“Housing isn’t the solution to homelessness. You also need community,” said Mark Horvath.

Founder of InvisiblePeople.tv — a site of raw, uncut videos of homeless people telling their own stories—Horvath was once homeless himself in 1995. So he’s no small advocate for solving the homelessness problem in the United States, and he believes social media will play no small part in doing so.

Naysayers might argue that if one is homeless, technology should not be something that is affordable or accessible. That technology is in large part a luxury.

But those who are on the street or who are about to be might feel differently.

According to Horvath, there’s a rise in the number of homeless people he meets who are on social media platforms, namely Twitter and Facebook. Horvath sees this largely as a positive aspect to their lives, as he senses that the people he meets feel less alone.

“One hundred percent of the sheltered homeless I meet are online and on Facebook. Online is still a human experience, it’s just online,” he said.

Rd Plasschaert believes her life was saved by social networking.

Her story is a familiar one, perhaps.

“I had a great paying job at a high-stress law firm. In February 2009, I left for health reasons because I felt I was going to have a heart attack, and I thought no job is worth that. Not knowing that the great crisis was about to happen,” she said.

She thought she could take on temporary work through local temp agencies, but was surprised when the agencies had no work to give. Due to continued health problems, she ended up on disability.

“In August 2010, I knew I was going to be homeless,” she said. “Agencies kept referring me back to the 211 number. I would call 211 and they would say we cannot help you until you are on the streets. I was in this cycle of: we can not provide help until you are actually homeless.”

She started a blog, as an online journal, she says at first in order “just to stay sane.” Through another blogger she was introduced to Twitter. She originally wrote the site off as inane banter. “At first, I thought: This is where people say ‘I’m going to burp.’ I thought it was nothing.”

But partly out of desperation, she decided to try it, and soon began searching for others in her same situation. Within four days of being online, she found Horvath.

She stayed at Path Achieve in Glendale for three months, and was also placed at the Winter Shelter, before becoming housed in an apartment three weeks ago.

Her current housing is sponsored in part by Skip1.org, an organization she also connected with through the microblogging site.

“Twitter is the only reason I have housing,” she said.

For the full story, visit L.A. Times Chatter.

When we think of mobile phone usage, what typically comes to mind are bustling businesspeople rushing to their next meetings with BlackBerrys in hand, or ever-wired digerati who are operating on several platforms at once through a brand new smart phone. 

Three interns at New York creative advertising agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty decided, however, to take cellphones and put them in the hands of the homeless.

As part of their internship at the firm, Rosemary Melchior, 22, Willy Wang, 24, and Robert Weeks, 23, were challenged to “do something good, famously.” That’s all they were told. How they interpretted the famous part was up to them.

Their project is “Underheard in New York,” in which they have given four homeless men prepaid cellphones and Twitter accounts. They have taught all four men how to text and tweet, with the aim that Danny, Derrick, Albert and Carlos will be able to tell their own stories through the social networking platform and the phones. And that their stories will be heard and possibly lead them to better lives.

Wang said, “I always had a fascination with New York’s homeless. How no one pays attention to them. Many of them play music to get your attention. So I was always interested in street musicians, but from there we decided to give the homeless a chance to have a voice.”

For the full story, visit L.A. Times Chatter.

We don’t think we’ll find anything more inspiring on the Internet today. This project is incredible.

reblogged via curiositycounts:

Underheard in New York – lovely project gives New York’s homeless a voice via social technology

It seems there’s an app for everything, but we hadn’t seen anything quite like this before. From change.org, the headline read: “Want Your Own Homeless Person? There’s an App for That”. It was enough to make us click. From their story:

iPhone users in the UK can adopt a new virtual pet — their very own hobo. The iHobo app is a free game that attempts to give people a sense of the needs of the homeless by putting them in charge of one virtual homeless person’s fate.

The “hobo,” which is the first-ever use of live action video in an app, lives on iPhones for three days. Users have to give him his sleeping bag and some food on time, even in the middle of the night, or his condition will deteriorate. If the user doesn’t care for him for long enough, the hobo will sell his sleeping bag for drugs and can even overdose.

The game screams exploitation, except for the fact that it was put out by a non-profit focused on youth homelessness called Depaul UK. At the end of the three-day game, users are prompted to donate quickly and easily through the phone.