Signal Three: A cashless society with a helping heart
Nathan Caplan
New York City leads the United States in homelessness. 2017 alone had over 120,000 different homeless individuals sleeping in shelters1. This doesn’t include those who choose the streets as their make-shift home. With no job, deliriousness from lack of food, drink, and sleep, a common way to make money is the peddle for loose change. In this day in age, there are very few with loose change.
N=5, a Dutch company, is hoping to help homeless people in this cashless era. They invented a jacket, called a Helping Heart, that provides warmth to homeless men, women, and children. But that’s not all. It also has a contactless payment spot where individuals may tap their credit cards to and they donate, a maximum, one dollar. Homeless individuals may redeem this money by going to an official homeless shelter, where they can redeem their money to buy food, a place to sleep, a shower, and vocational training courses2.
It would seem that this jacket provides warmth, wealth, healthy habits, community, and job training for the homeless population. Seems like something that should be brought to NYC to improve the lives and potentially begin to reduce the homeless population.
1) http://www.coalitionforthehomeless.org/basic-facts-about-homelessness-new-york-city/
