Posted on 05/29/2009 7:41:24 PM PDT by reaganaut1
Like most San Franciscans, Charles Pitts is wired. Mr. Pitts, who is 37 years old, has accounts on Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. He runs an Internet forum on Yahoo, reads news online and keeps in touch with friends via email. The tough part is managing this digital lifestyle from his residence under a highway bridge.
"You don't need a TV. You don't need a radio. You don't even need a newspaper," says Mr. Pitts, an aspiring poet in a purple cap and yellow fleece jacket, who says he has been homeless for two years. "But you need the Internet."
Mr. Pitts's experience shows how deeply computers and the Internet have permeated society. A few years ago, some people were worrying that a "digital divide" would separate technology haves and have-nots. The poorest lack the means to buy computers and Web access. Still, in America today, even people without street addresses feel compelled to have Internet addresses.
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.
Shelter attendants say the number of laptop-toting overnight visitors, while small, is growing. SF Homeless, a two-year-old Internet forum, has 140 members. It posts schedules for public-housing meetings and news from similar groups in New Mexico, Arizona and Connecticut. And it has a blog with online polls about shelter life.
Cheap computers and free Internet access fuel the phenomenon. So does an increasingly computer-savvy population.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Three squares a day, a roof over your head, no bills, no boss, no obnoxious family, and free internet. Not too shabby!
People in homeless shelters should be allowed to use the Internet — to look for a job.
The guy in the story is a 37 year old ‘aspiring poet’. I agree with your statement, but he doesn’t have a prayer of getting a job. I read the job ads on Monster.com periodically, and the listings for ‘37 year old aspiring poet’ are pretty thin.
Prediction:The computers will be robbed, probably by the same people that run the shelters, but before that happens the inmates at the shelters will spend 12 hours a day learning how to download porn.
You're mistaking jail for homelessness. Don't be so glib - especially these days. The merest thing can knock people into the street. Even you.
But there are listings, aren't there! And, by the way, age discrimination is illegal in most states.
Oh, they probably have those things bolted down and watched 24-7.
Or they will serve as headquarters of a fledgling identity theft enterprise.
No, I’m not. Take a chill pill.
I'll pass. The supposed triviality of the subject escapes me.
The age thing isn’t an issue. It’s the ‘I need to support myself by being a poet’ thing that I’m concerned with.
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