Voting as a Consumer
...134 days to go...
A note before I begin: This is my most politically pointed post yet. If you’re here purely for my volunteer stories and charitable giving analysis, I understand if you skip this one. But I believe what I’m about to share is directly relevant to helping homeless people in Seattle, and I hope you’ll hear me out.
This month, Jen and I embraced a movement called Resist and Unsubscribe.
If you haven’t heard of it, the movement was started by NYU Professor Scott Galloway in response to what he sees as tech CEOs’ complicity with Trump administration policies. The basic idea: pressure these CEOs to speak out against harmful policies by impacting their bottom lines and stock market valuations—the only language they truly understand.
The movement isn’t specific to policies about homelessness, but it certainly includes policies about homelessness.
The Policies That Will Push More People onto the Streets
The Trump administration is pursuing several policies that will devastate people experiencing housing instability:
SNAP benefit cuts: The “Big Beautiful Bill” cuts $186 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program through 2034—roughly a 20% reduction. That makes it harder for families to pay rent, which means more evictions.
Medicaid rollbacks: The same bill cuts over $1 trillion from Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act. That means people with mental health conditions and substance abuse disorders lose access to treatment, making it much harder for them to maintain housing.
HUD funding redirection: Federal housing assistance is being redirected away from permanent supportive housing programs like those I’m volunteering at that actually work. The change could put as many as 170,000 at risk of losing their housing again.
Immigration enforcement: The administration’s inhumane immigration crackdown falls disproportionately on our most vulnerable neighbors. Those fearing ICE (even those who are here legally) can’t go to work (or school). These people will lose their jobs, their housing, and ultimately end up on our streets. Fortunately Seattle hasn’t yet become a hotbed in the way Minneapolis has, but that may only be a matter of time.
These aren’t abstract policy debates. These are concrete actions that will push precariously housed families into homelessness.
And where are America’s tech CEOs while all this is happening?
The Morning of January 24th
On the morning of January 24, 2026, Alex Pretti—a 37-year-old ICU nurse at the Minneapolis VA—was shot and killed by Border Patrol agents while filming immigration enforcement operations with his phone. Video evidence shows agents removed his firearm from his waistband one second before another agent shot him multiple times. Alex was a legal gun owner with no criminal record. He was exercising his Constitutional rights.
That same evening, Andy Jassy (Amazon CEO) and Tim Cook (Apple CEO), along with other tech executives, attended a private White House screening of the Melania documentary. Amazon had paid $75 million to acquire the rights to “Melania” and market the film, $28 million of which went directly to Melania Trump herself.
Three days later, on Wednesday, January 28, Amazon announced it was laying off 16,000 employees—including several of my friends and former colleagues.
The message could not be clearer: These companies will pay $75 million to curry favor with an administration enabling extrajudicial killings, but they’ll stay silent about those killings while cutting thousands of jobs in the midst of record profits.
Jen and I decided we can’t support that in good conscience.
What Else Could Amazon Have Done with $75 Million?
Amazon claims to care about homelessness in its communities. And yet it chose to invest $75 million in what was and is expected by most experts to be a huge financial flop (the film has earned about $16 million to date) to curry favor with the Trump administration, which, as mentioned above, is making life vastly harder for the homeless and guaranteeing large increases in their numbers.
I don’t doubt Amazon will generate a positive return from its investment, perhaps in the form of reduced regulation, taxation, tariffs, or other government benefits. But there’s a term for spending money to influence government officials: bribery.
Imagine if Amazon had invested that $75 million in our homeless crisis instead. The money could have:
Funded about 50,000 months of rent payments for needy individuals, statistically keeping about 1,300 families housed that would otherwise lose their homes (about one in 40 rent payments results in a “successful” diversion - that is, a family keeps their home that would otherwise lose it).
Built over 16,000 tiny homes through Sound Foundations NW: enough to supply one for every homeless individual in King County
Built 250 permanent units of affordable housing (at a cost of ~$300K per unit) that could have provided long-term, stable housing for 500 people or more (assuming ~2 people per household unit)
What We’re Doing About It
I went through our 2025 spending and calculated what we spent on Amazon last year:
$8,961 at Amazon (234 separate transactions!)
$894 at Amazon-owned Whole Foods
$271 on Audible
$237 at Amazon Go
$227 on Kindle purchases
$132 on Amazon-owned Ring
$99 on Amazon-owned One Medical
$20 on Amazon Web Services
We also spent $1,027 on Apple products and services, for a total of $11,869.
These organizations are harming homeless people in Seattle. That’s a lot of money to spend supporting them.
So we’re not going to do it anymore.
Here’s what we’ve changed:
Amazon:
We’ve gone cold turkey on consumer products from Amazon. I doubt we’ll drop to $0 this year, but a 90% reduction feels completely attainable. We’re shifting most of that spend to Costco, which is actively fighting the Trump administration’s tariff policies.
I’ve cancelled my One Medical subscription and am now searching for a new primary care doctor.
Instead of Audible, I’m using Libby (the library app), which is actually wonderful—I just need to plan ahead since popular titles have 5-10 week waitlists.
I’ll still use my Kindle but only as hardware—I can get e-books through Libby too.
We’re shopping at Metropolitan Market and PCC instead of Whole Foods.
Apple:
We’ve cancelled Apple Music, Apple News, and Apple TV for a total savings of $27/month. We’ll probably subscribe to Spotify instead for music, and just watch more Netflix instead of the shows on Apple TV
What we’re keeping (for now):
Ring security system—candidly, I want to know when my teenager comes and goes, and who’s with her
Apple iCloud storage—allows us to back up iPhone photos dynamically without risk of losing them
This Isn’t Just About Amazon and Apple
The Resist and Unsubscribe movement targets multiple companies whose CEOs have remained silent or actively complicit. Jen and I felt Amazon and Apple were our top priorities given our spending patterns, but we’ll be looking at our spending with other targeted companies too.
If interested, you can learn more at resistandunsubscribe.com.
Why This Matters for Homeless People
I know some readers are thinking: “Drew, this seems off-topic for a blog about homelessness.”
But it’s not.
The policies these tech CEOs are enabling through their silence will push thousands more Americans onto the streets. The SNAP cuts alone will devastate families who are already choosing between food and rent. The Medicaid rollbacks will leave people with treatable mental health conditions untreated, spiraling into homelessness. The HUD funding redirections will eliminate the permanent supportive housing programs that actually get people off the streets.
When CEOs with enormous platforms choose silence over speaking out, they’re complicit. When they spend $75 million on vanity projects for the First Lady while cutting 16,000 jobs, they’re showing us their priorities.
We can’t change federal policy directly. But we can change how we spend our money. We can refuse to subsidize this complicity.
This Isn’t for Everyone
I recognize boycotts aren’t feasible for everyone. Maybe you need Amazon for affordable goods on a tight budget. Maybe you’re locked into an Apple ecosystem for work. Maybe you just don’t have the bandwidth to research alternatives right now.
That’s okay. This isn’t about purity tests or moral superiority. It’s just about sharing a different type of investment we can make if we choose to and which has an impact on homelessness. That, after all, is how I see the point of this blog.
If you do want to participate, even small actions, like cancelling a few subscribe & saves or reducing spending by 10% matter.
If you do decide to participate, please let me know in the comments!