back to article App for homeless says walking on water is the way to reach services

An app for homeless people hailed by Australian prime minster Malcolm Turnbull as an example of technology done right asks users to walk across several hundred kilometres of water to find services. Turnbull launched the "AskIzzy" app last week and in his remarks at the event said it "... is doing exactly what successful …

  1. Phil Kingston

    Would have been a better "outstanding example" if one of the many government bodies had seen fit to fund this. Although the end result may still have suffered from the same quality issues, there's a bit of me would like to think that a government body funding such an app may have had a bit more of a clue about where government resources are.

    1. ecofeco Silver badge

      Despite the mouth frothing rhetoric and anecdotes to the contrary, getting any kind of poverty assistance in most western nations (UK, US, Australia) is damn near impossible and fraught with deliberate obscurity and misdirection.

      Deliberate.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        In the UK

        if you're out of work, you can sign on for benefit, online.

        If you're ill you have to do it by phone. You have to ring, go through the menu, wait until you can't wait any longer, try again later, go through it all again, with a very good chance you'll be doing this all day and never actually get through.

        Some people still don't have a mobile; some people even still have a corded phone, and have to spend all this time in a cold hallway. Though odds are they'll be too ill to see it through.

        At least some of those ill people will be sufficiently strapped for cash they'll be seriously worried, maybe not about where the next meal's coming from, but where the day after tomorrow's is, since it'll take days to get any sickness benefit even when they have managed to claim it, but until they do - well, God knows, because they're too sick to think straight anyway, but the DoE sure isn't helping them get better!

        I mean, the DoE will almost certainly pay them, eventually; it's just it'll make them twice as sick before it does so.

  2. ecofeco Silver badge
    FAIL

    It is just me?

    An app for homeless people.

    First, what's wrong with this picture?

    1. DainB Bronze badge

      Re: It is just me?

      Nothing. Mobile Internet is cheap and readily available for everyone who needs it. Charging mobile phone might still be an issue though.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: It is just me?

        Affording the phone needed to run the app might be another problem too.

        1. Pompous Git Silver badge

          Re: It is just me?

          Affording the phone needed to run the app might be another problem too.

          Maybe they are expected to steal them...

          1. Rich 11

            Re: It is just me?

            Maybe they are expected to steal them...

            That would certainly be one way to gain temporary accommodation, though the meals provided probably aren't that inspiring and the company might be a bit rough around the edges.

        2. DainB Bronze badge

          Re: It is just me?

          For most reason for being homeless it's not a problem of money (Centerlink pays roughly $600 fortnightly and yes, you can rent a room on that money if you want to) but a lifestyle or mental issues.

      2. Oengus

        Re: It is just me?

        Mobile Internet is not cheap when you have no money and are reduced to begging on the streets and taking handouts from charity. Especially if you are not tech savvy and do not know what "services" to turn off to preserve data. You can consume a GB of data very fast and at around $10 per GB it adds up when on a limited budget.

    2. Mark 85

      Re: It is just me?

      There's quite a few (not a lot, I'd say) of homeless here in the US with cheapie phones filled with a card bought at Wally World. Some shelters hand them out at various times. Plus there's wifi hotspots around where they check mail, chat with whoever, etc. Most of the ones I've heard about with them are young and use it to stay in touch with friends and also look for a job. I know of one young lady (23 or so) who used it heavily for job hunting. She's working where I do out in the call center and has turned her life around. For some, it's a good thing. For others, not so much. There's a downside such as the druggies using them to score.

      Having said that.... the app still looks to be crap.

    3. Charles Manning

      Re: It is just me?

      That's the sort of shit you get when you make taking care of people a government program.

      After many years and 1.2-odd trillion dollars, the F35 flies worse than the F16 which was designed in the age of the slide rule.

      No surprises then that a government program that is supposed to help people gives drowns them instead.

      No doubt the suicide prevention app sends people to the Sydney Harbour bridge.

      1. glen waverley

        Re: It is just me?

