Re: new newsgroup - alt.society.homeless (fwd)
Anitra Again (anitra@speakeasy.org)
Tue, 20 Jan 1998 16:45:03 -0800 (PST)
These were my comments on the phenomena of homeless using cellphones:
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 1998 19:59:11 -0800 (PST)
From: Anitra Again <anitra@speakeasy.org>
To: bobhahn@whoever.com
Cc: HOMELESS DISCUSSION LIST <homeless@csf.colorado.edu>
Subject: Re: new newsgroup - alt.society.homeless
On Sat, 17 Jan 1998 bobhahn@whoever.com wrote in response to a
newsgroup posting about a homeless person and a laptop computer:
> That reminded me: I am witnessing a sharp rise in the use of cell
> phones by homeless and near-homeless people, especially those
> on SSI. More than once I have looked around in our day center
> for mentally ill homeless people, and seen two or three people
> talking on cell phones. We have one fellow who comes in and
> uses our outlets to recharge his phone.
>
> This is not something I would have expected to see develop.
> Is anybody else seeing this?
As satirical as it sounds at first -- homeless people using cell
phones and laptops -- improvements in technology, with corresponding
drops in price, combined with increasing numbers of
formerly-middleclass who are now homeless, is bringing about a rise in
use of "portable communications" like laptops and cellphones among the
homeless -- and I think you will see even more of it in the future.
It really isn't unfeasible anymore for someone who doesn't have enough
income to lay out first-and-last month's rent for an apartment, and
who can't get into subsidized housing, to still have enough money to
afford a laptop or a cellphone. I was recently offered an
older-model, used laptop for less than $100 -- although I did not have
$100, I have known working men and women still in shelters, saving up
for housing, who might very well have decided it was worth delaying
the housing one more week to have access to a wider world in the
meantime. Cellphones are a *lot* less expensive than that, and even
more useful -- especially if you are working on-demand, expected to be
available on notice, and you don't want the boss to know you are
homeless. Cellphones have a tailor-made marketing niche in the
homeless population. And homeless does not necessarily mean "having
no money whatsoever". It means "not having enough available funds to
pay the cost of available housing".
People have also gone homeless while still possessed of a lot of
appliances, furniture, and other goods. These usually evaporate
rapidly, sold, stolen, or lost for lack of a storage payment. But a
cellphone is small enough to keep on your person, and therefore keep.
While comedians will have a lot of fun with the image of homeless
people using cellphones and laptops, for awhile, eventually our
perceptions of "normal" will adjust, and it won't be any more unusual
to see a homeless person with a cellphone than a homeless person with
a car or van -- which would have been a real reality-warp fifty years
ago.
___________________
WRITE ON! -- Anitra
[end forward]
I have seen some very inexpensive cellphones for sale, and prepaid
cellular phone cards also. I don't think it's as outlandishly an
expensive technology as it used to be even a few years ago.
-- Anitra