Amazon's Bezos Launches $2B Fund to Help the Homeless

I agree with you, but you can't blame Jeff Bezos for UK legislation.

The 2B is a start but it's up to society to make sure he doesn't go too far by putting limits where needed.

Amazon's ways would change tomorrow if customers would speak up against its abusive ways but we all love PRIME, their customer service, and the convenience.

Amazon at least has to hire people to get the job done, good or bad people still have work. Apple, the largest cap company in the world, does its work with a fraction of the people that Amazon does, 500k+ for Amazon vs 120k+ for Apple. And they minimized their tax footprint while having truckloads of externalities that cost society billions.

The criticism of Standard Oil and John D. Rockefeller was highlighted by the longterm reporting of Ida Tarbell in the Saturday Evening Post. He was criticised before but Tarbell brought up to a different level in people's minds. No one seems to have the guts and long-term focus to do it for the new tech giants.

https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/13/uks-mass-surveillance-regi...

So it is a political trade-off, but it looks horrible and unacceptable to us.

Yeah I couldn’t disagree any harder with this statement. The property rights are an essential element of a free society. The notion that government or “workers” are somehow entitled to prescribe or direct another’s property is at odds with the principals the United States was founded on.

If you don’t like how someone else makes their money, you are free to take your patronage elsewhere and convince me to as well. Don’t try to convince me government or “workers” have a right to his property.

This socialistic rhetoric is all fun and games till jobs are lost & companies close down - case in point - etsy [1]

[1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/25/business/etsy-josh-silver...

Things now are so dire that charity became more than needed.

Your comment is proof that it is a good way to clean one's reputation even if you do horrible things in a daily basis.

That's precisely what Bezos is going for here.

I feel you though... I'm glad something is being done.

But let's keep criticizing Amazon as an exploitative enterprise.

And let's keep criticizing the homelessness crisis as a systemic issue which needs a systemic solution, not just a bone thrown from the table of the world's richest person.

Don't know your situation but assuming you are not on the Forbes billionaires list you probably pay higher tax rate than Bezos. In that sense you did do something to mitigate homelessness.

The same is true of many local politicians. They have political links to activist groups in their area who they steer funding in return for support during elections and also for intimidating developers into contributing to them.

this is not a problem that could not have been solved it is a problem that solving is not an actual goal but a means to continue the gravy train and perpetual power lock.

You are fooling yourself if you think this 2 billion comes anywhere close to correcting the level of homelessness amazon generates.

This. I grew up in Eastern Europe where middle-class people would make and eat every single meal at home, but I have never seen such level of poverty as I saw in the streets of the US.

He can keep his charity.

To try to understand why homelessness feels so much worse an California than in Europe, I did some very basic research (which I also posted on a similar thread once before). The numbers are shocking:

San Francisco population: 884,363 (2017/Wikipedia)

San Francisco unsheltered population (conservative): 6,600 (7,499 SF self-reported homeless count * 88.2% HUD estimated unsheltered rate)

Unsheltered population rate (conservative): ~0.75% of residents (my calculation) - nearly 1 in 100!

Compare that with London, a city also experiencing a homelessness epidemic due to explosively rising housing costs:

London population: 8,825,000 (2017/Wikipedia)

London unsheltered population: 1,137 (homeless.org.uk)

Unsheltered rate: ~0.01% of residents (my calculation)

Homelessness rates in SF are absurdly high. In fact, there are more unsheltered homeless people in SF than the entire country of England(!):

San Francisco unsheltered population: 6,600 (2017)

England unsheltered population: 4,751 (2017)

They are not equivalent situations obviously, but somehow a country with a population greater than the state of California manages to have fewer homeless people than one relatively tiny city in California. Something is very wrong.

Homelessness is a complex issue with lots of intertwined causes and no single solution. Not only is affordable housing an issue, but mental health treatment is an equally important problem. I don't have the answers. But I do know that it is a public health crisis and we are currently completely failing to solve it. We need big changes if we actually care about addressing it and we as a country definitely have the resources to do it.

I'd say we all know this to be true, but whether we care enough is another question. There's a fair amount of people in this country that see homelessness as "lazy".

The streets may not be the best sample though.

There are homeless people who work and live in their cars.

Getting government and NIMBYISM out of housing policy will lead to affordable housing and is paramount to fixing this.

Opportunity Zone Investments should also help some.

Mental illness, financial circumstance and relationship breakdowns (family or spouse) are indeed common initial causes. Especially PTSD in veterans.

