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Marketing Agency Uses Homeless As Wi-Fi Hotspots
An anonymous reader writes "Marketing agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty (BBH) has launched a controversial charity scheme at this year's South by Southwest festival, in which homeless people are being used to provide Wi-Fi hotspots. The project, Homeless Hotspots, seeks to address people's need for a high-speed data connection at the festival in Austin, Texas, by issuing the homeless with T-shirts that say 'I am a 4G hotspot.' Passers-by may then pay what they wish either in cash or by PayPal to get online 4G networks via the Wi-Fi device that a homeless person is carrying and the proceeds go to the Front Steps Homeless shelter in Austin."
Why don't the proceeds go to the homeless person carrying around the equipment!?
Most likely, yes. Homeless are people used to fairly rugged environment, and lugging a few kilos of Li-ion on their backs isn't going to be much of a problem.
It's basically an updated version of the street newspapers that homeless people have been selling for decades. Micro-business like this can be the first step and getting out of poverty.
All homeless people are criminals? Part of this program is about raising awareness -- and clearly you could use some awareness raising....
Giving jobs to those people in need instead of just some spare change is exactly the thing that can help them.
maybe because you're making the unfounded assumption that homeless == dishonest.
Most likely they take the money through a browser at the time of login.
At least that's the way I would do it.
(and IF this is sarcasm then you're right on that the first thing the right-winger would say is "smelly," and if you ARE a right-winger then you sure showed your true colors)
Suggest you guys check out the actual blog post, answers a lot of the questions asked.
http://bbh-labs.com/homeless-hotspots-a-charitable-experiment-at-sxswi
This is the most exploitative, ignorant, inhuman scheme I've ever heard of.
He is not a wifi hotspot. He is not a thing. He's not something for you to graffiti-tag to market your shitty pay-per-use wifi. He is a human being, and entitled to dignity.
If you're interested in helping, do so. Don't come up with some bullshit scheme to allow you to profit at the same time as you pretend to be helping.
Hey I plan too! Let's use battered women as sparring partners! We'll partner with Golds Gym, give them a t-shirt that says "I'm used to it!". We'll make a fortune off of all the misogynist muscleheads who hang out there. Then give the proceeds to, oh I dont know. We'll make up some "dont beat women" charity or something, make ourselves directors.
For some strange reason, I really want one of those T-shirts.
Once all the homeless people are put in jail for the torrents that were shared on their hotspots, they won't be homeless anymore!
It's not just taxes as Luckyo suggested, but also labor laws. Suddenly minimum wage comes into the picture as well. So you have minimum wage, FICA compliance (is the homeless man an employee or "self-employed") and similar nonsense. Pretty soon, a homeless guy who might have been content to just make a few bucks and pass a few bucks on to his homeless shelter is getting to experience the joys most of us go through every year with the IRS.
This is one of the reasons why minimum wage laws hurt the poor. As noble as creating a society that is intolerant of wage exploitation is, drafting laws that cover edge cases is at least as hard as doing software that does that. However, unlike software, failure to properly plan for edge cases like this means parties may be fined or jailed.
And why wouldnt these homeless folk try to immediately cash in, sell or trade the hotspot device for money or a nice bottle? They are $100+ devices, nevermind 4g service for a day or so.
There may be a few that engage in this kind of behavior but I'll wager that most will be honest because they are given a ray of hope in a hopeless situation. Rather than just recieving money, they are given a personal stake in their own rise out of poverty and homelessness. When an individual is given the opportunity to not only rise out of the misery of homelessness but have a stake in their own success, said individual is likely to exhibit quite a bit of integrity.
The wireless antennas will be placed near the reproductive organs and work at full power on as many channels as possible. All that in order to decrease the future homeless population.
"So Mr. Smelly homeless person offering 4G, do you take Via, Master Card, or American Express? It's not like I carry cash around you folk."
As the saying goes:"Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach a man to phish, and he'll clean out your bank account. "
Set your phasers on "funky"!
All GP seemed to imply is that there is a high chance at least some of those people would be willing to sell the equipment.
I dont think he said that all homeless people are criminals.
