, food, and shelter in exchange for sterilizing them?

Frankly until some sort of real solution is chosen this is going to linger on forever.

Re:It is good to see a private entity take action

[roman_mir]

The Panama papers show that it is the government that steals from people, with politicians stealing money from the very people that are paying taxes, so what the fuck are you talking about?

Re:Focus on getting them JOBS

[WindBourne]

What is MGI?

But, as to Amazon, they do want to automate and personally, I agree with them. Basically, they are automating the low-end jobs. However, there are plenty of other low-end jobs that Amazon can create, and even encourage. These companies would do well to actually encourage new ideas and more companies to be made.

Re:Focus on getting them JOBS

[drinkypoo]

What is MGI?

A chance for you to demonstrate your ignorance, your lack of care for other humans, and your inability to use Google in one step. *claps*

But, as to Amazon, they do want to automate and personally, I agree with them. Basically, they are automating the low-end jobs. However, there are plenty of other low-end jobs that Amazon can create, and even encourage.

Really? Name them.

Re:It is good to see a private entity take action

[BarbaraHudson]

Nope. David Cameron's father was never a politician, and made his Panama investments before his son went into politics. Just one example. Jackie Chan - how is he a politician? I'm sure you can find other examples.

Re:It is good to see a private entity take action

[roman_mir]

The only reason those papers are of any interest is specifically because of the politicians in them and how they have all this money while being politicians, money that they are making while being politicians. People using bank accounts all over the world is not a revelation, many people have bank accounts in many countries, none of that is interesting (except for those who want to steal), but politicians having money, whose nature is indecipherable, that is of interest. There are politicians there, heads of government with money that cannot be explained by their salaries and benefits at all.

I don't want anybody to pay any income or wealth taxes to any government, I do however want to expose all the money that governments and politicians steal.

Re:Focus on getting them JOBS

[WindBourne]

wow. Somebody pissed on your wheatys
Look, I DID google for it. LOADS of different meanings. So, I have absolutely NO idea of what MGI is. I have never seen that Abbreviation outside of software, and I doubt that you want ppl to think about that.

Secondly, They could do a shark tank and look for ideas and then manufacture them LOCALLY, rather than sending them to factories in China, like the sharks do. All in all, it makes good sense for Amazon and others to do that.

Now, as to you, it is obvious that you expect the gov to take care of you. Please give me a fucking break. You far lefties never think long-term. You fight against nuclear power as well as geo-thermal. Then you insult somebody who ask legitimate questions. But, if you do not have honest answers, or perhaps you are like the far right and just copied crap that you know NOTHING about, then skip answering. I will go on assuming that you are rude and stupid.

Re:Focus on getting them JOBS

[drinkypoo]

Look, I DID google for it. LOADS of different meanings. So, I have absolutely NO idea of what MGI is.

Yes. I know. That's my fucking point. We have talked about these issues time and again, and many times "Minimum Guaranteed Income" has been explained, debated, argued about, and ranted over in various directions. If you actually cared, which you most especially do not, you would have noticed this. I've seen you participating in some discussions where these things have been discussed, so if you cared, you have retained this information to which you have clearly been exposed. Since you clearly don't give a fuck, all I'm asking you to do is to stop pretending. You don't care enough about this issue to pay attention, let alone educate yourself.

Now, as to you, it is obvious that you expect the gov to take care of you.

The government interferes with my being able to take care of myself. It can fuck right off, or it can help me out. Anything else is bullshit.

You fight against nuclear power as well as geo-thermal.

They're stupid as practiced, and we don't need them. I look forward to clean fusion if it shows up. I'm not interested in dirty fission and poor waste management.

Re:Focus on getting them JOBS

[WindBourne]

Hey bozo.
I used to be a linux kernel and kde developer. Why have I not been one for the last 6 years? Because I am fighting vertigo and memory loss. With the memory loss, if I was exposed to it for the first time after 6 years ago, and have not seen it for another 6 months, then it is 'erased'. Not really. It just takes hours, days, and even WEEKS to pull that info up.

And we DESPERATELY need fission. With Gen IV reactors, we can burn up the vast majority of the 'nuke waste', and do it SAFELY.