‘People want to know they have impacted someone’s life’: the startups using tech to tackle homelessness

A growing number of enterprises are harnessing tech to help those on the streets

Varun Bhanot, left, the founder of Unhoused.org, gives a donation to a volunteer at the Spitalfields Crypt Trust (Courtesy Photo)

Varun Bhanot had been working at Hubble, a startup that helps businesses find office space, for four years when he decided to start his own venture selling clothes for the homeless.

It had been a good year for Bhanot. He had asked his long-term girlfriend to marry him in an elaborate proposal involving a helicopter and a crop circle, and she had said yes. The couple felt lucky that their lives had turned out so well and wanted to do something to help others less fortunate.

Anisha Seth, Bhanot’s fiancee, had been involved in diversity initiatives at EY, where she worked as a tax advisor, and volunteered outside work. In October, after almost a year of planning, they launched Unhoused.org, an online retailer where for every item bought, another is donated someone without a home.

“People sometimes suffer from fatigue, where there are so many opportunities to give but you never see where it ends up going and how it helps people,” Bhanot says. “So we thought why don’t we build this transparent process where you can follow your donation to the end.”

Homelessness in the UK has increased every year since 2012 to hit a record high in 2017, with 170,000 people suffering destitution, according to the charity Crisis. Cuts to mental health and addiction services, alongside the rollout of universal credit and the housing shortage have created a crisis which has contributed to 12,300 rough sleepers – double the amount in 2012.

Yet many homeless people find that passersby have no change to give as the use of cash decreases. More than 250 free cash machines are disappearing a month, according to the network co-ordinator Link, while cash transactions are expected to drop from 40 per cent in 2018 to as low as 21 per cent in 2026.

A growing number of enterprises are emerging, harnessing contactless and other technologies to fill in the gaps. In London, the mayor has supported TAP payment points around the city where people can make a small donation of £3 which is distribute to a coalition of charities.

Other enterprises, like Unhoused.org, are founded on the notion that people want to see what happens to money they donate. Bhanot and Seth have been hand-delivering donated socks, vest and hoodies to three charity partners in east London and posting photos of the handover on their Instagram and Twitter feeds.

So far Unhoused.org, which is a not-for-profit, has donated everything from hoodies, packs of unisex socks and smart white shirts that can be used for job interviews. Givers who don’t want to buy one of the items listed on the website can still donate, Bhanot says: “Customers can order haircuts, Christmas jumpers, and Starbucks coffees.”

He adds: “Luckily our partners have been really honest and they recognised that people want that feedback loop, people want to feel good and know they have impacted someone’s lives.”

In August, a social innovation project in partnership with Oxford University called Greater Change introduced a QR code, similar to the codes issued for online tickets, for homeless people to accept contactless payments.

Givers with no change can swipe the code using their phones to make an online payment that goes into an account managed by a local charity, where someone works with the homeless person on achieving their goals.

Greater Change also offers givers a window into the lives of the people they are trying to support. Scanning the QR code brings up the story of the person in need, including their goals and why they ended up on the streets.

Beam, a crowdfunding platform for the homeless launched in 2017, works on the principle that donations are more powerful when they are put together towards training and employment, helping someone off the streets for good. Founder Alex Stephany said his model stops homeless people from becoming an object of pity by offering givers the change to invest in someone’s future.

“The beauty of the model is we are able to raise funds to spend on employment training or barriers like childcare for a single mum, or a hard hat for someone who wants to get into construction,” Stephany says. “As people donate it sends a message to the members that people care and they want them to succeed. It’s new financial capital, but also new social networks with people.”

Some say the use of this kind of tech humanises the homeless. But little research has been done into whether all those in precarious living situations want to share their stories, or whether those who give want to know more.

“I so rarely hear the voice of homeless people. We hear from the corporate voice,” Marloes Nicholls, head of programmes at the Finance Innovation Lab, which supports entrepreneurs, told Wired in August. Often, ventures to help the homeless are started by people far removed from the situation, who may be looking to assuage guilt on the part of the giver rather than addressing the original need.

By Christmas 2018, Unhoused.org was approaching 1,500 orders. So far, Bhanot and Seth have delivered every order by hand. “It’s really humbling,” Bhanot says. “To be honest it can be scary, you don’t know how people will receive it. Some people aren’t so open to taking things as others are. But when we said this was just one batch and there’s more, people were really happy.”

Unhoused.org currently works with three local charities including Sewa UK, an organisation supporting the Hindu tradition of giving. Bali Bhalla, the secretary of Sewa Week, says they were delighted to work with Unhoused.org.

“We always hear of cool technology businesses in the news, but the problem is that charities tend to be the last to benefit from these innovations,” he says. “It’s these kinds of fresh business ideas that will probably end up shaping our future.”