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Disturbing allegations emerge about nonprofit hired to end Bitter Lake encampment in Seattle
[SEATTLETIMES] When the volunteer-run organization Anything Helps, headed by a man who said he could do homeless encampment outreach better, approached Seattle ...a formerly lovely city in Washington state, governed by communists, anarchists, dipshits, and other sorts of incompetents. Home to Starbuck's, Boeing (at least for now), and Amazon, Microsoft, and Costco, the city became rich beyond its wildest dreams. All that money attracted the usual sort of grifting politician, and it's well on its way to chewing off the hand that feeds it...Public Schools this summer and offered to end an encampment outside Broadview-Thompson K-12, the school district agreed. The district was under pressure from people in the surrounding Bitter Lake neighborhood to remove the 60-plus-person encampment, and had argued with the city of Seattle for much of the past year about whose responsibility it was and how it should be done. The school district didn’t devote much money to the effort, and the offer from Anything Helps was appealing because of its price tag: The district thought it would only be paying the costs associated with getting people inside. The group’s leader, Mike Mathias, who used to be homeless himself, and his volunteer team were all unpaid. The district ultimately reimbursed him for more than $20,000 for those costs. The district did not run a background check or confirm Mathias’ employment history, according to a spokesperson for Seattle Public Schools. Neither did the King County Regional Homelessness Authority, which began working with Mathias on getting housing vouchers to more than a dozen of the homeless people. If these agencies had, they might have reconsidered putting Mathias and Anything Helps in charge. It was a young agency, run entirely by volunteers and headed by someone who was the subject of protection orders filed by two women who alleged stalking and harassment. Posted by: Fred 2022-01-07 |
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