I missed this news yesterday that Microsoft cofounder/Seahawks owner/pangolin fetishist Paul Allen apparently found $1 million in his couch to donate to people experiencing homelessness:
A Seattle nonprofit will build 13 units of housing for the homeless in the Columbia City neighborhood using a new construction model: steel modules.
Microsoft co-founder and billionaire philanthropist Paul Allen is donating $1 million to cover Compass Housing Alliance’s capital costs for the project.
The Seattle Times reports the housing units “resemble shipping containers and the resulting one-story structures will look like portables.”
Like Amazon’s offer to house about 200 homeless people for one year, it’s a meager start from one of the city’s favorite boogeymen.
Allen is the cofounder of Vulcan, which has redeveloped large swaths of South Lake Union and is now moving into the Central District, sparking concerns about gentrification.
He has donated millions to ballot initiatives to create charter schools (since ruled unconstitutional) in Washington State and $100,000 to fight an income tax. Last year, he spent almost $2 million on one initiative alone: an effort to criminalize trafficking of endangered species.
Allen, who’s worth $18 billion, is currently building a giant plane in the Mojave Desert for carrying rockets into space.
Paul Butler, an officer with Vulcan Philanthropy, told the Times, “This is not just a one-time grant. There are going to be multiple announcements in the future focused around homelessness.”
Let’s hope that’s true.
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