I live in an area with a somewhat large homeless population. This concerns me, bothers me, and disturbs me. Giving away money is not the solution to the problem, and I don’t know what the full solution is. I respect groups like Food Not Bombs who help try to put our resources to truly effective use, feeding people.

I was in a coffee shop one day, and there was a heated discussion about some online issue. I don’t think it was a boring "religious platform" war, but a real discussion. Overhearing as I often do, I piped into the conversation and started to take part.

What’s strange about this? One of the participants was homeless. I got his email address that night. He was using a freenet for an email address and using the terminals at the public library for internet access. He was online, he was wired.

Another episode; a few couple ago I waiting at the bus stop and someone remarked on my T-shirt. It was an LoD Vs Mod T-shirt (Hacker groups). He explained how there were so many posers around these days, and that most people who called themselves hackers really weren’t. Well, usually such a remark, and I’ve heard them before in the h/p community, comes from someone who isn’t what I’d consider a "real hacker" (a term I pretty much despise), but a novice explorer.

That wasn’t the point of this conversation though. The man I was speaking to was also homeless, and computer literate enough to know what MoD/LoD were and recognize it on my shirt. People in the computer industry didn’t notice this when I wore these shirts to work.

Something is going on here. The homeless, or some of the homeless are beginning to get wired. It’s scary to think that they may have a high level of computer skills but still unable to get themselves out of their situations.

This leads to the question: were they computer literate before they became homeless? I hope, for my sake, that they were not.

Not, assuming they picked up email and basic internet skills from friends and online help, this is quite amazing. They are not necessarily employable, and their lives are not turned around by this technology, not totally.

How is this important, why is this important?

Well, this is a global community, the internet, and we are not wise to block out the voices of those who do not have homes. In fact, much as a twelve year old prodigy can be spoken to as a real person and not patronized, the homeless can be taken seriously.

They can be talked to, and can initiate discussions, and suddenly have a voice that they did not have. While the USA does not have a "caste" system as a formal system, we do have castes. The homeless are the untouchables, the voices we do not hear. The eyes whom the stranger is unable to meet.

This does not solve the problems that the homeless face. To get a job one must be clean, and have clean clothes. To get a job one must have a number to be contacted, and an address. The daily challanges are food, shelter, clothing, survival. There are those scum who prey upon the weakest, most vulnerable of society. Strangers will not make eye contact with them, their words are ignored, their eyes are avoided.

While the prospect of online homeless does not solve their problems, I think it can help. It brings them into the fold of society again, where their voices may once again be heard, their ideas taken seriously. I say that makes this world a better place.

I thank our local library for setting up terminals to allow the general public to use. I implore them, and other like institutions, to consider granting access to all - not merely those who can afford it. I also thank every freenet in existence, and any geographical community (state, city, county, neighborhood) that gets online, and enables open access to all.