Jenna Wortham for The New York Times:
A marketing agency touched off a wave of criticism and debate when it hired members of the local homeless population to walk around carrying mobile Wi-Fi devices, offering conferencegoers Internet access in exchange for donations.
On one hand it seems exploitative, but clearly the homeless people recruited for the effort don’t mind, and the marketing company that arranged the program worked with a homeless shelter as well. The director of the shelter is surprised at the blowback as well.
I look forward to people asking Jim how they can access his wireless hotspot at the next tech event he’s at. He’ll either punch them in the face or he’ll make some extra money.
Take their money, then punch ’em in the face. Or vice versa.
I listened to a report on Marketplace last night. According to the story, the purpose is to get people to walk up to the homeless, talk to them and listen to their story. It’s an attempt to get the homeless engaged with people and be entrepreneurial. There are already programs that do this, such as selling newspapers. The homeless get to keep whatever is donated to use the hotspot and it seems no money goes back to the original company.
After further research, to me it’s not some attempt to exploit homeless people, though I do admit that it’s not a small mistake to not try to get out ahead of the media and try to explain what they are doing. This is one topic that needs a good old fashioned national discussion.
Hiring people for a job when they don’t have a roof over their head.
Yeah, because that’s just evil isn’t it.
Much ado about nothing.
Heineken for wifi => fair trade
That’s what I was thinking.
I see a lot of folks just sitting on their asses asking for money. And I’m sorry but no I won’t give you money for nothing. I earn every penny I make and so should you. Go pull cans out of the trash. Or at least do something useful. If I see you cleaning windows at the gas station yeah I’ll ‘hire’ you to clean mine. Or if I see you picking up trash off the sidewalk I might give you a little tip for keeping my city clean. And yeah I would have gladly tipped these folks for a little 4g time.
But sunning yourself on a corner, nope that’s not going to get my money and it shouldn’t.
These folks were paid. One could perhaps complain about the amount as being too low but it is more than they generally make and it was likely tax free. So long as they weren’t tied to a nice sunny spot with no water or breaks (like a restaurant did here with a donkey during Cinco de Mayo) what’s the issue with them earning some money
No one bothered to actually ask the homeless volunteers about how they felt about it…
The New York Times did.