So, super fancy, exclusive restaurant catering to wealthy diners rips off its customers, harasses and steals from its employees, then washes its hands by gifting real estate to a proselytizing Christian organization that provides housing and meals to people who have been pushed down, abused, and displaced by the kinds of people who endure a waitlist of up to year, jet to a dining destination, and pay $500 for dinner. Can’t help but think this illustrates the capitalism circle of life.
The Willows Inn, a super fancy, fine-dining, farm-to-table, restaurant on a remote island near Bellingham, WA, that the New York Times in 2011 labeled "one of 10 Restaurants Worth a Plane Ride,” had a precipitous fall from grace in 2022. Now, the property is selling, and the proceeds will benefit Lighthouse Mission Ministries, a shelter for the unhoused.
In its heyday, as it topped the culinary world's best restaurant lists, fraud and abuse festered behind the scenes.
Employees alleged a nightmare environment of sexual harassment, bullying, misogyny, and racism.
The Willows Inn paid $1.37 million to settle a class-action lawsuit for wage theft.
Turns out, the restaurant's "farm-to-table" claims also fell short. Some of the supposed locally sourced and foraged food actually came from random grocery stores and even Costco. At $500 a plate, that’s not what you bargained for.
To make amends, the former owners, Tim and Marcia McEvoy, donated the property to Bellingham’s Lighthouse Mission, a Christian organization that provides shelter and services to the unhoused (and only hires Christians). The property, reportedly worth about $2.4 million, has accepted an offer and is expected to change hands soon.
@mutualaid The urgency cannot be overstateed as rent which is due in a week. Please, include 🏘️ in memo so I know where this goes. They've already dealt with eviction threats in the past and they can't deal with this again. Venmo/PayPal: @seelpah / CashApp: $SeelpahC
Today, the new minimum wage of $17.28 in my city of Bellingham, WA goes into effect.
Compared to some other cities in the US, this may sound high. The federal minimum wage is $7.25 (since 2009).
Unfortunately, experts have calculated Bellingham's "living wage" closer to $23.52 for an individual and $29.97 for a family of four with two working parents.
According to Redfin, "In March 2024, Bellingham home prices were up 12.2% compared to last year, selling for a median price of $685K."
Average rent for an apartment is $1,863, and average rent for a house is $2,891.
Whatcom County, where Bellingham is located, recorded a 27% jump in unhoused people in 2023 (the most recent data), the highest increase since the point in time survey began in 2008.
Glad to see many quotes from Maggie Helwig. She and the volunteers at St Stephens in Toronto have stepped in where the city has otherwise abandoned people.
Today it is snowing, and I'm inside. In fact, as I dictate this, I'm sitting in a hot bath with epsom salts soothing my aches and pains.
The night before last I was sleeping (well, sitting actually, as I did/could not sleep) outside, my choice, as part of a protest about houselessness in the City of Toronto.
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It's not the first time I have "slept rough" with unhoused people, but it has been because I have been requested to fulfill a role as a Legal Observer from the Movement Defence Committee, in case of interactions with police.
As a Black woman, when I have privilege in certain contexts, it is extremely apparent to me. And no, it's not ❝Black privilege❞ as certain #wypipo like to complain about when white privilege is commented on.
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First of all, and it annoys me to have to cover this ground repeatedly, the PRIVILEGE in question is "privilege" vis-à-vis rights, not "privilege" as in wealth.
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1️⃣ The first privilege, and this will probably confuse those of you who insist upon hearing privilege as in wealth, is that I have dedicated camping gear (and it is camping gear, as opposed to what I'm relying upon to save my God damn life every night) designed for winter camping, AND I've had the luxury to learn how to use it properly in non-emergency situations.
Even then, not being able to use a wood stove or start a fire, made things deeply unpleasant. It reached -13°C at one point, and the cold coming up from the cement was brutal, even through the reflectix. I gave one roll of reflectix to someone who was sleeping directly on the ground.
It was windy, and even with my hammock sock over top of my entire setup, I could feel convection happening. The fact that I EVEN KNOW the difference between convective cooling (the wind pulling the warmed air away from your immediate space) versus conductive cooling (the cement sucking the heat from your body) and how to compensate for it, is part of that privilege.
Hmmm I'm going to make this into a thread instead of a one post novel.
Kicking off a Legal Observing Marathon with a Defund the Police Party at Nathan Phillips Square.
Loaded down with stuff to give away: warm clothing (gently-used and freshly washed); tent and accompanying camping gear that I no longer use now that I am a tree-sleeper; then a dash over to Street Knit to pickup warm knitted gear to bring back.
Making a dash over to Street Knit to pick up more warm gear, because every single one of the items in the big bags of hats, scarves, and sweaters that I brought are all gone.
Mercifully, others have also brought lots.
Please bring used but still warm coats, sleeping bags, or other gear by if you have them.
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A Toronto police officer shot and seriously injured a man despite there being “no risk” of harm or death to any officer or citizen — the conclusion of a newly released internal report that backs the victim’s account that he was fired upon with little warning while alone in a park.
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The report — WHICH ALSO REVEALS MISCONDUCT BY FOUR OTHER OFFICERS involved in the incident — is the first time Toronto police have acknowledged wrongdoing by police in the high-profile shooting, which last fall resulted in Davis being charged with aggravated assault by Ontario’s police watchdog, the Special Investigations Unit (SIU).
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One of the items most in demand when distributing winter gear is a pair of mitts.
My aunt found me a way to contribute to the Street Knit supply using a loom from Dollar Tree and bulky yarn.
Today I completed my first mitt while waiting for court results. It's a little wonky looking, but @crockett assures me that it will be fine after a trip through the wash.
It's horrifying how much need there is out there. The reality is that once you reach a certain level of coldness, you need an external source of heat because your body cannot generate it from nothing.
“On the low end, we are spending roughly $13,639,500,600 making homeless people uncomfortable. Imagine the headway we could make if we spent that same amount of money making homeless people not homeless. Would homelessness even exist if that were the case?”
"On the longest, coldest night of the year, we remember our neighbors without walls. We remember them as individuals and also as a group of fellow human beings. We remember them fondly."
I had an interesting conversation this morning with a homeless guy. Employed, but not enough to pay rent. Clean and well dressed. Talked with justifiable pride, I think, about the system he has set up. A gym membership to stay clean and healthy. A locker to store his tent and gear during the day.
Talked about how violent the shelter system is.
It’s a deep cruelty that in a land of such abundance we deny basic necessities to people.
If you are able, please head to St Stephen-in-the-Fields for encampment defence.
This is what the city would rather do than to let unhoused people sleep in safety and peace. Shelter workers were literally sending people to this encampment a month ago.
They will undoubtedly also blame the pending death of the tree on the encampment, too.
“Four and a half years after Seattle approved a roughly $90 million plan to convert surplus military land at Fort Lawton into affordable housing and park space, the project has yet to break ground, the cost estimate has passed $160 million and the city is rethinking how to proceed, if at all.”