Laptopless. Photo: CC/Franco Folini
San Francisco is one of the more desirable places to land on your ass, homeless. So, I get that a few tech-savvy folks, roughing it out West, might be surfing the web.
I just hope no one is deluded enough to think that throwing computers at homeless people is any kind of great idea–like putting electronic whiteboards in grammar school classrooms.
Still, one blogger suggests that losing an internet connection might be worse than losing a home.
It also occurs to me that this will prove an excellent way to track homeless people.
New York City has put 42 computers in five of the nine shelters it operates and plans to wire the other four this year. Roughly half of another 190 shelters in the city offer computer access. The executive director of a San Francisco nonprofit group, Central City Hospitality House, estimates that half the visitors to its new eight-computer drop-in center are homeless; demand for computer time is so great that users are limited to 30 minutes.
via On the Street and On Facebook: The Homeless Stay Wired – WSJ.com.
I worked-up a similar story myself, back in ’03.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=d9a2a3ab-01af-46df-a4b0-427b59afc80d)
I have been homeless at several points in my life. Contrary to popular belief, most homeless did not become so out of choice and not because they are lazy, stupid, or immoral. Many homeless people are victims of abuse in the form of neglect and abandonment by their parents or other caregivers. Some of them are simply victims of life’s tragedies, such as hurricanes, fires, or other catastrophes from which they simply don’t have the resources to recover. I invite you to my blog devoted to raising awareness on homelessness: Freethegods.com. There you will find an article I wrote on homelessness and pictures I have taken of homeless people. I always give them a dollar or two for the privilege of photographing them. I am often surprised by their cheerfulness and sense of pride. Often, they will show themselves to have some kind of talent. There is a fine line between genius and insanity.