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Internet Giving Homeless a Home
Wired is reporting that many individuals currently without permanent housing still manage to stay connected via a cellphone, laptop, or some other gadget. Many homeless have email addresses and find that it offers them a way to get their foot back in the door of 'normal' society. From the article: "Hellerich slept on benches but she frequented a women's shelter with a cluster of internet-connected computers used mostly by the children who arrived at the safe house with their mothers. She started blogging and conducting a business. As an independent internet marketer, she was able to maintain bank accounts, nurse existing client connections and forge new business relationships. The business brought in only about $100 a month, but that was enough to help get her life back on track."
independent internet marketer? Spammer?
Mod point free since 2001
Instead of cell phones and laptops... couldn't that money be put towards better things, like... I dunno... food
Show this to your friends and family that don't know what a real hacker is
Most homeless people aren't there by choice and there are lots of folks who are just 1 pay check away from joining them, spare a thought when your walking around town and if you have some change give generously.
Better yet, vote AGAINST the incumbent fools running this temporarily godforsaken country. They just implemented the biggest cut yet on federal housing grants (HUD) here in my county in Pennsylvania. In the short term, this means that elderly folks in public housing who used to have a nurse/social worker visit them and help them once or twice a week, are SOL. Do you know how much it helps an elderly person trying to stay independent, to have a nurse or a social worker come in once a week?! It helps a lot. I know this from personal experience.
Well, we gotta cut the "death tax". Onward and upward.
Goodbye and good riddance, Senator Santorum and your filthy ilk. I can't wait until this fall when we kick your asses out.
it's a blue bright blue Saturday hey hey
People living in coffin 'hotels', doing micro-scale low-revenue high-thoughput business and paying half of what they earn to stay connected to whatever net is hip at the moment. If they're 'richer' they have a container storage somewhere where they keep their stuff. Most of the money won't be payed to own stuff but to have access to things. Homeless will get a new kind of definition. We're seeing societies like this building allready - in Japan for instance, where the cost of living is so high you're a dropout almost as soon as you lose a job. Without the last straw called 'Hartz 4' we'd have the very same situation in germany aswell. In the future it will be very much like in the Novels Neuromancer and Snow Crash in some places.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
I never give money directly to panhandlers. The panhandlers I routinely run across are either able to work and choose not to (I'll talk to these and ask about their situation - for example, one woman said her family was living in a hotel because their house burned down; another woman said she couldn't work because she had a "high risk" pregnancy, even though she wasn't showing at 6 months and could stand on the median for 8 hours a day holding a sign) or are so deep into the bottle (or pipe or needle) that spare change will only help keep them off their feet.
If someone says they're hungry and I have food with me, I will give them food. If I'm walking down the street and someone says they're hungry and there's a place to buy food, I will buy them food. That's the only direct assistance I will provide. I'll give money to agencies to help these people but not to the people directly.
I'm not unsympathetic to the plight of the homeless. I used to work in a shelter for homeless families (as staff and as a volunteer) so I'm well aware of how people become homeless.
To sum up my counterpoint, don't give generously to homeless people directly. Buy them a meal or some groceries, and give generously to agencies that aid homeless people.
Maybe I can give a little first hand background. I was in a relationship with a homeless man for a year 1999 - 2000. We had met and I liked him very much, went on a few dates, was surprised to find out he was homeless because he had a phone number and we emailed each other all the time. He had lost his house a few years prior, and had lived on the streets, shelters on occasion (not so easy for men to get access to shelters actually) and on occasion in churches that were sympathetic. His cellphone and internet access were very important for a few reasons, first of all they allowed him to keep in touch with a support network that could help when necessary. If he absolutely had to get off the streets because the weather was too bad for street sleeping and no shelter room, he could often find a place to crash because he could easily contact friends who could put him up for the night, people he knew before he became homeless and also other homeless people who had gotten into SROs (single room occupancy) and would let him crash on their floor. The cell phone and email also was a great aid in navigating the world of social services... organizations to help him find housing, his caseworkers, his doctor and find work here and there. It is very hard to get a job without a phone number you can be reached at, and without a home you don't have a landline... cellphone might be your only chance at getting the job that will help put you back on your feet.
