Editor’s note: A story with updated details on the removal Tuesday, July 30, of the phony shelter from online searches in Google Maps is available here.

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On Google Maps, there is a mansion in Tarzana called the “Ice Poseidon Homeless Shelter.” Photos on the location show freshly folded towels atop cots in neat rows, belongings tucked neatly into plastic bins and a communal dining room full of people.

Contrary to the images and more than 70 raving reviews, however, there is no luxury homeless shelter on Reseda Boulevard. It’s a prank.

More specifically, it’s an example of internet handiwork done by fans of one of the nation’s leading “in real life” streamers Paul Denino otherwise known as “Ice Poseidon,” who said he has attempted to remove the false location multiple times.

Of course, this “homeless shelter” only exists as a Google Maps location. But in a city where there are thousands more people without beds than there are beds available, dozens of unhoused individuals have showed up at this luxury home looking for a shelter only to be turned away. And it’s creating headaches for the home’s current residents.

“It’s crazy stuff,” said local homeless advocate Paul Read. “It upsets me that our homeless friends are being misled that something is going on when it’s not. It’s the difference between sleeping on cold concrete or getting a bed, a shower and a hot meal … I find it really disturbing.”

IRL streaming

The story of this fake homeless shelter can only be understood after learning about the insular and curious world of streaming, and the 24-year-old who became the world’s most notorious IRL (in real life) streamer.

Paul Denino, better known by his online pseudonym Ice Poseidon, broadcasts himself live almost daily doing everything from the mundane to the exciting on his Youtube channel. During these streams, fans comment, dare, cajole, donate and pay Denino to do things in real time.

He got his start in his Florida bedroom, streaming travails on a fantasy video game, before moving to the streets of LA around two years ago. Now his videos rack up hundreds of thousands to a couple of million views. A New Yorker magazine profile of Denino reported that his expected income for one month was $60,000.

Prank history

As for the culture, Denino’s fans delight in pranking him during streams and watching the ramifications live. The online swarm of mostly young men have built a reputation on shenanigans that range from ordering unwanted pizzas to Denino’s house to filing false complaints and prompting the arrival of law enforcement, otherwise known as “swatting.”

Denino was even raided by the FBI at the Tarzana house in March, on a false tip from a sub-sect of particularly noxious viewers. It’s this sort of mischief that led to Denino’s eviction from multiple homes around Los Angeles, from Beverly Hills to East Hollywood.

It’s in this environment that homelessness became something of a theme in Denino’s streams. Homeless folks were “some of the nicer people” he would meet on the street, so he would often invite them back to his home, he said. Fans then began tagging his places of residence as a homeless shelter as something of an inside joke.

“I have some troll-y fans. They like to make jokes so they put the house as a homeless shelter on Google so that while I’m streaming I have homeless people coming over bothering me,” said Denino.

The mansion

The internet personality moved to the $25,000-a-month Tarzana mansion in February with the help of investors who hoped to create a reality-TV style “streamer house” and new streaming platform.

By March, Denino said the Google location was drawing dozens of homeless individuals to his house who thought they would find a place to sleep when they got there. Some began pitching tents on the sidewalk outside, drawing the ire of neighbors.

“People would come, with all their bags and ask ‘Is this the homeless shelter at the mansion?’ And I’m like no, that’s not real,” he said, adding that some people had taken bus rides to Tarzana, some for as long as two hours.

The Tarzana Property Owners Association left a note warning Denino and the other streamers in residence to comply with noise and other disturbance ordinances. Tarzana-based police officers who allegedly responded to complaints about the house did not return requests for comment.

After the streamer house venture didn’t pan out, Denino left LA in late March. He now lives in Austin, Texas, and perceives the whole thing somewhat differently.

“You’ve got some sad pathetic people on the internet that literally just don’t care about people,” Denino said, stressing that his hardcore prankster fan base constitutes only a couple hundred people. “At some point I realized it’s not a joke anymore. Maybe the first time it was. Now it’s not funny, it’s dumb.”

Yet thanks to the Purple Army, a nickname for Denino’s fan base, the “Ice Poseidon Homeless Shelter” lives on. Google does have a policy against fake content, but it’s simple for fans to repost a location if it’s taken down. Inquiries to Google for this article didn’t receive a response.

New tenants

These days, the home is being rented out to another group of young businessmen who declined to speak on the record. A woman who works for them said she recently had to turn away a man and a woman looking for a homeless shelter, and that they became upset when she responded saying she no idea what they were talking about.

Ice Poseidon’s former manager Brent Kaskel said his telephone number listed on the location receives between 10 and 20 calls a day by people looking for a place to sleep. One current resident of the home who wished to remain anonymous said that nearby restaurants are refusing to deliver food to their address, fearing pranks.

The owner of the Tarzana house, who also insisted on remaining anonymous, fears damaging effects to the property and is vying to work with Google to take the location down permanently.

But it’s evident that people experiencing homelessness in the San Fernando Valley area are victims of this ongoing joke.

“It’s horrible,” said Dominick Alvarado, who said he has lived in Tarzana for ten years and became homeless in the last two. Other people experiencing homelessness in the area responded in the same way. “If I saved enough money to get there and got there and found out it wasn’t real, that would be really sad.”