Why Should the Homeless Be Allowed Cell Phones?
Why is There a Cellphone Problem?
This question recently asked on the national level and in Columbus, Ohio by people that feel the homeless should not be permitted to have cell phones annoys me without end. I could become quite angry about this question. It is small minded, mean, and discourteous – and a circumstance that is likely no one’s business.
A town in America that has no homeless population received $400,000+ Stimulus Funding for homelessness treatment and prevention programming. No homeless; about half a million bucks to use for the homeless. What? Why do the complainers not target that circumstance instead?
The homeless are still individual persons and in Recession 2009, their numbers are increasing. You or I could be joining them if certain currents move too swiftly and our small boat in God’s wide sea overturns.
Since the 1980s, social workers have often repeated that a large portion of the American population is only one paycheck away from homelessness. Current wisdom asserts that everyone should have in savings, at six months operating expenses for monthly living costs and bills--But who does?
Some people do, but not the majority of the population. This is America The Land of Opportunity and also a Good Place to Starve to Death. We have both sides of the um-yang coin, because we are a free nation and as a responsible one, we should be dealing with the negatives and not be sidestepping them by targeting needlessly distracting situations.
Low Technology Will Not Help
Why is There a Problem?
Why the commotion and the uprising?
First Lady Michelle Obama went down the street from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to help serve meals in Miriam’s Kitchen, a neighborhood soup kitchen. Bless her for doing so, for walking her talk.
At Miriam's, a gentleman snapped a cell phone photo of FLOTUS at work and an uprising began with the first iteration of the photo’s broadcast in the nightly news.
It is not clear that the gentleman with the cell phone – a “luxury item” – was even homeless. However, the firestorm of complaints whipped across the nation chanting.
We kept hearing on the newscasts and on Twitter such barbs as:
“A homeless man (or woman) took a picture of Michelle Obama on a cell phone. How scandalous! The homeless should not be allowed to have cell phones, much less phones with photography ability! How can they afford them? Where do they receive their phone bills if they have no address?”
This all seems petty nonsense. Why should the disadvantaged be further disadvantaged by lack of communication ability?
Not All Cell Phones are Luxuries
AARP puts out a $10/month emergency cell phone plan that the homeless and the elderly might be able to afford.
T-Mobile offers a $20 pay-as-you-go phone with a free 10 minutes and the homeless purchase minutes as they are able.
The homeless often do have some money and some homeless people work - some of them full-time. All of these people need to be able to communicate with potential employers, while pay phones are nearly extinct. While pay phones disappear, so does their function of offering free 911 calls in emergencies. This is unfair to those without a phone.
In my city, public venues have the standard drop buckets for donating eyeglasses to the needy, but they have added buckets for donating cell phones as well. This is from where many homeless persons gain their phones.
Obama Phone
Obama Phone helps low-income Americans with free
Lifeline brand cell phones.
The program was first proposed under the Reagan Administration in the 1980s. In the late 2010s, some legislators wanted to kill the program.
Should homeless people have cell phones donated to them?
A True Story About a Helpful Cellphone
One of my clients, a single mom with two children on public assistance and almost ready to leave that system because she would be accepting a good job, became homeless without warning.
She went home to her government subsidized half-house and found another family living in it with her possessions. The landlord had rented it to someone else that would pay him more money. This was illegal, but she was unable to fight it, to obtain legal representation, or to have any other help. She was homeless. A relative took the kids, but she was homeless. She went to a shelter and kept her pay-as-you-go cell phone and was able to finish her high school diploma and find a job and start over. Complainers in the audience, would you have taken her cell phone away from her?
A cell phone is the only phone many people can afford, especially the homeless but many of the middle class as well. Pay-as-you-go is the alternative to “no phone at all.” Most of the payphones have disappeared from Columbus, Ohio. They were too often used for drug deals. There is a limit on pay-as-you-go phones in that a person can purchase only one per month – this cuts down on terrorist activities that use cell phones as bomb detonators.
Parents give their children a cell phone in order to call Mom or Dad for help if they need it. Should not the homeless be permitted to call 911 when they are assaulted? They are assaulted.
Some complainers feel that the homeless should use their daylight out-of-the-shelter hours to go to the public libraries and use the Internet to find work. That is no longer altogether possible, because the hours of computer access have been cut by 75%. Free telephone use available to job seekers up until January 2009 in libraries was removed.
The homeless, the elderly, and individuals that cannot afford an Internet connection at home are being herded off somewhere acutely, just as surely as Walt Disney Studios personnel herded lemmings over a cliff in the late 1950s in order to propitiate the myth that lemmings throw themselves off cliffs every year (They do not).
