Startup aims to create mobile showers for homeless

Startup aims to create mobile showers for homeless(sfexaminer.com)

24 points by nose 13 years ago | 18 comments

epo 13 years ago |

A worthy endeavour but doesn't this render the term "startup" so generic as to be meaningless? This is a new charity at best, it is not a business. So in what sense is it a startup? Unless you label every new organisation a startup, in which case you have rendered the term meaningless as it simply means something which didn't previously exist and so presumably calling something which existed last week a startup is by definition incorrect.

oakaz 13 years ago |

San Francisco also needs public restrooms ASAP. Bart station entrances in downtown and Mission District heavily smell pie most of the time. Especially yesterday evening, I felt really sick when I was entering the Bart in 16th Mission.

gyardley 13 years ago | |

San Francisco has placed quite a few public restrooms on city streets in the past - I believe as part of a partnership with an outdoor advertising company. For the most part, they became disgusting centers for drug use and prostitution. I didn't know they'd closed, but I'm not surprised they did.

Until San Francisco is willing to aggressively crack down on illegal behavior, which it's not, it can't have nice public facilities, for homeless people or otherwise. This includes things like the entrepreneur's well-intentioned mobile showers - criminals will destroy them, too.

nkzednan 13 years ago | | |

In Seattle, they put in public restrooms but then had to take them out a few years later for similar reasons as why the ones in SF closed as they were being used for other things. For more info: http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/High-tech-public-toil...

justinhj 13 years ago | | |

There are ways to mitigate these issues, not sure if SF has tried. Canada has some timed doors that open after 5 minutes, and there is lighting that prevents intravenous drug use.

coldcode 13 years ago |

I spend too much time on HN, I read this as "create mobile browsers for homeless" which clearly makes no sense.

ezraroi 13 years ago |

Nice idea, good to know that there are people that are still trying to fix the world

kimlelly 13 years ago |

It's really nice when people want to do good. They deserve our full respect.

Having said that, we, as a society, need to understand that we must correct the sick systems we've built and have come to accept as "the new normal".

In other words: Homeless people don't need showers. They need to receive a system which prevents them from ending up as homeless people. Homeless people are homeless because we, as a society, have accepted that we create homeless people. Other countries have successfully avoided this (take a very close look at how Switzerland works), why can't we?

To correct that, we need a social security net:

- Mental health care for everybody who needs it

- Sound financial aid for the unemployed

- Put minimum wage above slavery levels: $20/hr AT LEAST

primitur 13 years ago | |

> Homeless people don't need showers.

Homeless people DO need showers! Been there? Done that?

One sure-fire way to not get a job (and thus get yourself and your family off the street): show up stinking of whatever slept on you last night, under some bridge or cardboard or .. whatever.

Homeless people DO NEED SHOWERS. Showers and self-hygiene during conditions of regular duress are a sure-fire way to feel better about the day, get prepared for the challenges, face the sunshine and Do Something About It.

Government organized "Mental Health Care", in case you weren't paying attention, is exactly how this mess got started, In The First Place. So: Nope to that. Deny the currently-in-power insanity profiteers their budget!

Minimum Wage: TOTALLY! Absolutely with you on this one, buddy! Give someone a way to have a daily shower and a regular job to go to that can pay for a weeks worth of living expenses, and you've got a winning formula .. But thats always the problem when you are "A do-nothin' Bum": One mans Living expenses are another mans pocket-change ..

mseebach 13 years ago | | |

A higher minimum wage doesn't "give" anyone a decent job, it just outlaws a bunch of non-decent jobs in the hope that employers need those jobs done enough to raise the wage on them. It's obvious that that will be the case for some minimum wage jobs, but it's equally obvious that it won't be the case for others.

So with the drive for higher minimum wage comes the implicit value judgment that having no job is better than having a low paying job.

BjoernKW 13 years ago | |

It's not that easy. Germany's social security system for instance provides all of that yet still there are homeless people in Germany. Probably on average not as many as in San Francisco but still noticeable.

I'm no expert on that matter but I suppose the causes of becoming homeless are too diverse for the problem to be solved easily and not all of these causes can be attributed to society. Debt, drug addiction, mental health issues to name but a few.

onli 13 years ago | | |

Germanys social security system is effectively flawed, as it can decide to give people no money at all and thereby produces homeless people. Even without drugs and big debts and mental health issues, if you lose your job and got bad luck with the person working on your case, it is way too easy to become homeless. Even in Germany.

kimlelly 13 years ago | | |

All of these other variables you mention can be prevented by having a good mental health.

In a lot of places in Europe, people CAN get a therapy with a shrink (b/c or when it's covered by insurance), but they won't because of retarded cultural stigma.

In the US, it's pretty much the opposite situation.

mseebach 13 years ago | |

> above slavery levels

Can we rise above punchlines, please? Slavery was not defined by low salaries, it was define by getting caned or worse if you tried to quit.

The most comfortable $100k/yr job in the world is still slavery if you can't choose to quit.

coolsunglasses 13 years ago | |

>- Put minimum wage above slavery levels: $20/hr AT LEAST

And put a bunch of people out of work, exclusively lower and lower-middle class folk.

Minimum wage is one of the worst and most counter-productive mechanisms for social welfare. Citizen's salary is better as it doesn't create adverse employment incentives and ensures basic survival/shelter/etc for all without agency or commodity-trade problems.

Empowers the worker class to negotiate knowing their rent is paid regardless too. Not to mention the labor mobility and liquidity it could induce.

If you're going to advocate for social services, you should at least know which programs are known to perform poorly. (There are tons of economic/socio-political reports on this stuff all over the internet. If you care - read.)

Cf. Rent control

kimlelly 13 years ago | | |

> And put a bunch of people out of work

You can always create more jobs by lowering the salary/job.

And this is by the way what has been happening: minimum wage was not even adjusted for inflation, which means it was effectively lowered.

But obviously the people who depend on minimum wage have no clue about how the economy works because they never had access to a good education, which is why they won't speak up, which is why so many rich folks advertize lies like "don't get an education, you can get rich by dropping out of college, just like Zuckerberg".

Now the question is: How often does a society really want to lower minimum wage (in order to boost the number of jobs created)?

The lower you go, the more problems you see "in the streets".

dror82 13 years ago |

You are right, but yet, this is a nice start to fix the current situation.

kimlelly 13 years ago | |

Absolutely, the "band-aid"/short term help IS needed and the people behind it should get support.

As to why we still haven't eliminated the tragedy/ies at the root:

-> A few rich people control the media

-> control our vision of our nation's priorities (financially profitable wars VS taking care of our own brothers and sisters)

-> control of our votes

-> control of our nation's policies

-> REPEAT CYCLE