Questions that need to be answered

What are we defining "homeless" to mean? As opposed to long-term unemployed? What are the categories of people that need to be distinguished from each other?

Short-term homeless:
- I remember some report saying that a lot of people are temporarily homeless when they have a run of bad luck, but they manage to get back on their feet.

Long-term homeless:
- This group will include a lot of the drug addicts and mentally handicapped people.


Homeless-by-choice:
- Some of the street kids in SF would fall into this category, since they say they could work a crappy job to make enough money to get a crappy apartment.

Drug addicts:
- Watch the VICE video on the canal in Tijuana where deported migrants live.

Mentally handicapped people:
- An article describes that a very large percentage of surveyed homeless people had fallen on their heads while drunk.


What is a "home"? Are monkeys in the rainforest homeless? Were nomadic Native Americans homeless? Are nomadic Roma (gypsies) homeless? If I dig a hole in the ground and live in it, am I homeless? What if a rabbit does the same thing? Is the rabbit homeless?

I'm going to guess that this is going to be a fuzzy distinction. "Homeless" will probably just be a word associated with certain traits.
- A parasitic relationship: the person gets benefits from others without giving enough in return to balance what he's receiving


What exactly is the problem with having homeless people? Is it really so bad? Or are people making it out to be worse than it is, like they did with homosexuality in the past? What is the "victory condition" here? What's the goal?

Problems associated with not having a home:
- Being robbed (ex: see the article on street kids in SF)
- Having to keep all your stuff with you at all times (ex: homeless people with their shopping carts in DC)
- Not having a place to store food
- Not being protected from the elements: rain / snow / cold / heat
- Not being clean: not having a shower or washing machine
- Not being able to escape from noise; not having a quiet space
- Not having easy access to good light at night (to read / work)

Problems associated with having homeless people:
- Tragedy of the commons: Those people end up staying in public areas and those areas become worn down
- Eye-sore: Homeless people tend to be badly groomed and behave erratically, which makes being around them unpleasant

Problems associated with being long-term unemployed:
- You don't have money! So all of your basic needs become big problems (eating, drinking, shelter, clothing, safety)
- It can cause stress between you and the people around you (eg your spouse / family).
- Not having money makes it harder to find a job because, for example, you can't afford to buy nicer clothing to make a good impression.
- I have heard there is a stigma associated with being long-term unemployed, so it becomes even harder to get a job than it otherwise would be.

Problems associated with having long-term unemployed:
- They don't pay for the public services they consume. Ex: homeless people are protected by the police and the military, they have sanitation workers cleaning up after them, they enjoy clean water, etc. [On the other hand, they do pay sales tax on anything they spend donated-money on.]

Problems associated with being a drug addict:
- You're more likely to end up unemployed / homeless, and suffer the bad effects of those situations.
- You can cause drug-fueled stress between you and the people around you (your spouse / family / friends). This is aside from the stress of being under/unemployed.

Problems associated with having drug addicts:
- They may cause harm to other people. 1) Robbing to support their habit, 2) harming others as a result of the influence of the drug (eg, DWI, alcohol-fueled violence)


Why are people homeless? Why are they long-term unemployed?

What will people be able to do that computers will not be able to do?

Right now:
- Tasks that change a lot seems to be the #1 thing that humans have an advantage in.
- Tasks that involve a combination of many different faculties (vision, hearing, movement, pattern recognition)

- I was watching the "Dirty Jobs" TV show and thought it had a bunch of examples of jobs that would be difficult to automate in the near future. All of them required use of multiple senses / movements. On the other hand, perhaps the jobs could be reconfigured so that it would be easier for a computer to do them. Examples: lobster fisherman, snake scientists (they have to catch snakes, examine them, stick probes into them), metal recycling center workers (they have to operate heavy machinery), t-shirt printers


What are some jobs that homeless people might be more competitive in, given their situation?

- Tasks that require knowledge of English: Example - Translating / cleaning-up the language of foreign companies.
- Anything low-skill, like returning grocery carts.
- Experimentation on humans (which has a bad reputation, but there may be an ethical way to do this)

Guy with down syndrome who returns grocery carts for a living:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7vkYYrcNxU


What are the big challenges that may keep people from hiring the homeless?

Homeless people may be unreliable / slow.

It's just like with old / broken / virus-infested computers.

Analogy to think about: Software is becoming more and more demanding of the hardware out there, just like jobs seem to be becoming more and more demanding of people's brains. With computers, we just throw away the computer.

The marginal cost of illegal activity may be lower for homeless people.
- People who have invested a lot into their future (eg with education, working hard to build up their resume, etc) will see it as way riskier to do something illegal that could spoil the bright future they've built up for themselves. But someone who has not invested much into their future won't care as much if they get arrested, because the price for them may not be as high (in terms of what they're giving up if they're caught).
- In short: homeless people may be more likely to lie, steal, etc. I don't know for sure; it needs to be studied. But it's something to look into.
- You might be able to partially correct / detect this by giving the homeless people hidden tests of their honesty, Kim-Jung-Il-style.
- You might also be able to partially correct this by keeping the homeless person separated from any sensitive information or sensitive areas of the company. For example, have the person work from a separate location.


What is the difference between putting homeless people in the US to work vs. finding a sustainable way to put people in other countries to work? In solving the first problem will you be also be solving the second?


What are the things that construction companies look for when hiring people for entry-level work? For example, does the employee need to have specific skills?

How will the homeless people get money / credit from the device?


How will you power the device?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Sj-mfVpjkw