Their Story And Omland’s Contribution

Amazon’s one of a kind homeless shelter for women and children is currently the largest shelter in Washington State with over 63 000 square feet, spreading across a staggering 8 floors. This shelter is located right beside the Amazon headquarters in Seattle, making it perfectly evident that they truly want to help the community. This initiative from Amazon is almost necessary because of how bad the Seattle, Washington homeless problem is. Seattle is one of the major victims for this issue with almost no positive results even after massive budgets for preventable measures of 1 billion dollars. With all of this being said, this is why Omland is so proud to have been chosen by Amazon to be their exclusive custom metal bunk bed supplier.

Everything You Need and More

As previously mentioned, this shelter is absolutely massive. With all of this space, they were able to curate a floor plan that accommodated everything that a shelter of this sort could possibly need. Some of these features include;

• Large dining halls (allows for safe social distancing)
• Industrial kitchens (designed to prepare over 600 000 meals a year)
• Health care centers (guests do not have to worry about not being able to afford the care)
• Rec. areas for children and teens (allows for their parents to try figure thing out)
• Outdoor spaces (ideal spaces for fresh air)
• 4 floors designated for sleeping (can house over 200 guests)
• Fully equipped bathrooms and laundry facilities
• Consultation spaces

With nearly every amenity imaginable, this shelter is far from ordinary. This facility provides guests with everything they need, one of the more generous initiatives being that employees at Amazon (“Amazonians”) with legal experience help by volunteering their time and offering free advice. Many people find themselves in these desperate situations due to legal trouble, making this gesture one that cannot go unnoticed.  Overall, this shelter seems to have it all figured out and the ability to run this operation so smoothly is exceptional.Images source: Amazon

Omland’s Contribution

This opportunity was one of Omland’s biggest custom projects. This facility can house over 65 families (200+ people), meaning they required a great deal of beds. To optimize space, they opted for metal bunk beds. Since Omland has been a bunk bed wholesale manufacturer for the United States and Canada for so many years, this was right in our alley way. Shelter’s are typically associated with negative stigma, so the goal of this building was to be as inviting and warm as possible. The designers of this establishment realized that bright colors and natural light from the Sun is the most effective way to reach this goal. With this being said, they requested an orange color to match the visual identity of Amazon all while complimenting other colorful features in the building. Like any other major project, problems were expected to arise, but eventually everything worked out as Omland does everything to make sure your project truly unfolds as expected, if not, better.

Image source: Amazon

How You Can Help

We have discussed how spectacular and grand this shelter really is, but it is important to note that even though a place like this has a lot of funding, the community should try and help out however they can. They do not profit off of this shelter at all, making it a very good option to donate online. This money goes right back into the operation and can be put to very good use. On the condition that you cannot donate money, it could be a great idea to donate your time instead by volunteering. They have an unlimited amount of slots and positions available for anyone to help out. Since we are in a pandemic, they have found ways for people to volunteer remotely. This provides anyone worldwide with the opportunity to give back and help those in need.

Conclusion

Amazon and Mary’s Place have truly made a great stride to resolving homelessness in unaffordable areas. They have shown what it takes to make a difference and now the world can hopefully follow by example and potentially innovate better ways to make a difference. It is a genuine honor for Omland to be a part of this movement and it really is inspiring to see what a company can do with such great success. As a much smaller firm, it really motivates us to strive for more to hopefully be in a position to do something like this. Here at Omland we like to bring a sense of community, so being able to accomplish this on a grand scale would be extremely rewarding. Simply knowing that Mary’s Place in Seattle is doing such great things for their community really drives us and makes us look forward to what we might be able to do one day in the near future!