Forums / Discussion / Serious Debate

Just a forward this isn't necessarily a politics thread or a in-depth argument about homelessness or such, but rather just something I saw that is really strange.

You know how a lot of people nowadays have smart phones that can use wifi also and such? Like my four year old nephew got a smart phone (I don't see why a four year old would need a smart phone, but that's besides the point). A lot of people nowadays in the usa have smart phones.

The city I live in has a significantly higher percentage of homeless individuals than the national average, because a while back the factory got shut down. Anyway over the past two and a half years I've been here I noticed something very odd: the majority of the homeless in the city would stay in one spot in the town: the library, then all of a sudden one day they moved to a gas station then like half a year later they moved towards the local family shelter and this particular church.

Initially I thought it was really weird so I asked the church did they do anything different and they said no and the only thing that changed was that they finally got internet. I asked the gas station what happened and they said they had no clue and I asked them if anything they changed during that time and they said all they did was they no longer have internet, except dialup for the atm, cause nobody ever uses it there for anything else other than the dialup for the atm so they didn't need a 10mb/s service.

I just thought I ought to share cause that was really weird. I put it in serious debate cause you know it's going to cause a argument and such.

Honestly if it's true my personal opinion is that could be used to promote people to get either food, housing help, medical help or such: a family shelter strategically place their wireless router so that anybody sitting directly in front of the entrance can get wifi or say your business needs to hire a bunch of people just place the router so that someone sitting right in front of the "HELP WANTED!" sign gets a wifi signal.

Can't say I'm surprised. Internet access has become a crucial part of life in the 21st century for livelihoods, recreation, and communication.

It's kind of an interesting topic. Most shelters/transitional houses/etc are volunteer and charity organizations that don't have a lot of money. I looked up some of the housing options around here but none of them specify that they have wifi, I almost want to call and ask. Wifi and computer access is pretty much essential to job hunt effectively. I know there are community centers that have a library-like computer area but I wonder about places that are specifically meant for housing.

Months ago in the Portuguese news they showed a Spanish Christian Church that during the night is turned into a house for homeless and has free-wifi

I tougth it was weird, just like you but during the segment I saw some quite young people in the church, I concluded that this generation of homeless is completely different and has the need for Wi-Fi (at least in Madrid).

More and more people have access to new technology I guess.