<story><title>San Francisco library turning off WiFi at night to keep homeless from using it</title><url>https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/14/23760787/san-francisco-public-library-wifi-homeless-castro-district-8</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>damnesian</author><text>&amp;gt;Neighbors of the library collaborated with the city to urge the library to turn off its Wi-Fi at night in hopes the Castro neighborhood’s unhoused population would move on.&lt;p&gt;Theoretically, wifi access could &lt;i&gt;help&lt;/i&gt; people move on by giving them the network access even old tech could use to look for jobs, living situations, long-lost relatives, access e-counseling and telehealth visits, etc.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s not the only thing the haves have taken from the have-nots to get them to move on. Bottle and can deposits used to be a much bigger deal in the US. It served its purpose of retrieving bottling materials for reuse to save costs and removing them from the landscape. But some noticed it gave the homeless a little spending cash too. The people in my otherwise fairly liberal city voted in the 90s to remove the local deposits from cans and bottles in order to force the homeless to move on.&lt;p&gt;Fast forward to 2023. The homeless did not move on. They stayed and are begging more intensely. Many &amp;quot;prominent&amp;quot; homeless (a guy I know just as the Cowboy for his begging flair, for instance) are still here 30 years later.</text></comment>
<story><title>San Francisco library turning off WiFi at night to keep homeless from using it</title><url>https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/14/23760787/san-francisco-public-library-wifi-homeless-castro-district-8</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>bastard_op</author><text>City of Santa Monica was having to do the same thing to keep homeless from piling up around the library for Internet access.  The Library became the hub for all homeless in the region for the wifi alone.  Seeing as they run a data center in the basement I had to access working there, it was always an adventure to visit.</text></comment>