Raising awareness? Maybe we should all wear ribbons? Puh-leese. Last time I checked, homeless people are self-evident and don't need their awareness raised. If anything, I'm a little too aware of them when I enter my local grocery store. Yes, people are homeless often because they cannot follow rules, whether criminal or otherwise. A huge number of them are addicts, and most shelters have rules about sobriety. That's a major reason why many still live on the streets - they'd rather imbibe than have a roof over their heads.
So hell yes it's a legitimate question that they might keep the money or pawn the device. Anything else is political correctness, just as is the term "raising awareness."
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
You get modded informative for an incorrect, stereotypical, insulting generalization of "right-wingers"?
I suppose I should be kicked out of the party for actually caring about homeless people. I imagine all those other evangelical charities, missions, etc should as well, since clearly they all view homeless people as rubbish.
The assumption that someone who is unable to work due to being mentally ill would be unable to "spend money the right way" is disgusting. Most mentally ill are capable in many aspects of their lives, some just have certain limitations that keep them from working. (eg. PTSD, extreme phobias) Assuming that, just because they are mental ill in some fashion, they will not try and keep food on the table/roof over head is just.. wrong. Would you assume someone who had an arm or leg removed would fall in to the same category? What about a pregnant woman? The stigma associated with mental illness is terrible and, like most, largely inaccurate. Yes, you will have some people that are unable to "work within the structure," but don't assume that unable is the same as unwilling.
I know when I'm on the lookout for wifi, the first place I want to bring my laptop is in an alley full of homeless people!
Most linux users don't know this, but the man pages were named after Chuck Norris. Chuck Norris fsck'ing hates noobs!
FTFA:
I don't get why that's a worry. The homeless are providing a service, which makes the productive members of society, and should provide them with a little self-respect. So what if the program doesn't care anything at all about them or their future? How is that different from the situation that almost every wage slave on planet earth - they're all providing a service for a company that pays them for it, and I don't think there are many employees that are under the impression that the company they work for is doing because the "care about them."
This program just does for the homeless the same thing that almost every company and government employee does to people: turns them into human resources.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
It's not prejudice against homeless people: everyone is a potential criminal; it just depends on having the wrong incentives. Homelessness gives a lot of those.
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Homeless often means desperate, with few resources. You then give him/her a device worth $100-200, that brings no immediate benefit to him/her, not unlike giving a $100 watch. Now maybe if you reward him with a full meal and a night's stay for each day he brings back the device, I could see that begin to work. But otherwise, under those conditions, it seems more likely that he will try to trade that device for something much more useful to him, and I WOULDN'T blame him, nor consider it "dishonest". It is no more dishonest than you being in the middle of the zombie apocalypse and rummaging around other people's houses for food, supplies, water, etc. You wouldn't feel it to be dishonest -- not to the point of not doing it... its about survival, not ethics.
I think it's perfectly reasonable. This could be a great service in larger cities and especially during events like sxsw. Have a place at the homeless shelter that maintains the equipment and keeps it charged. The homeless person just checks out a fanny pack with the equipment and gets paid upon returning it. In the meantime they go about their daily lives, except now they have a t-shirt and a gimmick. I would eliminate the cash donation part in favor of a premium text charge or being redirected to a donation page upon connecting. You could even serve up ads if that model works better for you. Apart from preventing a rash of homeless muggings, taking cash out of the equation helps eliminate any confusion over who you're giving the money to (Am I giving this homeless dude money or paying for WiFi? Feel free to give the dude a dollar if you would normally). However you do it, the donations go back to funding the program (maintaining equipment, paying the homeless), and anything left over goes to the shelter. Odds of this being profitable would be greatly improved with any advances to make the equipment cheaper and more durable. People get Wifi, a homless dude makes a little money to get by, shelters gets donations, advertisers get to slap a label on it. Everybody sounds happy to me.
If you pay the homeless directly, the money would just get wasted on buying crack or MD 20/20.....better it goes to some clearer heads that will spend in on food and shelter for them....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Ohhhhh noooooo.
Someone is giving homeless people a legitimate simple job that they can do even while they sleep instead of handing them money for nothing. How dare you make a homeless person productive?
MUST TAG tackyexploitation.