Outside in America newsletterHomelessness This article is more than 6 years oldChronicling homelessness: Amazon primes itself to work with shelter
This article is more than 6 years oldOne of the company’s buildings will host Mary’s Place, a Seattle homeless shelter – but not everyone in the US is happy at the prospect of one next door to them
Until last week, the most famous building at the Amazon headquarters in Seattle was probably its giant glass-covered domes, which will house a botanical garden when complete. That may change with the company’s announcement that in three years one of its buildings will host a homeless shelter, Mary’s Place. “Amazon employees and Mary’s Place residents will move in together in early 2020,” CEO Jeff Bezos said in a statement.
The national conversation about homelessness this month has been inflected by talk of big new projects such as shelters, and predictably not everyone is happy at the prospect of one next door. Salt Lake City residents, for instance, have been embroiled in a rancorous debate over the location of three new ones. San Francisco, meanwhile, is celebrating a $100m pledge to combat chronic homelessness, and one of its own shelters is enjoying a surprisingly positive reception.
“I actually am a Yimby,” a San Francisco resident named Mc Allen told me recently, the Yes In My Back Yard moniker denoting a development-friendly attitude. (His first name, by the way, is pronounced Mac). Allen was referring to a shelter that is due to be built in the city’s bayside Dogpatch neighborhood, where he lives, and where members of a local neighborhood association voted 24-6 in favor of it. “You have to be utterly blind not to know that San Francisco is a long, long way from meeting its responsibility for people who are experiencing homelessness,” he said. Welcoming the shelter is his way of contributing. On this, at least, he might agree with Amazon.
Follow me on Twitter for our latest stories: @alastairgee.
What we wrote
- They dress up as superheroes or villains and pose for tips, but some of the characters showboating in Hollywood are grappling with homelessness. Our film and story.
- Is San Diego “America’s finest city” or “a tableau of squalor and suffering”?
- He’s homeless. He’s in jail. He’s the only Democratic candidate for governor of Idaho.
- Kevin Reed once soared high on the California surf scene but recently became embroiled in an inquiry concerning the death of a homeless man.
- A $100m pledge to fight chronic homelessness in San Francisco is the largest donation of its kind to the city.
- Las Vegas is said to be “a last-chance city for last-chance people” – but will they survive its luxury makeover?
Behind the scenes
On Hollywood Boulevard earlier this year, I met a Ukrainian Superman. I was in Los Angeles with Guardian video producer Adi Sambamurthy to make a film about superhero impersonators who experience homelessness. This Superman – a chiseled 23-year-old called Anatolii Shtapenko – told me he was actually housed, but we chatted anyway. He said he had started the gig because people remarked that he looked like the superhero.
“Like Christopher Reeve?” I asked.
“Who?” he replied.
The homeless impersonators that Adi and I met would probably have been horrified by such a response. The Joker, for instance, carefully explained how his portrayal was an amalgamation of several movie and comic book versions of the character. Superman took out his phone and pulled up a screen test for the 1978 Superman movie, featuring a different actor to the one eventually selected to play Lois Lane, and critiqued her performance.
Whatever the difficulties they faced in their personal lives, when it came to dedication to their craft, these superheroes had few equals.
Bookmarked
- A legendary homelessness activist with a controversial past, Michael Stoops, has died. [Willamette Week]
- An Oregon homeless youth organization apologizes after rejecting a $3,000 donation from the Portland Gay Men’s Chorus. [Mail Tribune]
- In Utah, meanwhile, a monastery is closing after 70 years and the monks have donated $400,000 – derived partly from profits from selling bread and honey – to a homeless shelter. [Standard-Examiner]
- A review of the intriguing entries for a contest awarding a free apartment for a year. [Seattle Times]
- A homeless man passes away in Salt Lake City, and a woman decides to bring him home. [Deseret News]
- Low pay + high housing costs = one homeless math teacher. [San Francisco Chronicle]
- And this month’s most bizarre article: “Can I Taser a homeless man sleeping on my porch?” [Reno Gazette-Journal]
Last but not least
Svend Petersen became a lifeguard at the Beverly Hills Hotel in 1959, and from 1963 he was pool manager for about four decades. He met everyone from Ingrid Bergman to the Beatles and Johnny Carson. “Faye Dunaway I taught how to swim,” he told me by phone recently. Marilyn Monroe was “always late”.
Now aged 86 and retired from the hotel for over a decade, he has hit a rocky patch. After selling his home based on bad advice, his money dwindled, and he ended up living under a freeway. “I slept in a car, I slept on the ground, I ate sometimes out of a trash can.” Compounding matters, he walks with a cane, has poor eyesight and has difficulty breathing.
He was homeless for four months until earlier this year. Some old friends heard of his problems, and with the help of a crowdfunding website and media attention, he is now living in a Hollywood studio that’s paid up for a year. Despite the awfulness of the experience, he is buoyed by the help he received. Sandra Bullock, whom he has never met, donated $5,000. I asked him about the future and whether he plans to write a memoir. Wryly, he told me that people expected the wrong sort of book from him. “They wanna know who I slept with.”
alastair.gee@theguardian.com
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