homelessness

The Dark and Twisted History of the Children’s Friend Society

The Children’s Friend Society is among the most misleadingly-named charities in history. Supported by wealthy Londoners in the 1800s, the group promised to “do something” about the appalling abundance of vagrant children in England. And they did do something: the children disappeared. What came next was horrifying. The Vagrant Child Problem In 1830, Captain Edward…

Protests, Slums, Bass Pro Shops: What’s Ruining Our Cities This Week

Protesters are shutting down freeways, bridges, and tunnels across the U.S. The country’s largest shantytown is being dismantled in the heart of Silicon Valley. And a proposal from a famous outdoor retailer could threaten Memphis’s strangest landmark. It’s What’s Ruining Our Cities this week. Protests are disrupting America It’s been a tumultuous few weeks in…

One Danish City Turns to GPS Tracking to Help the Homeless

Without any context, that headline could seem incredibly scary, almost dystopian in nature. A city’s most vulnerable residents tracked for unknown purposes would serve as a pretty good plot for some Orwellian nightmare. Luckily, the Danish city Odense doesn’t want to harm but instead help. According to CityLab and The Copenhagen Post, Odense has launched…

This Ad for a Homeless Shelter Turns Into a Mini Homeless Shelter

A curious ad campaign recently popped up in Vancouver. The backs of park benches have become billboards for Raincity Housing, a nonprofit that helps the homeless. But they’re not just advertisements for a homeless shelter. Some of the ads actually transform into little shelters. “Find Shelter Here” reads the convertible billboard. When you flip it…

A Refurbished Bus Will Bring Showers to the Homeless in San Francisco

An old MUNI bus in San Francisco is getting a second life with a noble cause. Outfitted with toilets and showers, Lava Mae‘s refurbished bus will bring mobile bathrooms to homeless people around the city. The long-awaited bus will make its first rounds this weekend. Homelessness in San Francisco is famously (and infamously) a growing…

These Bamboo Micro-Homes Would Turn Abandoned Buildings Into Villages

As China designs a roadmap to bring 100 million rural citizens into cities over the next five years, it and other booming east Asian countries will confront a problem that’s been around since the 1980s: The massive housing shortage and the illegal dwellings that result. Two architects think they’ve found a temporary solution in bamboo.…

The Teeny, Tiny Microhouse Revolution That’s Giving the Homeless Homes

When most of us hear the term “microhouse,” we think of the chic, wedge-shaped homes that have colonized the world’s wealthiest cities. But in a number of U.S. cities, microhouses are being used to house a different demographic—the very poor. 144 square feet is the size of the average McMansion master bathroom. However, for residents…

Where Homelessness Is Getting Worse (It’s Not the Places You’d Think)

Overall, homelessness seems to be on the decline in the U.S. Since 2007, the rate of homelessness for all Americans declined nine percent; however, for about half of the states in the country, homelessness is still getting worse. ThinkProgress compared datasets from the Department of Housing and Urban Development in 2008 and 2013 to see…

Miami’s starchitect magnet, “Super Zips” for the rich, the real story behind our city-dwelling squirrels, and why Americans are driving less. Plus, a chilling portrait of homelessness in gentrified New York City—all in today’s urban reads. Once an urban punchline, Miami has become a hotbed for luxury, culture and dozens of starchitect-helmed projects dotting the…

Homeless People Use Facebook Just Like You and Me

The Atlantic is reporting some pretty fascinating findings from a study on Internet usage patterns in homeless vs. non-homeless youth out of the University of Alabama. Apparently, for 75% of the youth surveyed, not even homelessness if a big enough impediment to getting at least an hour a day of Facebook or Twitter time. Rosanna…

This Kid Spent Two Months Secretly Living in AOL’s Offices

It turns out there is at least one person who likes AOL—enough to even eat, sleep, shower, and live out of their Palo Alto HQ like some sort of Silicon Valley hobo for months. Meet Eric Simons. Eric was a crappy high school student with bad grades. Eric turned this failure into an idea for…

At SXSW 2012, wireless hotspots are people

Seriously, the Soylent Green references are almost irresistible. A marketing group called Bartle Bogle Hegarty (BBH) has come up with a really bizarre solution to the lack of wifi access at South by Southwest 2012: Turn homeless people into 4G wireless hotspots. Top image via A Hardly Normal View. As Jon Mitchell explains over at…

Farscape And Battlestar Galactica Speak To The Experiences Of Homelessness

Both Farscape and Battlestar Galactica are narratives about homelessness, writes a woman who survived life on the streets, in the newest issue of Homeless Tales. But she finds Farscape both grittier and more inspirational. Battlestar Galactica, writes MetisRebel, is about a group of people who’ve lost their homes and are cut off from everything: Battlestar…

Robot Shopping Cart Cruises Streets, Bursts into Flames

Why the hell is a dismembered pair of legs walking around willy nilly with a shopping cart? I’ll tell you why…To draw awareness to homeless people, and the cutthroat world of cart-pushing. It was designed in 1993 by a college student who thought the concept of using robots for hazardous jobs could be applied to…