See: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-ucla-anderson-forecast...

Second, your observations won't tell you whether the drug addiction caused the homelessness or vice versa. Many homeless people turn to drugs to cope.

Third, you don't have to live on the streets to be homeless. Those people who are crashing at friends and living in unstable group housing situations are homeless.

If you don't have money or friends, what group housing would you find?

Why would you move to a different city, away from everyone you know, if you don't have a job to pay bills?

This actually hurts the real needy people who are trying to get by.

You know what helps mental illness and addiction? Stability.

The kind of stability you get from knowing where you'll sleep each night, knowing that you'll be safe, not simply trying to survive each day.

It is a complicated problem. There are no magic bullets, no panaceas, but it's ludicrous to think that housing per se isn't a major aspect of this issue. The threat of homelessness introduces anxiety that exacerbates mental problems and leads toward drug abuse. The reality of it is no better. Don't confuse causes and symptoms; the many aspects of homelessness are tightly linked and teasing out causality is no easy task.

We can't expect everyone to have the presence of mind, at a dark and low point in their lives, to uproot their entire lives and find new housing and a new job in a completely new area. Many don't have any kind of support network to make that work, or know of the services or resources that could make that happen, if they even exist.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

It's really sad to see, but even worse is recognizing them later after they've clearly fallen into heavy drug use.

Yes, we need harm reduction for drugs, and mental health care, but the housing crisis is exacerbating those two problems.

> This isn’t popular, but...

Sorry to break it to you, but you're not the independent thinker you might believe you are:

"Drug and alcohol abuse tops the list among the general public as a major factor why some people might be homeless. More than eight in ten (85%) adults feel this is a major factor. "

"Mental illness or related mental disorders such as post traumatic stress disorder are cited by two-thirds (67%)."

https://shnny.org/uploads/2007_Gallup_Poll.pdf

I think you're right that the WORST of the homeless crisis is due to addiction and mental illness, but honestly that's only about half (edited [1]) or so of the homeless population.

The majority of the homeless or near-homeless people who use the city services try to stay off the grid as much as possible as to not draw any trouble upon themselves. The unfortunate reality of this scenario is that the public typically only sees the worst of the problem, and deems it nearly impossible to fix. I understand why that is the perception, but it's not taking into account the large population of homeless people who are mentally stable. I was also plesantly surprised by the large number of the homeless who are sober as to not be spending the little money they collect on expensive addictions.

[1] - https://sunrisehouse.com/addiction-demographics/homeless-pop...

Taken together, you're agreeing to the same set of problems that are popularly agreed upon as being problems. Seems like you're just quibbling?

This fund targets homeless families, these aren't groups of people you see shooting heroin on the street corner yet they make up a sizable part of the homeless population.

Without a home and some semblance of stability people can’t cope with addiction or find jobs. The approach is meant to be very effective and makes sense when you consider how difficult it would be for someone without a house to take their meds on time, show up regularly for a job, or get counseling and suppprt.

And I didn't see any details in the article, but it'd a good thing if some of this donation goes towards helping homeless people with addiction and mental illness. They're definitely contributing factors for some people.

Here's one article (among many) exploring why "Seattle's homeless population went up 44% in the last two years."[1] Spoiler: it's not because addiction and mental illness went up 44%.

[1] https://q13fox.com/2017/12/06/seattles-homeless-population-w...

Several years ago I quit a stressful job, left a stressful living situation and ended up staying with a friend. I went to social services in SF to get health insurance benefits to make sure I could continue getting medication I'd been on for years. When I applied they classified me as "homeless". If you saw me on the street or on the bus next to you, you probably wouldn't have called me homeless.

It's helpful for most social programs to have a broad definition of "homeless". It allows granting assistance before an individual actually ends up living on the street. When most people think of "homeless" they envision a person passed out on the street under a dingy blanket who's probably high or mentally ill. That definition is a harmful one and it prevents the community from getting involved in solving the problem. They don't want "those people" living in shelters that might be built in their neighborhood.

For every mentally ill/addicted homeless person you see living on the street there are probably 2 or 3 living in temporary housing because they can no longer afford a place of their own.

It's not easy to detox from opioids if you don't have a home, or to get treatment for mental illness if you live on the streets.

We have a pretty good idea that housing first works, and is probably cheaper than other approaches.

https://www.homeless.org.uk/facts/our-research/housing-first...

