"Why the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation?" Because that's where the money is.

Sorry, SHARE is a flop, nothing more, no interest in helping anyone. Bill's charity donates money to the ones that do help, like Compass Housing Alliance (formerly Compass Center). SHARE doesn't even try to get housing for people, they want people in the shelters not in permanent housing, so they can just suck it.

I think you meant "that's where the tax-deducted tax-exempt money is", @1

wow, people are really revolting over economic policy. never thought i'd see it in my lifetime. maybe americans aren't a bunch of suckers. maybe.

Does the Gates Foundation only fund housing for homeless families? (that's what the quote suggests). If so, that would leave out a sizable single adult homeless population, who often have different and less "wholesome" problems. Not that they need to tackle everything, I'm just wondering whether the focus on families over single adults was a conscious choice, and why.

@4 This particular instance isn't about policy at all. It's about SHARE being the greedy bitch it usually is, it's about career homeless who don't ever want to go into permanent housing ... and then whining about it. SHARE and WHEEL both do nothing but try to keep people in their system, while other organizations are working with housing developments throughout the city, and gathering donations for them, getting buildings built (not for families either, all single occupant apartments) and then moving homeless who want a place to live into them ... SHARE and WHEEL are just squandering their money and spending most of it on parties (in other words meetings) with professional catering and such.

No, it's not about policy at all, neither SHARE or WHEEL could get much government funding, because of being caught with too much corruption and embezzlement, they failed, got greedy, and need to go. The homeless who support them are the career homeless who don't want a place to live.

@5 No. The Gates Foundation donates a lot of money to single occupant housing, apartments in downtown. Steve Jobs was the second largest donation to two of them, YWCA's new building (housing and a shelter) and Compass Housing Alliance's first apartment building (with a shelter and mail center downstairs). They also donate to a lot of Plymouth Housing's projects, but I don't know the specifics of those.

It is a bad PR move to dis those that are already on your side.

What a bunch of fucking assholes. The City I can see. The homeless are as much citizens as anyone and can put demands on government to address their issues. But this is a private foundation that they are basically attempting to extort out of money. If I were the foundation I would issue a press release saying that they will never give a dollar to SHARE again and then ignore them.

Douchebags.

Gates Foundation is spending hundreds of millions to save lives by finding vaccines for things like malaria, and by leading the fight to finally eradicate polio, which still cripples hundreds of thousands of children every year. It seems to me that the Gates Foundation is kicking ass on far more important things than local housing, and at the same time making real progress on homelessness issues here at home. I give them full props for helping the children in dirt-poor countries who have been screwed far harder by the system then anyone in our area. Folks should be parading around the Gates Foundation with signs that say "Hey Government, this is how you lead!"

In this world there are people far worse off than you, and the Gates Foundation is one of the few entities making materially crucial changes for them.

This whole process is funny, I think I am going to protest tall people.....

I get what these people are doing but the Gates Foundation is the wrong target.
How about camping out outside the EMP. Or anywhere on South Lake Union. That's where Paul Allen's fortune is getting spent and it ain't on charity.

Not that any of these people are saints, but you just can't say these people don't give a shit or don't spend anything on charity.

"Allen, who is 57, said today that he plans to leave the majority of his $13 billion estate to philanthropy..."

from:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/th…

"Phoebe on 79th" asked me earlier if I could see Bill and Melinda's head roll down Pike or Pine....I bet you can guess my answer.

Medina's not THAT bad of a bus ride from downtown; it's right on 520. Why don't they go there and protest amid the mega-mansions? Or hey, the 201 goes right past Paul Allen's driveway from 2nd Avenue. Takes a while, but hey, you guys got nothing but time, right?

Steve Jobs was not part of the Gates Foundation, KK. Nor is Paul Allen.

The Gates Foundation doesn't contribute to shelters, and it does emphasize families with children. Enough housing is not available for anyone; until it is, people need shelter. I'm not sure why that's so difficult to understand.

Well that was fast!

http://s3.amazonaws.com/data.tumblr.com/…

KittenKoder @6, do you have a link to support your assertion that SHARE/WHEEL is corrupt and full of embezzlers? That would've made news, right?

@19 most people who have never been Microsoft stockholders are probably unaware that Microsoft sits on vast reserves of cash and holdings of other companies, of course.

for those who view the gates foundation as some kind of paragon of goodness, i hate to burst your bubble, but that place suffers from everything you'd think it would having been created by microsoft's founder. they are arrogant, they are clueless & they bet big on what they decide to do & they correspondingly fuck up the market for whatever service/cause they get involved in.

Mr. Gates does extraordinary things for all society.

Even still, this protest points out the scale of the problem.

100 million dollars comes down to only 500 homes (priced at $200,000).

We need more.

First, I live in a "single occupant" building that the Gates Foundation AND Steve Jobs (duh, I never he was part of it). One of two that I know for certain they have spent a lot of money, paying for construction and reconstruction. Their names are on plaques, one in the office of Compass' center, the other in the new YWCA building (the apartment entrance not the shelter they also built with the money).

As for the corruption, that was news ... a very long time ago. I remember because I was in the shelters at the time. Not to mention, not all such events make the news, duh.

@9 Thank heavens you're not the Foundation, giffy--although I am sure they appreciate your conventional-wisdom, consensus-reality craving authority worship.

Have some perspective, people. In the world, we're all still the 1%, give or take.

http://prospectjournal.ucsd.edu/blog/ind…

@25 That argument is insanely laughable if you're telling that to the folks who die of denied medical care or live far below the poverty line. Go see what the 1% lives like and get back to me. Oh, don't know the gate code?

@26 To be clear, I'm not saying that income/wealth inequality is worth protesting here in the US. But yeah, in general even our poor here are better off than most of the world. I see your people who die of denied medical care and I raise you masses of children who die on death marches in the African drought because of war and famine.

I have nothing against helping the homeless and other poor close to home. But when they (or their advocates, really) go marching to the Gates Foundation demanding that they spend less abroad and more at home (even though they do spend a lot at home), I think it's important to keep that perspective. Not a lot of malaria or cholera deaths around here in Seattle, even among the homeless. Not a lot of slavery (and I mean real slavery, not wage slavery).

Is it great living to be poor here? Surely not. Is it as bad as Djibouti? Surely not.

Oops... I'm not saying that income/wealth inequality *isn't* worth protesting...

Yet more evidence that SHARE/WHEEL is completely useless. How is it that The Stranger is STILL the organization's PR outlet? There are literally no other organizations worthy of this kind of attention?

@21,

Care to prove that?

newsflash, Share Wheel has been exposed, they cannot continue on with this mindset.
The Gates Foundation owes them nothing. The Share Wheel protest is appalling. Won't be attending their auction on Sunday at Lions......sorry, but I am done

Share Wheel just cut its own cord.......to hardworking people who have given to them in the past. I will not be attending their auction this Sunday at Lions. The Audacity of it all, protesting at the Gates Foundation? The Gates Foundation is allowed to give to whom they want, when they want, not when protestors show up......even the board member gave bad information on Ken's Komo radio station saying the Gates Foundation were "re-inventing" the toilet......not true, they are involved in sewage treatments all over the world. Ill informed board members of Share Wheel are just ignorant. What a shame.

Microsoft employs hundreds of thousands of people AROUND THE GLOBE. It's naive to assume that they are only in this region.
It's sad that Share/Wheel feels that they are OWED something from a foundation that's sole purpose is to give back. Or was the $100,000,000 dollars that they already gave not enough.
If you look at the story, the Government was the one that pulled their funding. Go camp there if you want a handout.