Not all homeless individuals will use their cell phones to place and receive job search related calls, but they should have that option. We in America cannot be a people that says that the homeless do not want to work and then denies them the tools needed to find that employment.
Please Donate Your Extra Cell Phones
- Donate Cell Phones - Recycle your cell phone for charity
Donate cell phones to worthy causes in your area. Your used cell phone donation can make a difference! - Wireless Recycling - Donate Mobile Cell Phones, iPods, iPads, PDAs & Digital Cameras | Recycling
RFC is an organization for recycling mobile cell phones, digital cameras, iPods, iPads and wireless recycling benefiting charities and the environment.
Sources
- Obama Phone. www.obamaphone.com/ Retrieved September 28, 2018.
- Woodford, R. Alaska Department of Fish and Game. Lemming Suicide Myth: Disney Film Faked Bogus Behavior. September, 2003. http://www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=wildlifenews.view_article&articles_id=56 Retrieved September 28, 2018.
© 2009 Patty Inglish MS
Related
Comments
AUTHOR@grand old lady -- Good for you! I admire your thinking about all this. Thanks for posting a comment as well. Old phones can help a lot of people access services and even training for a new job. Have a great weekend!
I deeply admire your passion in this article. We have so many poor people in the Philippines and I think that there is no reason why they shouldn't own a phone, even if they decide to sell theirs for a meal. But I only came to realize this after reading your article. Thank you for opening up my mind and for seeing that I can do something meaningful with my old phones.
- AUTHOR
Ack! Hope you are doing alright and are healthy, TJenkinds602!
Now that's a bunch of crap. Homeless people do not have a home phone. The only way to get a job is by having a phone number. If you take away the homeless person's right to having a cellphone, you might as well take away their right to live.
This is fishy. Once you get homeless, there are tons of people that try to keep you homeless and yet they complain that they are homeless.
People like them contribute to the problem of homelessness.
But don't feel bad, because I don't have a cellphone. I'm staying off the grid so these sick people can't find me to make my life any worse.
- AUTHOR
I think there are no more pay phones by which to sleep in my city! The homeless are out of luck there. I never heard about republicans telling the poor to sell their cell phones, so that's a new one to me. Thanks!
If I were homeless, you can bet I would own a cell phone. The streets are dangerous, and 9-11 is a free call on cell phones. Should they have to sleep near pay phones?
Republicans love telling poor people to sell their cell phones. Selling your used cell phone is not going to bring you into the middle class.
Can't make them like you! Hubs that is, you really do a great job. The Donate your cell phones link is a very nice touch as well.
Homeless people for sure need cell phones, every one does! Voted up/Awesome.
Well, with all the upgrades of new cell phones coming out (i.e. Apple & Android systems), why not have phone businesses donate some of the trade-in ones to local homeless shelters for a tax credit (listen up politicians) and give that particular phone 100 minutes or the shelter can use it at a discount plan.
If you & I can get unlimited domestic calling; for a flat fee and we don't use them all each month. I am sure 100 minutes will give some of the homeless more confidence. It will help these unfortunate people get work and become productive. Like it or not, tough times are here for quite some time for whomever took office 2008, 2012, & 2016. The economies worldwide need a big change in how they are run to re-invigorate themselves. The country will be back stronger in due time. So, if we help each other a little more things will change for the better.
- AUTHOR
Thanks for the comments! The homeless need these devices in order to make appointments and to get jobs.
I must say that to deny the homeless 30 minutes of free airtime a month because someone might cheat the system is patently small-minded and paranoid. The attitude recalls the sector of society that I heard described in this motto: "Get what you can, can what you get, and sit on the can."
Freedom in America brings with it the possibility for corruption and reasonable measures are put into place to protect against fraud. It cannot be totally prevented. There is no 100% waste-free or error-free thing in the universe except a Fraftal Equation.
Usually, I find that those complaining about poorer people being given something to help is that they want the free thing for themselves - a different sort of entitlement and 21st Century Sour Grapes ala Aesop.
Thanks to all of you!
Why should we be allowed to have children without permits? Why Should we be able to get married? I mean REALLY? These people have already been abandoned by a government that charges SOCIALIST TAXES on it's working people and then claims Capitalism ONLY when we want these programs that we pay for enforced! The fact that a single AMERICAN is homeless is a REAL tragedy, especially because most of them are FORMER US SOLDIERS! That is something we should be ashamed of. Our people who sacrificed everything to uphold our values, dismissed by OUR PEOPLE! Disgusting! Then to EVEN DISCUSS if homeless people should be allowed the power of communication.... We really should all hold our heads in shame!