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/sep/12/homele...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_First

Chronic homelessness is at the very least, a huge confounding factor in terms of social work, combating addiction, and treating mental illness. If someone doesn't have a stable address and someone else has to go out to one of several encampments in a dry river bed just to find them to deliver treatment or services, those services are going to be much more expensive. The living conditions themselves are also going to exacerbate the problems to be treated. This is why it's commonly thought that the 20% of the homeless population which falls into the "chronic" category accounts for most of the crisis services expense caused by the homeless.

Ya, there's a fraction of homelessness that's caused by that but even if it was 100% caused by that, which it's not, it is still a big problem that needs to be solved. If only not to have people living in the street. It doesn't help when a big company is not paying its fair share of the tax base and adding to the problem by attracting workers and paying them a wage that doesn't allow them to afford to live where they work or squeezing out the lower level workers out of their homes because the cost of living skyrockets.

The only thing that bill illustrated to me personally is how ineffective and ridiculously bad Seattle government officials are. Passed with a 9-0 vote, repealed extremely shortly after with 7-2.

While we are being utilitarian, it seems clear that either option is far from optimal, and the money would better be spent on the global poor, or farm animals, or helping future generations.

Worst part IMO is that it's not to be a money sink. I deeply believe that homelessness is mostly emotional, these guys need deep moral support and a bit of material support. But you can't buy moral support. Having someone drop 2B might help motivate society and finally realize how to fix the problem, even if not all the money is spent.

2. (Especially if establishing a foundation.) Will outlive you and continue on for potentially hundreds of years into the future. For example:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Foundation

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnegie_Endowment_for_Interna...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockefeller_Foundation

Either way, it's good to figure out how to contribute back to a country who created your wealth, by allowing you to operate a business for two decades without being subject to the sales taxes that the long-shuttered businesses who previously employed your desperate applicants were required to pay.

So donate to politicians early so you don't have to pay taxes, donate to charity to avoid taxes later, buy a newspaper somewhere in between.

They are maniacally obsessed with growing their companies as much as possible, and everything they do works towards that goal. They don't have time for philanthropy, or worrying about social issues, while they're doing that.

Gates was able to give so much away because he shifted focus after leaving Microsoft. Hopefully others like him will follow.

It's more important to know how you give and whom you give it too. I'm of the opinion that given $5 to a homeless person is much more effective than giving $5 to a charity.

This post does a good job of listing some of the trade-offs and includes several links to more discussion: http://effective-altruism.com/ea/4e/giving_now_vs_later_a_su...

I mean, the home owners can't be the voting majority right?

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17932484

4) Move to a more affordable location.

Funny that you say this in a pejorative sense on Hacker News, a bastion of venture capital.

"Margins = opportunity" is just an observation of economic reality. Not some strip mining concept that he invented.

This writeup has some more discussion on the likely negatives of the plan: https://www.cbpp.org/poverty-and-inequality/sanders-khanna-b....

It's hard to take charitable giving seriously when someone has run their company in a cutthroat manner for years at the expence of some of the poorest workers.He could do better with his own businesses first.

I hope it works out and does some good but I hope this explains to you why people are cynical.

A poor person giving half their bread to a sick neighbor should be applauded, however, the Church of old providing charity from the king while still promoting the king's divine right to indiscriminate rule should not be.

A second question is whether or not this makes up for how Bezos has gotten his money and the potential damages on society that has. If I burn down a house and then donate to the rebuilding it's still a net negative. The systems that allow people to amass this much wealth need to be looked at critically to see if they really are benefitting society or are just causing increased problems.

As a final note Bezos is getting a lot of negative attention because he's made comments before about how hard it is to get rid of his wealth while seemingly ignoring a lot of really good ways for him to do so. It took years of negative attention to get him moving on causes like this.

I mean it's much easier to donate to charitable causes when you have more than enough for yourself and your family so that's not an apples to apples comparison, but he's also donating less than 1.5% of his wealth. Have I donated that much? No but I think I'm close and I still don't even have enough for my own emergency fund.

If someone intentionally gave people AIDS, then volunteered to cover the cost of their pain meds, would you say "Ah, what a great guy!" Or would you go "Oh, really now? Puh-leez!"

As someone who sees the systemic problems that cause homelessness because I have studied it for many years, I'm going "Oh, puh-leez!"

Your framing of the issue is incredibly hard to engage because it presumes those years of study do not exist, aren't a valid basis for my opinion etc.

(Or a slightly more accurate metaphor: They have AIDS, they keep screwing people and refusing to hear they shouldn't and are generously offering to pay for pain killers, but absolutely refuse to stop screwing people.)