If someone he knew and knew of his situation had an odd job that needed doing he could be contacted by cellphone so that he could make some money. He made good money this way, fixing people's computers. All it takes is a cellphone, a little knowledge of computers, and some flyers reading "need help with your computer, affordable computer help, call peter at 555-5555" is all it takes to make a few bucks. Later on he became unable to walk more than a few steps and was confined to a wheelchair, cellphone and email helped him get the info he needed to get a wheelchair which was paid for by his ssi or adap or something, i forget. It also helped out the day his brand new wheelchair wheel fell off while he was going down a hill... he wasn't too badly hurt, but with the cellphone he could reach a friend in the area who could help him get back to his place. I mean this is putting technology to good use, I think... a little different from texting your friends mindless banter and what not.
Something that a lot of people don't realize is that there are a lot of programs out there for people with these sorts of problems and guess what, most case workers, people at shelters have no idea what is out there in terms of services. Its not their fault, its a lot of stuff to be on top of. Using the internet many people are able to be their own caseworkers, learn about the system, how to find what they need and get the services they need to get back on their feet. They can be more proactive and not just hope that their caseworkers know what they're doing... many do not. you know what else you can find on the internet, housesitting opportunities...
Peter finally managed to navigate the system and managed to get himself a room at a pretty nice sro, shared kitchen... but private rooms and baths. He wouldn't have been able to get it if there was no way for his caseworker to get in touch with him. nobody is going to go find you on the street if your benefits have been approved... people need to get in touch with you.
When peter moved into the place, I met a lot of other people and learned about how they ended up in their situation, and how they were dealing. One of the things that I found striking was that a lot of families are broken up by this, women are granted housing along with daughters but men aren't... the idea is that you give to the people who most need the services... but it builds into the system absentee father'ism... eliminates one of the means of support, the family unit. Many places will not allow men in at all. Fathers and sons left to fend for themselves. Fath
Likewise, when people say "give a bit of spare change", this is often the worst advice that can be given as much of that money will go directly into feeding their addiction.
Apparently you don't have to park in the part of town where they'll smash your car windows for a nickle lying on your seat.
I'd gladly just give them the nickles to save a few hundred bucks worth of glass a year.
That said, have you ever been stuck for cash yourself? It doesn't take much, start with some grubby clothes and need of a shower, say, thanks to some house cleaning your in the middle of; then park in the wrong place for few couple minutes to perform a quick drop off errand, come back and find your car towed with your wallet & cellphone inside --- and instantly you can become reduced to begging for quarters to make a phone call, complete with a 'lame sob story' about how you just need bus fare to get accross town to the impound lot, or quarters to phone some friends to come get you... and you pretty much blend right in.
Its pretty freaky. Suddenly you are one of "them". Happened to me once. I can't say I have any idea what it would be like to be homeless, unstable, and so on, but I can tell you it must be pretty brutal; just based on the reactions of the people you are reduced to begging from. You become subhuman to the people around you.
And the scariest part is how thin the line can be between us...
Likewise, when people say "give a bit of spare change", this is often the worst advice that can be given as much of that money will go directly into feeding their addiction. It is far better to offer to buy them a coffee, or recommend them to a shelter.
Agreed. Donate the money to a shelter if you want it to help them get into a better situation for the long term. Now I have given money to homeless, but only when they are honest. I know the chances are anything I give them will be going to booze or drugs, so if someone asks for money for booze, I'm willing to share, now and again. Mostly though, there are better ways to help out.
Of course, I live in Canada, so it may very well be different in the United States of America.
For the most part things in the US are the same. The one real difference is health care. Half of all homeless people in the US are there because they got sick, couldn't go to work, lost their job, and then their home. Most personal bankruptcies happen for the same reason, but with someone with enough savvy or good advice to use the system to cut their losses and try again. Among the homeless, a lot of them have serious medical issues and no one will hire them because it will cost their insurance program too much. Drugs are also significantly more expensive here, which exacerbates the problem.
Yeah, I give food to homeless all the time. druggies and alchies, they eat it. There are programs in nyc to distribute food to the homeless, by going out into the streets and subways... I've never seen anyone turn down food.
While I agree with most of your sentiments, I think it is important that people understand this particular assertion does not hold true everywhere. I've seen attempts to hand out sandwiches to the poor that were greeted much, much more poorly. Only about 1 in 5 were interested in the food. Half would take it, then ask for money for some other reason and discard the food when none was provided. A number reacted violently, either threatening physical attacks or verbally attacking those giving out food. I personally witnessed this once and was told of the same response during several other attempts in the area.
