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Livet blandt hjemløse bloggere
Wired har en lang artikel om livet blandt hjemløse bloggere - hjem-, arbejds- og indkomstløse mennesker, der ofte er i stand til at opretholde en betydelig kontakt til det, vi alt for let kunne komme til at kalde den "rigtige" verden, via Internet.
F.eks. læser vi om Terri Hellerich, der blev hjemløs efter en diskussion med sin husvært i West Sacramento:
Hellerich slept on benches but she frequented a women's shelter with a cluster of internet-connected computers used mostly by the children who arrived at the safe house with their mothers. She started blogging and conducting a business. As an independent internet marketer, she was able to maintain bank accounts, nurse existing client connections and forge new business relationships. The business brought in only about $100 a month, but that was enough to help get her life back on track.Og så er der Happy Ivy, der bor i en ramponeret bus, men var én af de første til at lave 24-timers Internet-TV:
Hellerich now rents a room in Northern California, and she's bought an old computer and broadened her online presence with MySpace and Flickr pages. But she lives in fear that at any point, circumstances could throw her back into the urban wilderness.
Happy Ivy doesn't have a bathroom or a kitchen in the bus he calls home. He does, however, have a video-editing station.En anden bloggende hjemløs er Kevin Barbieux, hvis blog The Homeless Guy er en af de mest populære "hjemløseblogs". Her kan man bl.a. læse om grunden til, at så mange hjemløse har et utal af domme for "gadeuorden" og den slags bag sig:
Living in a squalid, Woodstock-style bus parked in a Fillmore, California, orange grove, the 53-year-old homeless man charges a power generator from a utility shed and uses Wi-Fi from a nearby access point. From this humble camp, he's managed to run a 'round-the-clock internet television studio, organize grassroots political efforts, record a full-length album and write his autobiography, all while subsisting on oranges and avocados.
(...)
From his bus, he broadcast the 24-hour internet television show About Us Now in the early days of streaming video. Showcasing music concerts on the beach and offering a glimpse of his Bedouin lifestyle, Ivy believes his was the first successful internet television network. Though he doesn't maintain the show anymore, he still works on internet video -- for most of this year, he's following the United Souls of Awareness, a group of homeless artists embarking on a walk across the country.
Panhandling was declared an exercise of free speech by the Supreme Court of the United States and is protected by the First Amendment. Police still arrest homeless people for panhandling but give the charge of disorderly conduct. The laws for which are usually so broadly written that anything can be declared disorderly conduct. If a homeless person pleads guilty to a charge of disorderly conduct, he can usually get out of trouble pretty quickly. But if he were to fight the charge, he'd be forced to spend more time in jail just waiting for his chance to fight the charge. Of course a judge would have to throw out such a charge if he ever saw one, but homeless people just want to get back to the streets. They have no ambition to fight for their rights. Because of such minor and frivolous charges many homeless people have extensive rap-sheets - a big deterrent in them ever getting a decent job.For de, der har styrken til det, kan internettet måske repræsentere en vej ud af hjemløsheden såvel som en ny måde at leve med den på, for de mennesker, der er så ulykkelige - eller, som Happy Ivy ser det, netop så lykkelige - at stå i denne situation.
Via Boing Boing.
Link til artiklen i Wired News.
Link til Happy Ivy's aboutusnow.com, og til hans Happy Book.
Links til Willie York, The Wandering Scribe, The Homeless Guy - eksempler på anbefalesværdige hjemløseblogs.