Homeless In Seattle: Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) Takes Aim At Local Need

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When it comes to disruption, Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) knows a thing or two about shaking things up. Bookstores were first to feel the effect of CEO Jeff Bezos’s innovation. Then, retailing in general. Prime has changed how consumers consume. Now, the e-commerce giant is tackling homelessness in its own backyard.

Amazon (AMZN)

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The company that employs more than 30,000 people in the city will also house women and families in need as part of its new downtown Seattle campus.

Since last year, Mary’s Place, a local nonprofit that temporarily converts unused buildings into shelters, has been operating a facility in an old Travelodge motel that Amazon owns. The building is due to be torn down in October to make way for two new company office buildings.

This week, Amazon said it will devote about half of the space in one of the new buildings — 47,000 square feet — as a shelter that can house more than 200 people. AMZN is giving the space rent-free and all utilities paid.

Amazon’s head of real estate, John Schoettler, estimated the cost to the company will be “tens of tens of millions of dollars”, according to a report in The Seattle Times. It will be the local e-commerce giant’s biggest charitable gift made to date.

Homelessness in Seattle is a huge problem and critics have pointed a finger at the city’s tech boom — including AMZN’s own growth — as fueling the problem.

In addition footing the bill for building the new shelter, Amazon will have to find alternative office space nearby for 300 employees that were originally going to work in the areas of the new building now designated for the shelter. During construction, the shelter will operate in another nearby former motel that the company owns.

The Amazon real estate chief said the shelter’s location will be “permanent, until homelessness is solved.” Considering how good the company is a solving other challenges, that could be sooner than anyone thinks.


Article printed from InvestorPlace Media, https://investorplace.com/2017/05/homeless-in-seattle-amazon-inc-amzn-takes-aim-at-local-need/.

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