All cell phones whether active or not can dial emergency services (911), in our area people donate cell phones they don't need anymore and they are distributed to the needy. In reality if your a homeless person, you can't afford to pay a monthly fee for a phone, I seriously doubt that same homeless person would even have the money to use a pay phone other than for dialing 911. The problem here is the same problem that affects everything...the good have to suffer for the bad. If you made free cell phone coverage available for the homeless, how many people would cheat the system, apply for and receive these phone and use them for God knows what(perhaps dealing drugs). Interesting topic though...keep up the good work.
Ah Patty great offering here... it seems as the old prejudices of race and sexuality have grown out of favor (at least for bigots to mention out in the open) they have turned to any other weak group that can be attacked.
To me it speaks volumes of the nature of those who have been rewarded too much. Some people, it would seem, have been given many, many rewards either for their labor or their family's wealth, and rather than reach out to help those with less than them, it is easier to attack those with less as somehow being thieves or worse creating their own circumstance. How is a trust fund kid, who has never worked a day in his life, not a thief himself?
Maybe it is also a knee-jerk reaction/condemnation for ordinary people when they see someone begging for money and then making a call from their cell phone. They probably think of their own massive cell phone bill (my family's bill is so large it takes me a week of work to pay off every month...) They probably don't realize all the charitable phone options that you mention.
Times have changed but not everyone's outlook has kept up. The next time you hear someone complain about the homeless, just think of those people as having rotary-phone-brains in a cellular phone collective conscience.
Lots of love from Wisconsin!
Ben Zoltak
What a fantastic hub Patty. This is one of the best ways to help someone in this awful position. A cell phone and a charger would help a homeless person tremendously, they wouldn't even need to have credit on it. Here in the Uk we have something called Oyster cards which pretty much everyone has, regardless of how much you earn, to travel in london, its also discounted travel if you use one. it's £1.30 to travel by bus with an Oyster but i think its £2.20 if you pay cash! Oysters are not that easy to get as most places that sell them make you fill a form out and put money on it. I feel they should make them available to homeless people. Love, love, love this this Hub
There are times when I am disgusted with society. And there are times that ,with all the problems Canada has in her own government, I am so happy that I live where I do. This whole question is a great example of one of those times.
Homeless people are still people so they should really have whatever we have. Some people still live off old family fortunes made years ago and today cant do anything helpful. Others have to find their own way to success. I knew a few homeless people who worked as maids/cooks with middle class people who can afford a house but not a home worker for minimum wage. So in turn they got a place to live, a couple dollars an hour, and were allowed to eat and watch tv with the rest of the family. They were treated as part of the family and often took care of the kids. They had anything the homeowners did, computer access, phone monthly time, and a car to use. Too bad there wasn't more of these kinds of storys for the thousands now.
~thranax~
I agree with many of the above comments. For a time, long ago and far away I lived on the streets. It wasn't called homeless then, and I believe, was after the era that one would be called a hobo. Back then, yes public pay phones were available. Pan-handling would net enough to place a call at .10 cents. Today they are gone. I have seen a pay phone booth represented as an historical item.
I was un-employed for much of the past summer. Thank God or any other higher power that I am employed again. A cell phone, pay as you go, or otherwise was an imperative item to become employed again. That would be especially true for anyone finding themselves with no home. I cannot understand the issue that some people may have about any homeless person having a cell phone.
We do live in a cellular age.
If ex-offenders and homeless people do not have phones to place in job applications or be able to call the police when crimes occur against the homeless because people are bias to them because of their sitaution then we are committing the crime against the human race. We have to give people the ability to be self supportive to improve their circumstances..........how cold hearted can you be......it is not all about you, there are others on this earth that need assistance........
May I point out that most of the payphones have disappered from EVERYWHERE due to cell phones becoming ubiquitous.
Its hard enough for a homeless person to get a job without an address, cell phones are probably more useful for a homeless person than the rest of us. Its their one connection to their network of supporters. What good is it to go to the library and apply for work online if you have no phone or address to be contacted. Cell phones are probably reducing homelessness, and crimes against the homeless.
Well, Valerie, I hear your opinion loud and clear. But it still only applies to a percentage of people who are actually homeless or "poor" as you put it.
You can either put all of the blame on the capitalists like you choose to, or you can accept that not everyone is 100% innocent.
Bad apples do, unfortunately, spoil the whole bunch.
