Google Offers Free Phone Services to the Homeless

The Mountain View-based company is pulling a stunt I'm really not getting. Google's Grand Central's senior product manager of voice products, Craig Walker, has just announced that his company will offer free phone numbers and voicemail accounts to people that don't have a home. So far, he claims, 4,000 such numbers and accounts have already been distributed in San Francisco, as a part of the Mayor Gavin Newsom's Project Homeless Connect.

The project was set to end chronic homelessness. "A problem considered to be the 'third-rail' of San Francisco politics, homelessness was deemed unsolvable by many local politicians. But by implementing a model that emphasizes housing and services first, 6,288 homeless individuals have left the streets, 4,392 of which have been placed in permanent supportive housing and 2,443 individuals which have been reunited with family or friends. In addition, Mayor Newsom's volunteer program, Project Homeless Connect, has gathered an incredible 22,000 San Franciscans to volunteer their time to assist the homeless - connecting them with medical attention, federal benefits, and a host of critical services," the official statement on the matter issued by sfgov.org.

While not being able to find a better description of exactly how the free phone services were offered to the homeless, and not being unsympathetic, the only viable answer is that they were included in the "critical services" mentioned above. Nevertheless, just how were they put to use exactly? Other than being given to the organizations for easier communication, I can't find something else. A whole lot of numbers to be awarded only to the charities, though.

Somebody ventured a guess on the matter and he told me that perhaps the services were offered to the people directly, to be able to talk to one another from payphones. He was trying to be funny and couldn't get it right, but, nevertheless, it is one variant.