A Bad Idea for ‘Fixing’ Homelessness That Just Won’t Go Away

Tech elites want to build an ‘Uber for shelter.’ The problem is so much more complex than that.

The collage seen here was displayed prominently in the workspace of Hack to End Homelessness and is made up of portraits of both the housed and unhoused together, an intentional choice by Rex Hohlbein of Facing Homelessness. Photo courtesy of author.

Since I started working at the intersection of technology and social issues in 2013, I have learned there is one idea people simply cannot let go of: The notion that homelessness can be fixed with an app.

Call it “Uber for shelter.” It’s always some variation on this theme: an app that will show you, in real time, where shelters are located around the city and how many beds are available. Match homeless people to beds and — voila! — problem solved. Instead of seeing them on the streets and feeling bad, we can pull the phone out and tell people where to go to get help.

This idea is so seductive to those in power that even Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan fell for it, recently telling GovTech magazine that such an app could solve a persistent problem for the City of Seattle’s “navigation team.” The city could build an app “so that every social service provider could look on the phone and say, ‘look, this shelter has five spots. You can go there,’” said Durkan.

A number of things about this are problematic:

It is not an information flow problem. The resources are…