If I hear one more person indicate that the homeless, or any of the other unemployed in this current recession, don't want to "get a job," I am going to explode!!!!! In the first place, why should anyone want to work for minimum wage if he or she could earn $60,000 holding a homeless sign? At least, the woman in ohio was earning enough to notice, and not lining the pockets of someone who is able to live a life of luxury at the expense of those who do the work. The problem is not the poor, but those at the top of our capitalistic system who abuse the masses, their staff and employees, as if they were slaves. The problem is not laziness, but lack of motivation to work on a little job in which you receive no benefits or enough money to support yourself. I have 7 years of formal education, and many more years of experience working for organizations in which the privilidged few had all the choices, top pay and benefits. Those at the top need to be regulated, and scream socialism all you want to do, but profit needs to be shared with those who do the work. cell phones today are the only phones many use or have. They are not a status symbol or luxury. A homeless person needs a cell phone to even look for work, since he or she obviously can't have a landline, now can he or she? Places like Walmart ought to have to hire all FULL time staff, and give them every one benefits. I work on a part time job, as many do these days, at minimum wage, and if I had not inherited my parents' home at their death, I'd be homeless myself. I'm sick of hearing proud people pass judgment on the poor, when those same proud people should be grateful, not proud. I quit, but had to speak my mine.
- AUTHOR
Yes, in Central Ohio 5 years ago, one woman made $60,000 yearly between the entrances of two mall parking lots after school with her two young daughters, standing with a "homeless" sign.
I don't begrudge anyone a simple working cellphone.
I do, however, know of many panhandlers in Vermont who are quite aware that they are taking advantage of kind hearted individuals in lieu of actually getting a job.
This isn't me being presumptuous. I too have been homeless on many occasions and the reason I am not currently homeless is because I worked my way out of it.
It absolutely outrages me what people do sometimes. Taking away something that could essentially save a person's life in some situations. *tsk tsk* Just because they're homeless is no reason to take ANYTHING away from them.
- AUTHOR
Thanks for sharing your courageous story, MyWebs. Apparently, many people think that homeless folks are homeless because they want to be or have a character defect. If it happened to themselves, of course, that would not seem the case to them...
While I don't really like to admit it, not out of shame, but more worrying if others will look down upon me, I have been homeless multiple times in my life. Some times due to bad choices I made, others were just bad luck.
I learned rather quickly that having a cell phone is key to getting a job and pulling myself up from being homeless. A P.O box is also very helpful, but since 9/11 the government all but makes this impossible for a homeless person. There are ways if you know the loopholes.
About 2 years ago I was sleeping in my Army sleeping bag when I was woke up by a stranger wanting to "borrow" my scooter that is chained to the fence beside me. I'm like sorry but I don't think so. So then his pregnant girlfriend pulls out a big knife, hands it to him and then he threatens my life. "Give me the scooter or else I take it!"
I gave him the keys as it was all I could do considering I was zipped up to my neck and rather helpless to defend myself.
As he was pulling away he said "don't call the police, I promise to return it." As I'm saying "I won't" I have dialed 911 inside my sleeping bag out of his view. The instant he pulled off I hit 'send'.
Literally 5 minutes later the cops called me back, had him in custody and my scooter was waiting for me.
To those who would have taken away my cell and would have left me helpless to fight back when my property was stolen and my life was threatened I say: You people really suck! Bah @ you.
A cell phone is crucial to getting a job again and for safety reasons. If society does nothing else for the homeless, it should help those who want to get a job and off the streets with a cheap cell phone. Sorry this was a bit long but I feel I have really added to this topic.
- AUTHOR
I feel much the same as you, Debra. Lots of these phones are donated to the homeless to help them in just these ways. They're still people.
People really need to think before they speak. How do they know the homeless person didn't already own the phone before they became homeless? How do you know that the cell phone is not being paid for by a family member? Just because a picture was snapped, doesn't necessarily mean there was minutes on the phone anyway. I have a prepaid phone, and I can still take pictures, regardless of whether there are minutes on it. Besides, homeless people have just as much of a need for cell phones as anyone else. Don't those people know that pay phones are becoming more and more obsolete? Where can you find one anymore, especially in an emergency? If there is a homeless woman on the street, and she is about to be raped or attacked, why does she not have the right to have a phone with her wherever she goes to report the incident to the police? Comments like these about the homeless really make my blood boil.
I actually recommend cellphones for homeless people in an article I recently wrote - having a cell phone and a PO box are about the only way a homeless person can apply for a job! For $30 a person can buy a cheap cellphone including the activation minutes for three months. After that they only need pay like $20 every three months. It's a job hunting and survival tool. It doubles as an alarm clock for keeping appointments and getting to work on time.