        "No doubt the suicide prevention app sends people to the Sydney Harbour bridge"

        Shirley the usual jumping-off spot in Sydders is the Gap?

        Unless the OP is emphasing the general crapness of such apps by means of misdirection.

      2. Intractable Potsherd

        Re: It is just me? @Charles Manning

        "... you get when you make taking care of people a government program."

        So, who, in your opinion, are the correct organisations to fund taking care of people? Private business fails, and charity is only as good as the people who contribute.

        To me, it is a basic function of government to ensure that people are cared for when they need it, but I am willing to be educated otherwise.

      3. Pompous Git Silver badge

        Re: It is just me?

        No doubt the suicide prevention app sends people to the Sydney Harbour bridge.

        No need for them to go that far. The bridge across the Derwent in Hobart is a popular place to suicide from. One is not supposed to notice and the newspapers don't publish the figures, but it's several per week apparently.

        One of the more intriguing recommendations from support services was the bloke at Smithton whose wife left him and the kids. The ever so friendly support person suggested that he go to the pub and just get pissed because that's how men cope with distress.

    4. Cuddles

      Re: It is just me?

      "An app for homeless people.

      First, what's wrong with this picture?"

      Absolutely nothing. It's rather sad how many people read "homeless" as "insane beggar ranting on a street corner while swigging from a bottle of vodka". Most homeless are not beggars. For most, being homeless is temporary situation that may only last a few weeks or months. Being unable to afford rent or a mortgage for some time (often for reasons out of their control) does not mean a person's possessions and money are all immediately confiscated, so there's absolutely no reason for them not to already own a phone or be able to afford the very low cost of buying one.

      On top of that, even the poorest, long term homeless have no reason not to own a phone. You can get a cheap phone for £20 or less, and there's free wi-fi pretty much everywhere these days so it's not like they need to be tied into a £30 per month contract. With the importance of communication these days, any homeless person who actually has any plans on finding a job would be absolutely insane not to buy a phone at the earliest opportunity - by far one of the biggest steps in making yourself employable is having a phone number and email address so that potential employers can actually contact you.

      And on top of all that, as someone else pointed out this doesn't actually appear to be an app for homeless people at all, but women subject to domestic abuse, ie. people who probably have a home to go to but who can't use it because some cunt will beat them up if they do. But sure, let's ignore all that in favour of making fun of the silly beggars for wanting access to the most important communication tool in the modern world.

      1. bep

        Re: It is just me?

        Well said. In the modern world, an awful lot of people are only a couple of pay cheques away from homelessness. Many readers may well be in that group if they give the matter some thought.

    5. Brian Miller

      Re: It is just me?

      In Seattle, there's quite a few places where the homeless congregate to charge their phones. I don't know the approximate numbers of those who have a phone, just that a good portion of them do.

      The real question is, was the data accurate? Were there actually local services that were not displayed?

      Or is it an attempt to solve the homeless problem by getting them to swim to Tasmania, where the survivors will be eaten by Tasmanian Devils?

      1. Pompous Git Silver badge

        Re: It is just me?

        The real question is, was the data accurate? Were there actually local services that were not displayed?

        No. Yes.

        There's no public toilets in Devonport? Say it ain't so

        That error's a shocker because one of Australia's earliest online services is the National Toilet Map which shows many facilities within walking distance of the middle of Devonport, and this data is available as an open government data set.

      2. Pompous Git Silver badge

        Re: It is just me?

        Or is it an attempt to solve the homeless problem by getting them to swim to Tasmania, where the survivors will be eaten by Tasmanian Devils?

        Wrong direction. It's an inhabitant of Devonport being advised to swim to the mainland. As to being eaten by Tasmanian devils, he'd need to either walk a very long way into the SW wilderness, or swim to Maria Island. While in the past he would have been able to survive there by eating mutton birds (short-tailed shearwater chicks), the devils transported there to "ensure their survival" have this year eaten every single chick.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Walking on water

    That's about what mobs like Centrelink expect of their customers too. If you can't walk on water, you're clearly too lazy in their eyes.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    maybe the devs drank the jesus phone coolaid ?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      No, the devs swallowed the 500k dollars to avoid to become homeless themselves and have to use the crappy app...

