Lum Lumley

And yes, for everyone unclear on the concept this is 100% exploitation by self-absorbed wanktastic dot-com people whose only contact with homeless people is avoiding eye contact while bar hopping. It's an utterly ridiculous gimmick - there is nothing preventing anyone from, say, just parking a router on a table and letting people log into it after optionally paying a fee, which is pretty much the definition of every hotspot on the planet.

No, the gimmick is that now the router is carried around by a homeless person instead. How the fuck can anyone think this is *not* dehumanizing? Especially given that there's no way for the human router accessory to actually make close to minimum wage (the ad agency gave them a whopping $20 a day to start).

There are plenty of ways to help the homeless. Like, you know, housing and jobs. This provides neither. It's fucking geek masturbation and it's the epitome of dehumanization and I'm ashamed any of you thought this was even remotely possibly a good idea. You are bad people and you should feel bad.

Lucifer Baphomet

So, you don't like street newspapers either, Lum?

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Lum Lumley

Not particularly, because people don't actually buy them here. Hell people don't buy ACTUAL papers here. It's basically begging with a thin veneer of respectability attached (few actually take the paper after paying for it).

Begging doesn't give people sustainable living. At least it's got significantly less hipster wankery attached to it, though.

Mad Mouse

I think this makes the pay structure a bit clearer:

Source

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Lucifer Baphomet

The street newspaper in the UK is called "The Big Issue".

I actually know a guy who worked his way out of homelessness after selling it for 6 months.

Admittedly he got a sweet spot in the city centre of Glasgow, which doubtless helped him hugely.

It was also a life saver for a few ex patients from my days in acute.

I think both of our perceptions of this sort of thing are coloured by our experiences of them, Lum.

bladyblue

Because most of them are self-medicated mentally I'll homeless people.

Agreed. They could have called it 'community hotspots'. And instead of having this 'program' last two weeks, the company could have partnered with homeless services non-profits in the community to initiate some real long-lasting change. They could have gotten some good publicity and several tax write-offs.

The way they did it made them come off as rich people throwing crusts of bread at the poor and then sitting back laughing while they walked around with silly shirts on.

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Mariska Lysette

It is - there's a fixed price too (£2 atm) half goes back to the paper and half to the person selling it. The idea is NOT to treat it as a minimum donation - it is the actual price at point of sale. The person selling it is working, not sitting around waiting for handouts. The articles are usually worth a read (more so than the UK tabloid press).

Io Zeno

Oh, yeah, baby, don't stop!

Joshua Nightshade

And, as is even highlighted in the statement about the campaign, most people just give the money and tell the seller to keep the paper. That's definitely the case around Sydney; the few times I've seen anybody even interacting with someone selling them they don't want the paper at all.

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Zaida Gearbox

You know a lot of homeless shelters breathalize people before they can come in?

Soen Eber

I think it would have been better if the "homeless hot spot" was actually an outdoor temporary coffee shop they could manage, with seating, snacks, and coffee, and they had a one week training program to teach them how to manage it complete with bookkeeping, barista training, inventory management and customer relationships, perhaps with a mainstream coffee shop as a cosponser who would audit the program and pledge to hire candidates who completed it successfully. Granted, not everyone would be able to do that, but as Joshua noted there are a lot of homeless vets and they could have managed it quite easily.

Cristiano

Homeless hot spots at SXSW: A manufactured controversy | Geek Gestalt - CNET News

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Ann Otoole

And even more require you to give up whatever religious choice you have had all your life and become a member of the evangelical christian faith. Which, IMHO, should be a crime.

But whatever. Sleazy grease bags taking advantage of the poor is nothing new. And that particular convention would seem like an alcoholic's dream land judging from the coverage CNN provided (and their CNN bar lmao).

Hey if the USA yanked it's unwanted armies back and stopped spending $3000 a day per soldier in places we are not wanted then we could have the cash to build dorms and put the homeless back to work rebuilding the crumbling infrastructure here in the USA. And maybe we could help the people of central and south america improve their quality of life some as well.

Baltha

I used to buy a copy from, and have a chat with, a guy in Leicester Square until one day he told me he had worked his way off the street and wouldn't be about any more. The Big Issue was always about helping the homeless find their feet and even before the foundation was set up, they were big on support and services for their vendors.

About Us | Big Issue

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Morgoth

I don't think this is the case with the Big Issue newspaper in the UK, at least.. I don't think I'm the only person who's ever been known to actually buy one.

I share Lucifer's positive view of the Big Issue- it's not merely begging by another name, it does seem that it makes a positive difference to homeless people's lives, I don't think selling the Big Issue is degrading, and I think this also affects my opinion on the issue. I do feel it's exploitative though to employ homeless people in this hotspot situation and only pay them by donation. Ideally they should get a proper wage for doing this, but failing that there should be a fixed price instead of an optional donation, with the option of course for people to donate something extra if they want to.

Overall I also think this scheme is framed exploitatively and condescendingly.

Lloyd Newman

From the article Cristiano linked to a couple of posts above:

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Soen Eber

Sorry,

I often enough do a research dump when I wade into a difficult issue, that I should note if I had or not (this time I'd just picked it up from the article that was linked and didn't do any digging). I'll remember to do so in the future.

