San Francisco library turning off WiFi at night to keep homeless from using it
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Re: San Francisco library turning off WiFi at night to keep homeless from using it
#2Theoretically, wifi access could help people move on by giving them the network access even old tech could use to look for jobs, living situations, long-lost relatives, access e-counseling and telehealth visits, etc.
It's not the only thing the haves have taken from the have-nots to get them to move on. Bottle and can deposits used to be a much bigger deal in the US. It served its purpose of retrieving bottling materials for reuse to save costs and removing them from the landscape. But some noticed it gave the homeless a little spending cash too. The people in my otherwise fairly liberal city voted in the 90s to remove the local deposits from cans and bottles in order to force the homeless to move on.
Fast forward to 2023. The homeless did not move on. They stayed and are begging more intensely. Many "prominent" homeless (a guy I know just as the Cowboy for his begging flair, for instance) are still here 30 years later.
Re: San Francisco library turning off WiFi at night to keep homeless from using it
#3Re: San Francisco library turning off WiFi at night to keep homeless from using it
#4Kinda goes against the ALA Library Bill of Rights to deny the homeless access to information. Rather than blocking access, they should've just throttled it and enforced a captive portal every 15 minutes after hours.
Which item specifically? Having "open hours" seems reasonable.
Re: San Francisco library turning off WiFi at night to keep homeless from using it
#5Re: San Francisco library turning off WiFi at night to keep homeless from using it
#6Re: San Francisco library turning off WiFi at night to keep homeless from using it
#7Being poor and homeless is so hard. The system is built with countless chicken-egg problems that make it almost impossible to climb out of poverty. On top of this, elitists who are so disconnected are arbitrarily enforcing this kind of amoral depraved nonsense.
Should we just keep stripping the needy of more and more resources until eventually maybe they'll just disappear or die because fuck them for existing and inconveniencing us?
Good grief.
Re: San Francisco library turning off WiFi at night to keep homeless from using it
#8>Neighbors of the library collaborated with the city to urge the library to turn off its Wi-Fi at night in hopes the Castro neighborhood’s unhoused population would move on. Theoretically, wifi access could help people move on by giving them the network access even old tech could use to look for jobs, living situations, long-lost relatives, access e-counseling and telehealth visits, etc. It's not the only thing the h…
We really need to implement solutions better than "go be homeless somewhere else."
Re: San Francisco library turning off WiFi at night to keep homeless from using it
#9I mean, if they can't afford it, we should provide it to them at tax payer expense.
Re: San Francisco library turning off WiFi at night to keep homeless from using it
#10This is such a lazy approach to social issues. Being poor and homeless is so hard. The system is built with countless chicken-egg problems that make it almost impossible to climb out of poverty. On top of this, elitists who are so disconnected are arbitrarily enforcing this kind of amoral depraved nonsense. Should we just keep stripping the needy of more and more resources until eventually maybe they'll just disappea…