this post was submitted on 06 Jun 2024
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Many unhoused people do not have a phone.
It's been at least a decade since I've seen a homeless person without a phone. Free government phones are easy to get. They all have them.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6516785/
Based on that study, many have a cell phone, but not all of them have smart phones. There's also a lot of turnover.
I've never had a homeless person ask me to venmo them some money.
in other countries outside of the USA, you can use phone credit as money. Since you can transfer phone credit to people, and credit is stored as a money amount... it's easy.
No smart tech needed. Just a free sms.
Which country is giving away free phones? I have never heard that before.
Wait a few weeks and Google will be giving away free phones, just so they can track everybody. Wait a couple more weeks, and having a tracked phone will be mandatory.
I apologize for not clarifying that I'm in the US
They also don't have homes, what's your point?
Yeah! Fuck them! If they don't have homes or cards they don't deserve food, get good scrubs!
FFS. Please read the previous comment. I don't give money to the poor. I give money to charitable organisations. They have bank accounts. Also every single time in my life when I was asked by a homeless person for food, I bought them food. Shops have card readers. I don't need cash to help people.
Oh yes charitable organizations which in the US definitely aren't usually just a corporate tax write-off with so much money wasted on overhead that could have directly went to helping people.
I'm not in the US.
Fair lol.
This was a direct response to someone saying "You can easily transfer someone a small sum of money using their phone number."
You can't easily transfer someone money using their phone if they don't have one. (Though I learned after that many do have phones, many aren't smart phones and they do have high turnover of phone and phone number. So I think cash is still superior overall)
Why would I need to transfer money to the homeless?
Did you not read the previous comments? The context includes "I never give the homeless money, but I often buy them food." and also the idea of being a cashless society.
Some people give the homeless money because the homeless person doesn't have any, and if you give them a couple dollars they can get something to eat. I don't have to explain charity, I hope.
Again. Why would I give a homeless person money for food, if I can just give them food?
Perhaps you have money on you, but no food. You may be in a place where food cannot be readily purchased (eg: a subway train).
I won't have money on me, I don't carry cash, as previously stated. In a case like that I would give the homeless person nothing. I have no obligation to help people.