Also, the 911 aspect should not be ignored. Homeless peaople are frequently assaulted and it could make the difference between life and death in many cases.
Thanks hippatrick - great visit from you.
Paper Moon - thanks for that share, because it's a great lesson!
When I was in Philly, it seemed that the uproar was about people receiving foodstamps should not get icecream. As if they should never enjoy themselves. I thought a lot about what that said about people who raise their voices to point fingers. I found the whole point to be rubbish. I have people at the bottom at the place where I work, who work full time and have been homeless for at least some time while working there. They needed phones. People who point too much, well..... beware of karma.
Such an eye opening and a different hub for hubmob. I am with Patty circumstances are the reason.
- AUTHOR
Indeed, I don't understand why individuals have a problem with the homeless having a cellphone. I did overhear one peson here complaining that she had worked all her life and had never benefitted from any public assistance programs, whereas "everybody else does." She's has never qualified for assistance and is a person that participates in purposeful waste. Seems to feel that she should be given things so she can throw them away, also. So it's a definite wrongheadedness there.
Some people are envious if anyone else receives anything.
One of my pet peeves as well, people are so quick to judge and so resistent to trying to better understand a situation they don't (understand). Life is convenient when you have black and white rules to live by but in reality it probably means you've never walked in another person's shoes.
That's just profoundly stupid to object to the homeless having a phone. I wonder how the objectors would feel if they suddenly had no way to make/cancel appointments, seek a new job, check to see if family and frends are alright. I mean eeesh, what about people in natural disasters who become homeless? It's not thei fault nature conspired ageinst them. Rediculous. I wonder if cell phones have made the treatment of the menally ill easier since they are reachable now? I know at one point the vast majority of homeless were mentally ill, which is probably still the case. Hmmm.
I have also heard of a program that offers an emergency cell phone, with a small number of minutes to people on welfare programs, such as medicaid or food stamps. If a homeless person works, they would need a phone, in order to be in touch with their work, just like you and I would. Since they have no home, a home phone would be a little impossible.
Well, if you deny them a cell phone, what is the next step? Deny them the right to be on the street. Feny them the right to go and get something to eat. Deny them the right to be human.
If you want to control them to the extent of what they should or should not be allowed, then something is lacking in your moral, religious make up. Go to a country were you do not allow free thought.
Give the homeless some form of dignity unless you can adopt a homeless family and take care of them look after there health insurances etc., then you can talk. Then and only then can you exercise control over them, not all only the ones you are responsible for.
If they can pay for it, it is their business. It is none of any of our business to judge them and say they should be saving their money for shelter, etc.
Good topic, as always.
Keep on hubbing.
Being able to communicate is a fundamental right. Interesting ideas. Thumbs up
- AUTHOR
Thank you for yoru ideas, SweetiePie; there are many of us that feel the need to do something good and not take away cell phones.
In the wonderful world with abundant food and technology is it absolutely appauling and greedy that people suggest the homeless should not have cell phones. We have quite a few homeless people in our community, yes some of them have cell phones, but I will tell you I am glad they do because they need these for their protection. When you are homeless sometimes in are out in the elements and do not have protection from people that can attack you.
I talked to one family that was so poor they were living in an orange field and they were attacked and mugged, but they did not have a cell phone to call the police. Really how can people be so uncaring and unfeeling? We throw away and recycle so many cell phones and honestly it would not hurt to give homeless people free cell phones. I think we could go a step further and provide housing and jobs for all those who want it, and I do not care if people think that sounds too socialistic. We could heal this economy and help each other if we all got together and really wanted to.
- AUTHOR
Andromed10 and Amy G - Thanks for supporting this common sense cause. There is hope :)
Great hub~ I agree, who cares if homeless people have cell phones? Are they not worthy of at the very least...access to 911 service? Of course they are... I've donated several phones to those drop boxes. I don't know where they go, and I really don't care, as long as somebody finds it useful. Until then, it collects dust in a drawer somewhere.
And any homeless person who is actively seeking employment or already working toward improving their own life should be applauded. Homelessness is too often an excuse for not being able to do anything. Thanks for the read!
Yes, I think cell phones are NOT a luxury item anymore. For all the reasons we have cell phone, less the texting and extraneous phone calls, homeless should be allowed to have this one "luxury item". If we remember, the older phones did not hold a signal well, analog (I don't know if they make them anymore). And everyone should be able to have the safety net to have a phone. It's not like a homeless person has a land line!
Too many up tight Americans worried about the divisions in social class is what this opposition sounds like to me. Why are we worried about definite lines in social class when we are ALL broke right now?
Great hub!
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