All hail the ever increasing stock and housing market, the savior of the boomers, the one true political goal.

He talks about (and makes people squirm) "how much should one give?":

"[...] In particular, he expands upon some of the arguments made in his 1972 essay "Famine, Affluence, and Morality", in which he posits that citizens of rich nations are morally obligated to give at least some of their disposable income to charities that help the global poor. He supports this using the drowning child analogy, which states that most people would rescue a drowning child from a pond, even if it meant that their expensive clothes were ruined, so we clearly value a human life more than the value of our material possessions. As a result, we should take a significant portion of the money that we spend on our possessions and instead donate it to charity."

People have punched some solid holes through his argument, I can't link to them all, as I'm typing on the phone. But regardless, it's impossible to ignore Singer's arguments.

I don't drink but If was homeless in cold country I would drink and take drugs to forget about cold. It requires so much strong will to live in this environment.

Addition: the same is true for funding something like a computer lab at a school. Lots of good PR for funding a new one but nothing for keeping an existing one funded for the next few years. Although I think it's more valuable to make sure existing infrastructure stays funded.

"...even as they give back, American elites generally seek to maintain the system that causes many of the problems they try to fix — and their helpfulness is part of how they pull it off. Thus their do-gooding is an accomplice to greater, if more invisible, harm."

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/24/opinion/sunday/wealth-phi...

While Bezos' wealth has skyrocketed in the last year, the portion of that wealth that actually came out of the Amazon ledgers was under $2 million in 2017. [1]

Since it is the responsibility of the company to compensate employees, at most Bezos' cut is taking $2 million out of the pie, which divided across the several hundred thousand Amazon employees would give each worker less than $20 per year. Not exactly life changing.

Regardless of whether or not Amazon should pay employees more, basing that argument on the CEO's capitol gains on long-standing investments is ridiculous.

[1] https://www1.salary.com/Jeffrey-P-Bezos-Salary-Bonus-Stock-O...

from the article: > Bernie Sanders

Popular by who's standards?

There's plenty of room to throw rocks at billionaire philanthropists, but Gates is more knowledgeable about the areas in which his foundation operates than the heads of most well-known non-profits and relief organizations.

So where as I've often sneered at Russia for it's oligarchs we clearly have the same issue. Perhaps the Western oligarchs have earned their money more transparently, but they're still oligarchs.

Also one of the human universals is that we admire generosity in leaders, so these grandiose gifts are what oligarchs love.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XY2n4BYbgYE&t=23m51s

Can you expand on this?

A nit, but this is still a little like dominoes fixing pot holes in the city so their drivers can actually deliver. Sure it's great, but it would be better to pay a more fair share of taxes and provide a safety net for our people and the money needed to maintain common infrastructure.

I don't doubt this will be a more efficient endeavor than a government one, but it's also not really accountable to anyone. And bezos can actually just hire two PR people and shut the rest of it down. He has no obligation to homeless people, and no obligation to see this to the end. I'm sure he will, but it's pretty fucked to think that companies will be less self interested in their charity than in their business, or a government.

The idea that we should just make a few mega rich then depend on their kindness to address societies woes is really toxic.

That's pretty presumptuous of you, isn't it?

For one, it ignores that the system and actions that give Bezos the ability to do this, i.e. accumulation of wealth, are a contributor to problem itself. Second, he'll use this as both a distraction and tax write-off. Third, rubber meeting the road isn't just about money. I spend many, many hours each month doing service within my community - from youth groups, to after-school programs, to community cleanup, etc. As do many of my friends, both conservative and progressive.

Trust me, he isn't special. $2 billion is LESS THAN 2% of his net worth!!

So, yeah, he's still a scourge, but I'll happily encourage him to distribute the wealth he builds off of the exploitation of average people.

That said, one has to wonder how maintaining the homeless population would be beneficial to Amazon.

AKA the Shirky Principle

https://kk.org/thetechnium/the-shirky-prin/

That's why surgeons always leave a little cancerous tissue, to maximize their chances of getting paid to do another operation.

(Since HN probably won't get that: it's a satirical joke meant to point out some flaws in the commenter's argument. There's no evidence at all that the people involved in, say, providing services for the public have any desire to see the public suffer more so that they can roll in that awesome $30K/year social worker salary for a little longer. Pretty sure that the folks that run soup kitchens would be very happy to close up shop if the need disappeared. Etc. The idea that this is some initiative of Big Homelessness to rake in the gravy is..... sad.)