Google Helps Homeless Street Vendors Get Paid By Cashless Consumers

An anonymous reader writes Starting today Seattle pedestrians can no longer pat their pockets and claim to have no cash when offered a copy of the ironically-named Real Change weekly newspaper by a homeless street vendor. Google has spent two years working with the Real Change organization to develop a barcode-scanning app which lets passers-by purchase a digital edition with their mobile phones. Google's Meghan Casserly believes the Real Change app — available on Android and iOs — represents the first of its kind in North America.

Comments

Re:Just say "No".

[Anonymous Coward]

You must live in a nice part of Seattle. I work in the Pioneer Square area, and several of the Real Change sellers in that area and the ID are quite obviously either drunk, high or mentally ill, and pushy to the point of verbal abuse if you try to ignore them.

I do not support Real Change because while it gets the sellers money for a meal and some basic needs, it does not encourage them to go beyond that and get off the street altogether. I want to support organizations that support homeless folks in moving *out* of being homeless, rather than merely making it easier to *be* homeless.

I hereby declare this practice...

[QRDeNameland]

...scanhandling.