Smartphones are a lifeline for homeless people

If you ask someone what they think are the biggest challenges for homeless people, they might say finding a safe place to sleep or a meal to eat. Few would assume that charging a smartphone to check emails would be high on the list.

“When people wonder how or why a homeless person is able to afford a mobile phone, they are making massive assumptions that people are just walking into a shop and buying a phone, whereas it might be that someone has given it to them,” says Hafsah FitzGibbon, partnerships and participation manager for youth homeless charity Centrepoint.

This presents a vexing paradox. While society may view a homeless person’s ownership of a smartphone as an unnecessary extravagance, in reality, experts say, this demographic is one that is most dependent on the technology as a resource for stability. In addition to being an essential way to keep in touch with support services, case workers and to look for jobs or housing, a mobile phone can also serve as an “escape from isolation” and, according to FitzGibbon, a way to create networks to combat social exclusion.

Michael Thompson is a programme manager for Community Awareness Network, an organisation that helps homeless and vulnerable people in Manchester. He explains that when trying to help people who are sleeping on the streets, it’s significantly easier to assist them quickly if they have a mobile phone.

“We were out on the street last night and I met a 20-year-old girl sleeping rough who was able to give me her mobile number,” Thompson says. “I can get her anything she needs now because I have her mobile number and can pass that on to other organisations. We’ll be able to get her off the street quicker because we can always trace back to her.”

When it comes to getting phones into the hands of homeless, there are just a few business-backed projects addressing the issue, mostly based in the US. This year, Citibank, Vodafone, and Google partnered with the Community Technology Alliance to support its Mobile4All project which distributes smartphones to homeless people in California’s San Jose.

Allan Baez, project manager for Mobile4All, says that through his work he consistently sees how mobile phones play a role in stabilising homeless people’s lives.

“Smartphones are incomparable tools for connecting people who are isolated, and empowering homeless and extreme-low-income individuals to access life-changing services and gain self-sufficiency,” says Baez.

As the number of phones in circulation rises due to frequent technology upgrades, slightly out-dated or secondhand devices are increasingly available and affordable. The real challenge for homeless people, Baez and FitzGibbon say, lies in the maintenance of a phone — finding a place to charge it, maintaining a contract, affording a top up or having enough space for necessary apps. For that reason, projects that increase public wireless networks, such as that recently announced by BT and Barclays, are helpful for homeless people as they are not required to go in to a shop or cafe where they might have to purchase something.

“Often homeless people we work with might have both a basic phone for receiving calls and then a smartphone which they can’t afford a contract on, but can use for Wi-Fi,” FitzGibbon says. “It’s common that people will have a phone until they can’t afford it and then they’ll take it to pawn shop or cash converters to pay a bill then buy it back when they can. Many also report that they don’t use text messages but instead use WhatsApp when they’re on Wi-Fi because it’s free.”

Centrepoint is leveraging the prevalence of smartphone usage among its service users by building an app and website. With a £500,000 grant from the Google Impact Challenge, FitzGibbon says the charity wants to build a social network where homeless people can find support and a way to collect data on their experiences of homelessness via self reporting.

She adds that while mobile phones can be a vital tool for homeless people to manage their lives, their most precious resource remains their resilience.