Joshua Nightshade

It's okay, it only drives home the point for me between the two; I couldn't find anything at all about the people doing the NYC campaign, while the SXSW one had their branding splattered all over it. If anything it makes me feel that they did something altruistic in the NYC one and — seeing how successful it was — decided to cash in since they didn't the first time around.

bladyblue

The article states that the advertisers did this with the help of the Case Management program at Front Steps Shelter. The Front Steps Shelter needs a service review and an audit. I know of no publicly funded organization that can use its clients for corporate America's marketing programs.

If the Front Steps Shelter employed real, caring human service professionals, they would have turned this company's outrageous idea into a real effective program initiative.

Void

and apparently, they get one... but not all jobs offer a living wage. wait staff is one, but commission on sales jobs can be found at every level of income.

shelter case management works on very simple prinicples... find employers that are willing to take on homeless workers (thus avoiding the discrimination issue), and send these businesses the best qualified and most reliable folks they have.... often guaranteeing their reliability by guaranteeing them a place to stay while they're working and saving towards financial self sufficiency.

in Short, they provide reliability guarantees for homeless workers to available employers, and offer those homeless workers an opportunity towards stability and match them to employers. that's it.

In reality, it's probably the shelter that negotiated the rates, including the minimum daily pay (case management never works on non-guaranteed wages in my experience) so much for imaginings of exploitation.


@Thread in general:
and looky here, it appears that the only half assed complaint remaining is that some people don't like the name. ya know what, I don't think it's because they think the name is "demeaning" or "dehumanizing"... I think it's because some people feel guilty and don't want to be reminded of their own preconceptions and prejudices about what homelessness is or means... it's simple, it's the state of not having a home. anything after that are your own preconceived notions (such as we've already seen "potheads" and "drunks" thrown around). It doesn't matter whether those prejudices arise from fear of ending up there yourselves, or privilege form not ever having been in that situation, or even just not being there now. It all stinks of bigotry.

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- These eyes can do more than see

bladyblue

Vocational Rehabilitators aren't allowed to place their clients in a job that only lasts a few days. That only helps the employer, not the client. No funding source would agree that this shelter met the vocational rehab part of their contract with this stunt.

This could have been done with college students wearing the T-shirts. Whatever the college student earns, a certain percentage can be donated to the shelter.

I think 'Look, I'm a college student making a few extra bucks and donating to charity' is a better message than 'Look, I'm a homeless person wearing a corporate T-shirt and I will still be a homeless person in the same condition next week'.

These guys need to look up the definition of 'Corporate Responsibility'. They're doing it wrong.

Void

not all shelters operate on a vocational rehab model (which generally focus on job skills, rather than work history)... heck not all mental health agencies do either. When jobs are easy to find, yes, long term work is prefered, however there is room for temp work on the basis of building job history, especially in a tight job market.

so it would have been more benificial for college students to get paid and the homeless to only get a reduced benefit? because obviously the college students are facing the same extreme prejudice in hiring, and need these jobs and money more than the homeless folks do?

I actually had second thoughts about the accusation I made at the end of my previous post... I don't any more. The bias' of "It's ok to help them as long as I don't actually have to see them" and entitlement seem pretty clear to me.

bladyblue

Well, I guess if the shelter isn't funded to provide jobs for their clients then they can do as they please. But I can't see their funding source being too happy about staff paid for with city and/or state funds getting clients involved in an exploitation scandal.

How would they include 'wandering around town in a T-shirt' to their resume? They can call it 'Freelance Mobile Network Liaison'.

Well that wasn't a job. It was a rich corporation throwing a couple of bucks around town for a few days. It's no more than a week long internship with a modest stipend. Handing a guy self-medicating $300 USD is not the best idea.

This corporation was not looking to help anyone or to make any lasting impact in that community. It seems like a bunch of young executives thought it would be funny to see how many bums they could get to wear a T-shirt with the words 'homeless hotspot' on it. I get the joke. I'm just not as amused as those guys are.

I'm not seeing the 'help' part in this scenario.

This is a prime example of the fine line between 'help' and 'humiliate'.

Lum Lumley

What? You're daft. I'm not against this program because it makes homeless people visible, I'm against this program because it makes homeless people mascots.

And OK, I was wrong, they may have been paying their whopping 13 contractors $50 a day, for a week and a half, with no other benefits. Woo. I'm sure that got them on the road to self-sustenance immediately. And incidentally, that is less per day than a cost of a *single SXSWi pass*. The generosity, it overwhelms.

Again - the answer to homelessness is shelter and employment. It's not rocket science. It's a safety net which we as tax payers aren't willing to foot the bill for.

Void

where's the exploitation?

Customer service technician. but it's not even about the title, it's about demonstrating that they do show up for work, and do a good job... references matter.

see? right there, that last line... prejudice and preconceptions.

That's all you, projecting.

because being homeless is humiliating? If anyone is being humiliated here it's the people who don't want to see or believe it could be them oh so easily... any job is better than no job. and any job where you can turn your disadvantage to an advantage is fucking brilliant.

and wow, look at what's being provided... shelter and employment! omg the horror actually paying people minimum wage or better....

You want to argue that it's not charitable enough? fine. Hell IMO it's not charity at all... it's a job for someone that otherwise wouldn't have one, and exposure that there are people that need these jobs, can do them, and are more than willing to if given the opportunity.