      1. Shady

        No, the devs were contracted from the sub continent, the remaining 490K went in consultancy fees to the TNT (cheers for that on, Dabbsy)

  5. Oengus

    Out of touch

    This just goes to show how out of touch our politicians have become. Only a fool would assume that everyone has a smart phone.

    I am sure there is a subset that have the ability to access this information (people escaping domestic violence) but I wonder if it is really half a million dollars well spent.

    I am sure that a street person has more important things to spend money on than Smart phones and data plans.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Devil

      Re: Out of touch

      You mean not everybody is given a smartphone, a tablet, and a laptop for free - including SIMs and their fees - as it happens to politicians and government people?

      That cannot be true! Everybody I know in my circle of friends, who by mere chance happen to be all politicians and people living around it, are full of free phones, tablets, laptops! It means it happens to everybody!!

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Out of touch

      This just goes to show how out of touch our politicians have become.

      What do you expect when the PM is a bankster fresh from running Goldman Sachs in Australia?

      1. Pompous Git Silver badge

        Re: Out of touch

        What do you expect when the PM is a bankster fresh from running Goldman Sachs in Australia?

        Not to mention barking mad, but then he's no different to the last several we have had the misfortune to be inflicted with...

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Mr Bland, the tech-head, NOT

    Oh Mal, next time you try and look all tech-savy, get your minders to pick something that has a real purpose.

  7. Winkypop Silver badge
    Facepalm

    Smartphones and data plans for the homeless

    Next: Recipe books for the starving?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Smartphones and data plans for the homeless

      There will be also a TV show like Hell's Kitchen, just you'll have to use garbage to cook...

  8. Jungleland

    As Malcolm would say...

    There's never been a more exciting time to be a homeless Australian.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    ummm

    This is not a App for the homeless. from your screenshots, this is an App for homeless women.

    1. Holleritho

      Re: ummm

      The screenshots were by way of examples. Had they been shots of hostels and services for homeless men, I suspect we would not have heard a peep from you.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: ummm

        Well you may of heard from me, But I wouldn't of been stating exactly What I have seen here. could of been something entirely different

        Sorry though, I guess I am a super privileged White man, and can't be homeless. despite the fact I lived on the streets when I was 16. I know exactly how much help you used to get. Looks like it hasn't changed much.

  10. Velv

    Leaving aside the immediately obvious flaws in the plan, perhaps the disturbing thing could be that the App is 100% accurate and that the nearest "help" is indeed hundreds of miles away. A sad reflection on our society and the governments if that is true.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Maybe it's just a ruse to solve the sydney homeless problems by moving everyone out.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Australian compassion and support

    "a country that is known for its [...] compassion, for its love and support for those less fortunate"

    And that compassion, and love and support for those less fortunate is expressed through Operation Sovereign Borders.

  12. JJKing
    Thumb Up

    "Oh Mal, next time you try and look all tech-savy, get your minders to pick something that has a real purpose."

    Totally agree especially if it is something like FTTP as per the original plan.

    1. Pompous Git Silver badge

      Totally agree especially if it is something like FTTP as per the original plan.

      A nice bit of wishful thinking there. The Git is on fixed wireless "as per the original plan". Many of his neighbours not in line of sight are on satellite (if they can afford it) "as per the original plan". The poles with copper on them remain in place "as per the original plan". Homes within spitting distance of the fibre running south of the nearest township are on fixed wireless "as per the original plan". Homes on privately installed fibre at Dover are to be removed from that fibre so they can be on fixed wireless "as per the original plan".

  13. goldcd

    I suspect the 'strange' results

    are simply due to a desire to cut down on "You're screwed" results.

    We can mock the 'silly' results, but does at least mask the depressingly obvious.

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