Banding Together To Fight Homelessness

August 12, 2018 8:32 PM

Pearl Jam just played its first two shows in five years in its hometown of Seattle this past week, pulling together something like a combined 90,000 in its audience at Safeco Field. But the band used this event as a publicity beacon to pull together a coalition to work to solve Seattle's homelessness crisis, raising over $11million from a myriad of sources, a sum which continues to grow.

Over 90 organizations came together to help with this fundraising, consciousness-raising campaign which hopefully is the beginning of a transformation of strategy and approach to address this problem.

posted by hippybear (12 comments total)

Saw the first show, last Wednesday night. It was a hell of a show. A 3 hour love fest.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 8:43 PM on August 12, 2018 [1 favorite]

Pearl Jam's Stone Gossard talks Home Shows, homelessness with Real Change vendor
posted by Artw at 8:55 PM on August 12, 2018

I was there Friday night and I can honestly say I was moved and rocked all at the same time. Oh, and don't forget, they're trying to SAVE THE SHOWBOX too!
posted by photoslob at 9:08 PM on August 12, 2018 [3 favorites]

It’s probably best not to look at the fundraising numbers while I have the San Francisco real estate listings open. "$11 million? Why we could buy almost four houses with that kind of money!"
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 9:34 PM on August 12, 2018 [2 favorites]

I can't stand Pearl Jam sound-wise but I'll gladly welcome them to perform every day if it means groups coordinating to do something substantive for all the homeless people here. Then again, do we know if Jeff Bezos likes or hates Pearl Jam? Could we just have them loudly busk by wherever he's working until he promises to house and feed everyone who needs it? Or vice versa, I dunno, maybe he'd deign to lend a moneyed hand if Pearl Jam played his birthday party every year. Whatever works.
posted by Mizu at 11:13 PM on August 12, 2018 [5 favorites]

This seems like a better approach than giving homeless people barcodes.
posted by cj_ at 11:22 PM on August 12, 2018 [4 favorites]

What a great thing to be doing! More power to them.
posted by Coaticass at 12:25 AM on August 13, 2018 [1 favorite]

He don't mind stealin' bread
from the mouth of decadence Amazooooo-hoooon
posted by grumpybear69 at 8:54 AM on August 13, 2018

Excellent! I hope these shows will be available for purchase.
posted by Ber at 9:59 AM on August 13, 2018

Those homeless with QR codes is creepy as hell. I did not imagine the Mark of the Beast working quite like that, but it fits well enough I guess!
posted by rokusan at 12:13 PM on August 13, 2018 [1 favorite]

We were pretty much surrounded by professional drunks.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 10:57 AM on August 14, 2018 [1 favorite]

Pearl Jam skewered by Republicans over poster of burning White House
posted by Artw at 11:59 AM on August 15, 2018