Homeless Hotspots are the squeegee men of the information superhighway. Equipped with MiFi, mobile Wi-Fi hotspots, they offered internet access to attendees of South by Southwest (SXSW) for a suggested donation of $2. It was the brain child of Bartle Bogle Hegarty (BBH) Labs, which has been criticized for exploiting the homeless.
BBH has no immediate plans to continue the program but insists it’s not been canceled as widely reported. “It was always intended as a 4 day program,” wrote BBH on their website. “In fact, as the debate heated, it was the homeless volunteers themselves who insisted on seeing through the last day as an opportunity to share their side of the story.”
54-year-old Clarence Jones was eager to participate in the program. “We had an opportunity to be entrepreneurs for ourselves and sell our own product,” said Jones. “It made me feel that I was selling Clarence.”
To donate or find out more about Homeless Hotspots visit:
http://homelesshotspots.org
