Providing Internet for Seattle homeless makes financial sense

Taken from Tuesday’s edition of The Jason Rantz Show on KIRO Radio.

A couple weeks ago on this show, Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant came on and wanted to discuss some of the worthwhile budgetary items that the council pushed and passed for 2016. One of the items she mentioned received a lot of attention.

At the time that she made this comment, I knew the second she said it that it was going to be a big news story.

“This $100,000 are meant to help them acquire portable toilets, help them acquire access to power for cell phones, Internet access,” Sawant said.

I asked her to explain her position because, obviously, people are going to jump on this notion of spending money on Internet for homeless and they’re not going to be happy.

“From the time you wake up to the time you go to bed, how much the Internet and having access to it is part of your life and how deeply your quality of life would be impacted if – just imagine that day you didn’t have Internet access at all. You wouldn’t be able to communicate with a lot of people. You wouldn’t be able to know what was going on and in fact, it impacts peoples’ ability to look for jobs, look for shelter, look for basic services. It’s your lifeline.”

I actually agree and think this is a worthwhile investment in the long-term. I understand that, on paper, the concept of this is incredibly controversial.

But GeekWire went out to Tent City 3 and spoke to some of the homeless people living there about the prospect of getting WiFi from the City Council. They said things like:

“Having free WiFi will enable so many people to get on the Internet, to look for employment, to get in touch with any type of housing.”

“Most of the jobs these days, they do everything online, like applications, all that.”

“It will bring smiles to peoples’ faces whether they’re just doing something like getting in touch with their family on Facebook or watching a cool video on YouTube – just to lift their spirits. Everybody needs that.”

Our goal in this city should be to help get people off the streets of Seattle. It should be our goal because we have hearts. It should also be our goal because we have bank accounts that will be drained of taxes that will eventually go to help the homeless people. So you have two reasons to get involved, the moral obligation and the smart financial move, because you’re ultimately paying for people who are living on the streets, especially when they go into tent cities. Our goal should be to help the homeless get a job and live on their own.

The question is: How do we do that? I’d argue that giving the homeless WiFi, spending the very, very small amount that we’re going to spend in the city of Seattle is a big part of the big picture attack on this problem. I totally agree with Kshama Sawant on this.

If we’re able to give access to people who are homeless, access to Internet sites that allow them to apply for jobs, to submit their resumes, to find out about job training programs, to be able to learn how to interview, to learn how to put together that resume in the first place, that is helpful to them. That is getting them one step closer to getting a job. It also gives them unfettered 24/7 access to that information.

A lot of people say, ‘Can’t they go to the library?’ Well, a library isn’t open all night. Also, during the day I would rather they spend some time going to jobs and trying to get jobs via interviews.

Will some people abuse it and look at pornography? Sure. Will some people abuse it and just go to Funny or Die and watch videos all day? Sure. But if we can help one person, two people or a family on such a small investment, over the long-term it makes better financial sense.

Taken from Tuesday’s edition of The Jason Rantz Show on KIRO Radio.

JS