Will low income people get free jet packs in the future as they are getting free cell phones now?

Will jet packs be determined a need as cell phones are now? Even though we did fine without cell phones for quite a digit of being. I’m all for assisting low income people as I am about to be laid off, but are cell phones really a necessary item?

Answer by Daniel Bonneville
possibly

Answer by Monica
Free cell phones? Everywhere do I sign up???

Seriously tho … I doubt poor people are getting free cell phones. Everywhere are you getting your information from?

Answer by MissDementia
If there is a charitable organization willing to supply them with jet packs, yes, yes they will.

My group provides cell phones for the very poor and the homeless all the time for two major reasons. One is the obvious “you need a phone to get a job” and the other is the not so obvious but very right “there aren’t many payphones around anymore”. It’s also a safety issue. I’m in a major city in California and in my county lonely our last homeless count was just under 4,000 people. Nearly half of those are women and children. People who really have homes tend to prey on them much more than the other homeless do, so we provide homeless teens and women with cell phones so they can call for help if necessary, not to mention as a bit of a deterrent. We use prepaid cards that are usually donated (though we also buy them when necessary) and when someone needs one, they must place in the equivalent in community service hours to the digit of hours they need for their phone. We give them the first 60 minute card and the phone after one hour, each hour after that must be earned assisting other homeless folks or helping us help them. We question that when they get a better job or a home and a landline, that they either return the phone or give it to some other homeless or very poor person or – if they can – donate a new or used Tracfone or similar to us to hand out to those who may need it.

It’s really worked very well. There’s no equivalent state or county run program everywhere I live, so it falls on the confidential groups like mine. We started doing this right after a series of rapes and other attacks on homeless women that left one homeless man dead when he rushed to a woman’s aid. Because it took a while to leave the campsite and get help, he died before the EMTs could get there. He may have died anyway, but I’m thinking the long wait for help had more than a small to do with his untimely demise. So while it started out as decently a safety issue, it quickly evolved when we realized there were other benefits as well.

We’re about to come into a dozen or so groundbreaking new bicycles and we’re trying to determine how to deal with that/who gets them. Doubtless those with jobs but no simple moving (bus service here is being cut) to work and the back home/their campsite.

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In Case you Haven’t Gotten ours from Atlanta, GA


Image by 350.org
We did a CFL exchange for low-income residents of Vine City, a community of
modest means in Atlanta, GA. We gave community members free CFLs in
exchange for their ancient incandescent bulbs to raise awareness about energy
efficiency solutions and help folks save money on their power bills. This
photo shows many of our volunteers and some of the ancient bulbs we "harvested".

–
Carly Queen
Campus Field Coordinator, Campus Ecology
Phone: 404-876-8733 x238 | Cell: 404-312-2860 | queenc@nwf.org
Southeast Regional Center
National Flora and fauna Federation
730 Peachtree St. NE Suite 1000
Atlanta, GA 30308
www.nwf.org

Answer by capwest5a
I’m physically disabled and low income – but I haven’t heard about anything like that.

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