One of the consequences of offering anonymity to our visitors so that they might feel a bit safer sharing their experiences of We Heart Seattle with us is that we also open ourselves up to anonymous attack from supporters (and presumably members) of We Heart Seattle as well, and as you might guess, we receive some pretty choice hate mail as a result.
There is a consistent theme in these messages that reads something to the effect of “you profit from keeping people on the streets, and you’re really just afraid that We Heart Seattle threatens your ride on the homeless industrial complex gravy train.”
We received one of these such messages yesterday morning that perfectly demonstrates this:
It’s clear you feel threatened by WeHeart Seattle (whoever you are). Why don’t you come out behind the curtain and expose your real intent here. The homeless industrial complex funds you with no accountability. Meanwhile people are dying on the streets. Shame on you! Thank God for We Heart Seattle!
That being said, we thought we would take this opportunity to shift the focus for a moment and address a few important things pertaining to us.
Our own anonymity
We choose to remain safely behind the shroud of anonymity in part because of messages like the one quoted above. We Heart Seattle supporters are not shy about expressing their disdain for what we’re doing here, and we’ve witnessed some pretty scary things happen to folks who have been outspoken in their opposition to immediately adjacent politically-motivated hate groups. It would seem that nothing is sacred to those people, as the aforementioned victims of their ire have experienced relentless smear campaigns, doxxing and even threats of physical harm. There is too much overlap not to consider the very real possibility that we would suffer the same fate and lacking any evidence proving otherwise, we’re very unlikely to change our minds about this subject.
We are self-funded, and scrappy yet resourceful
We also feel it important to state that under no uncertain terms have any of the contributors to We Heart Seattle Exposed at any point asked for or received a single penny of financial contribution in the making of this website.
We have freely given our own time, skill and resources to make this happen. A mutual dedication to telling the truth compels us to do this work, and we believe its preservation to be vitally crucial, especially in realms where corruption most frequently predates upon the vulnerable. This kind of abuse happens in the shadows, and the nature of homelessness is such that it makes its population primary targets lest we continue shining light on it.
It rarely hurts to ask
That being said, we could not identify any reason not to accept charitable donations to help fund our efforts. There’s no getting around a few fundamental things that cost a non-trivial amount of money regardless of our collective skill, namely being website hosting and marketing. Advertising helps us cast a wider net on getting the word out about We Heart Seattle, and our chosen hosting provider keeps us digitally secure against the aforementioned potential harassment.
Offsetting some of this cost would facilitate our ability to reach more of the right people faster. So, we’re just going to set this PayPal Donate button right here for now and it would mean the world to us if you could throw a few bucks our way.
