Mary’s Place will help many but doesn’t address core issues, advocates say
SEATTLE» A homeless shelter built on Amazon’s perfectly manicured Seattle campus is a major civic contribution that pushes the company to face the crisis and criticism in the hometown it has rapidly transformed.
Believed to be the first homeless shelter built inside a corporate office building, Amazon’s partnership housing a local nonprofit could be seen as the company’s answer to criticism that it hasn’t given back enough to the city.
But as Mary’s Place settles into its new space, the spotlight turns to the longstanding disparity that advocates insist large corporations help address. For Amazon, it’s a stark display of have and have-nots, given that some blame the tech giant’s explosive growth for making living in Seattle too costly for a growing number of people.
Marty Hartman, executive director of Mary’s Place, said the shelter is a life-saving gift for the local community. The location near public transit is ideal, as is its proximity to Amazon workers who regularly volunteer and donate, she said.
“I think it’ll take everyone to help and contribute. Homelessness is a crisis that isn’t going away,” Hartman said.
Amazon estimates the new Mary’s Place building and ongoing utilities and maintenance will amount to a $100 million commitment to the homeless shelter program. It’s among the largest homeless shelters in
the state and the company’s single largest charitable contribution to its hometown.
The company has promised to host the shelter for as long as it’s needed.
Mary’s Place offers private rooms and is expected to house 1,000 people a year. Still, the shelter doesn’t erase the history of resentment over the wealth of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and its workers, which peaked after the company and other corporations successfully pressured the Seattle City Council to rescind a tax on large companies that would have funded homelessness services in 2018.
Bezos then created the Bezos Day One Fund which has given $196 million in grants to organizations working on family homelessness issues across the country.
Sara Rankin, a homeless rights advocate and lawyer who leads the Seattle-based Homeless Rights Advocacy Project, said Mary’s Place is a safe investment for Amazon because the nonprofit caters to the most sympathetic kind of homelessness.
The company is ignoring the chronically homeless who are often suffering from mental health or addiction issues, who are the most expensive and controversial demographic to address, Rankin said.
Companies like Amazon could virtually eliminate Seattle’s tent cities if they helped fund more permanent affordable housing with social services managers to support those struggling the most, Rankin said.
Critics accuse Amazon and Bezos of not being nearly as generous as other corporate giants in the region, such as Microsoft and its founder Bill Gates. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has for years given to homelessness initiatives in the Seattle area. One of Gates’ first projects was funding a $40 million family homelessness initiative that built more than 1,400 units of transitional housing in the region.
Amazon’s defenders say the company shouldn’t be blamed for Seattle’s homelessness crisis, as zoning laws restricting the building of housing and drug addiction are among the issues the city must address.