When there are good shelters and food sources around, most of those begging for money for food are simply trying to run a scam and a significant number are not even homeless (according to homeless people at one of the local shelters). Many of those who are homeless, prefer it that way and do just fine squatting in an abandoned house and raiding dumpsters. They will beg, but usually it is for booze or drug money.
I guess what I'm saying is, you probably are doing a lot more good donating to a shelter than you are giving away food or money and if you try the former, make sure you are either in large enough numbers or have the ability to defend yourself.
How about if the US government spent some of the $1 TRILLION we're going to spend on the Iraq War on giving war veterans a home?
--
make install -not war
Ever looked at what the US is spending in Medicare alone? Its close to 20% of our budget. Amazingly this is similar to what other countries spend for Universal coverage. I really don't know why I'm guessing its a combination of the percent of our population that is older, as well as simple wasteful spending.
Personal example my mother-in-law was loading up on thousand+ dollars a month in prescriptions on Medicare (free to her) because her doctor would give her a pill that she barly needed then give her a pill to counter its negative reactions, then give her a pill to counter those reactions, ednasium. We she became under our care we found a competent doctor and had her removed from most of these medications and her health improved substatially. Sadly she moved away and found a doctor willing to load her up on medications again. The problem.. I don't blame the doctors there are simply too many doctors out there and one can always shop around for some willing to give you what you want. The problem is that the medicare system has very few safeguards meaning no person really checks on the payouts and monitors what medications are being given to these people. If they simply hired a case worker to monitor just 10 recipents each they could save billions. BUT you would have the older population (the ones that vote) up in arms about their privacy.
Blah..
I dropped out of high school in 11th grade, and began learning computer graphics and digital audio engineering in a vocational community college program, which I also never completed.
The reason I could not complete these classes, was due to the fact that I couldn't afford to goto school AND support myself AMD my mother. I literally had to support myself and my mother from the time I was 17, until I was 25. It was horrible! Luckily, I was able to use my PEL grant from community college to get myself a decent computer (celeron 300a) back then, and was able to acquire a great amount of skills and experience, thanks to some really smart and talented friends on IRC.
I call it: Better learning through IRC.
When I wanted to learn a new programming language, I could easily find someone on IRC to help get me pointed in the right direction, until I eventually learned enough to walk on my own. I have to thank those IRC characters for helping push me into a job, where as everyone else around me was pushing me into the gutter.
There is a lot to be said about Open Source Learning, and internet-based home/self education, and I owe it (and them) a lot of thanks.
the only permanence in existence, is the impermanence of existence.
I've been homeless in the U.S. Come to think of it, I thought I pioneered the pager/internet (and later cell phone) setup back in 2000 and then again in 2002, but my ideas were probably not all that original. I would guess that most intelligent and technology savvy folks would come up with similar ideas in similar situations.
That said, homeless shelters in this country are a joke. I've come to the conclusion that for most homeless people they are worse than the alternative except during extreme inclement weather. Not only was I physically assaulted by other shelter residents, but the few items I owned were in constant jeaporady not only from other residents but also from the people who ran the shelter (if you had something that they thought was 'too nice' for someone who was homeless, they'd take it. I heard rumours that if you fought this they would call the cops and claim you stole it from them, but I never witnessed that directly). If protecting myself and the small (a duffle and a backpack full) amount of property I had at the time wasn't enough reason to sleep on the streets, at 69th street station or basically anywhere *but* the shelter, the fact that in order to get shelter space I had to spend the entire day, starting at 10am, at the office. Leaving meant forfeiting your place in line and only the first X people (I don't recall the actual numbers, and they did change daily) would get a bed. This was a real problem for me, as I did have a job. I decided it was better to sleep out at night and get to my job. If I had done what the social workers told me to do (both times) I'd probably still be homeless.
Incidently, the reason I became homeless the first time was because my landlady/friend threw me out after I had maxed my own resources to move across country to come help her. It took about a month to earn and save enough money to get myself to another city where I could stay with a different friend. The second time was due to layoffs and disability (during good economic times it's a lot easier to find employers who will make disability accomodations, ADA or no), leading to the typical can't pay rent syndrome. The second time I was blessed to have a car, so I just slept in it. The shelters never saw me.