Harnessing Social Media To Reconnect Homeless People With Their Families

Source: www.wnyc.org --- Sunday, October 16, 2016
San Francisco has made headlines as a hub for technology — giants like Facebook, Apple and Google are headquartered nearby, as are a plethora of tech startups. At the same time, residents complain that those same tech companies are part of the cause of the city's astronomical cost of living — and in turn, contributing to the city's big homeless problem. Homelessness in the city is a problem well reported — the San Francisco Chronicle even ran a front page editorial earlier this year calling the "level and pervasiveness of homelessness in San Francisco" a "civic disgrace." Measuring the number of homeless people in San Francisco is hard; one estimate gathered by a group of volunteers over one night counted 6,686 adults. The city's Department of Public Health counts homeless people using city services over a year and counted 9,975. San Francisco doesn't lead the country in per-capita homelessness. But the reason San Francisco's homeless problem is much more visible than other large cities is because the city has more per-capita unsheltered homeless people: "511 people on the streets for every 100,000 residents," as noted by the Chronicle . Naturally, someone in San Francisco had an idea to use technology to help alleviate one of the symptoms of homelessness: falling out of touch with one's family. That's the mission of Miracle Messages , an organization started by Kevin Adler in 2014. Volunteers record video messages from homeless ...

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