[ 4] Le Dantec, C. A., and W. K. Edwards. “Designs on Dignity: Perceptions of Technology Among the Homeless.” In CHI ‘08: Proceeding of the Twenty-Sixth Annual SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 627–636. Florence, Italy: April 5–10, 2008.

September + October 2008

interactions

are reproduced here). I gained visual access to areas of their lives that would have been otherwise difficult to experience, which provided me with a more detailed context for conducting the interviews.

The findings from the interviews highlight a number of areas where technology impacts the lives of the homeless (more detail can be found in a paper presented this past spring at CHI’08 [ 4]). One specific combination of factors demonstrates the importance of technology in the lives of the homeless: maintaining social and familial connections, managing the presentation of self, and the role that mobile phones play in both.

There are several aspects of homelessness that are disempowering, though chief among them is losing contact with an intimate support group like close friends and family, as it exacerbates the emotional stress of being evicted, the strain of living on the street, and the depression that can accompany addiction. Even if family members are unable to provide housing or financial help, the emotional support received from “staying in touch” is important to people who find themselves in vulnerable situations with a dearth of options.

The desire to stay in touch was repeated throughout the interviews I conducted. One 47-year- old man talked about the risk of becoming disconnected: “It’s one thing being homeless but it’s another thing… disappear[ing] from the face of the earth. And that’s the biggest danger for homeless people. That’s the hardest thing to manage, is when you get discon-

nected.” Managing personal connections is complicated for the homeless, as public phones are less common and communication is presumed to occur via personal devices; where once a few coins enabled a phone call, comparatively expensive service plans and handsets have taken their place. Moreover, mobile phones were often the only stable connection they had to their pre-homeless lives—one of the women had a friend who continued to pay her mobile phone bill because, “that’s the only way [my son] had to get in touch with me.”

For others, access to a mobile phone and the Internet meant the difference between finding employment or continuing their dependence on social services: “I always say [one] thing that’s very important for a homeless person, a cell phone, because if you have voicemail they want to call you for a job—they ain’t got time to leave you no message. By the time you contact them back, they say it went for someone else.” Another seasoned homeless man in the study noted that in order to find work, a mobile phone was becoming as important as a physical address. “See that’s the thing, it’s not just an address. You need that too, but I known guys out on the street who got jobs because they got a [mobile] phone.”

For these reasons, the mobile phone appears to be a reasonable platform for technology interventions to aid the homeless. Given the story so far, it is easy to imagine a mobile phone designed for homeless individuals, perhaps distributed through local care organizations and connected to information services

about housing, jobs, and health care. It might have a more rugged body and an extended battery life. All of these features are reasonable. However, once such a phone became identifiable as a “homeless person’s phone,” the socially critical role the mobile phone plays for the homeless would be undermined.

In addition to staying connected to the broader world, the need to manage identity—and specifically, the stigma of being homeless—was an overwhelming concern that came through during the interviews. This need was reflected in interactions with the public at large as well as with friends and family. As a specific example, in describing the difficulties of dealing with the new electronic ticketing on public transportation, one participant related a confrontation he had with a bus driver: “You know I had conflicts with the bus driver [because the fare-card reader] say there ain’t no money on your card and I know my card got money on it… the machine is not working right, and they look at us like your card not working or something. And you know if we get angry that ain’t gonna help us at all… I liked it the old way… you could ride a train or bus no problem.” In relating the tale, he understood that his ability to negotiate a solution with a bus driver was compromised by his appearance. Not only was his use of transportation disrupted, but he also had to endure public humiliation and admonishment as the bus driver asked him to exit the bus.

The need to manage identity also arose with friends and family; one man who had only recently become homeless