Tech Talks: Apps to Help the Homeless

From questions on the streets, what apps are there to help connect the homeless community to social service resources? This week we touch on the impact of easily consumable technology on transient and ever changing communities, and what apps are helpful for those living in low income and homeless situations.

We found that the app market is geared more towards creating pathways for those who want to give to the homeless or track the homeless, rather than those in need themselves. The apps that we did find had features for those who are not homeless and want to help, creating a multi purpose interface.

With such variation in the resources available and the need from a national level down to a local level, big cities such as New York and Chicago have a wider variety and dependability on their local oriented apps run by nonprofit organizations. Denver and Boulder are limited more to the national level resource apps, which themselves began as local apps that garnered enough support and need to build a larger database. The apps we mention in the show are as follows. OurCalling, a national level database for resources both long and short term for those in the homeless community is a faith based organization that recently expanded from a Dallas base to a national platform. Denver Homeless Assistance is an android only app that is a local database of homeless resources in the Denver Metro area.

Ever wondered if there’s an app for that? Send us your tech questions in an email to [email protected], with Tech Talks in the subject line, and listen in on Fridays at 8:25 AM for the answers!

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