A San Francisco library is turning off Wi-Fi at night to keep people without housing from using it

I’ve been to places that had free municipal wifi, mostly at libraries and bus stops. It seems like a small service that is generally helpful to people without access to their own wifi. I think the better solution is to have more places with free wifi at night so people don’t have to congregate in the one small area.

There aren’t many places the unhoused are allowed to exist in public and cutting them off from essential services only makes it harder for them to better their situation.

Publicly funded but not for the public.

And before anyone makes a comment about the unhoused probably not paying taxes ... neither do any of the children or retirees who use the service every single day of the year.

We've pretty much just abandoned any concept of citizenship or civic responsibility...

absolutely no reason to do this other than to make the lives of people without housing harder.

Seems like the white thing to do

This article has a great deep dive on how we have so few "free" or community-sourced places in the US that they often get used as a catch-all for any and all social problems we have. See: libraries as homeless shelters. From the article:

What’s happened is we’ve stigmatized our public spaces, because we’ve done so little to address core problems that we’ve turned them into spaces of last resort for people who need a hand. And as we do that, we send another message to affluent, middle-class Americans, and that is: If you want a gathering place, build your own in the private sector. So we have a lot of work to do.

There are so many problems with this.

Far too many homeless people, there is so much wealth in this nation, there is no reason we cannot provide ample shelter. This probably is going to continue to become worse with the disproportionate wealth distribution and the continual increase in use or automation and AI.

Additionally, we should have broader access to wifi, specifically for those who are homeless and need access to online resources, so they can eventually no longer be homeless. Seems like a great federal program opportunity, if we actually want people to be able to recover from being homeless. No one is going to become homeless or stay homeless because of the badass government subsidized wifi.

This seems incredibly self perpetuating on the cities behalf. It's like making places uncomfortable to sleep upon... Why not invest that money into someplace people can goto sleep and get the assistance they need to exist in society.

nothing drives me more insane than artificial restrictions placed on digital technology that could otherwise be infinitely helpful

What crime is being committed while unhoused folks are online? Cybercrime? Are they pretending to be Nigerian princes?

For all those times I was going to commit a crime, but the WiFi was out.

Sounds like a great place to take a piss

I just want to say Mission Local is pretty freakin cool for being one of the last remaining newspapers that does their own independent journalism.

this is symptomatic of how genuinely subhuman American society at-large treats homeless people, even though it is trivial in American society to become homeless. one wrong bill, one bad week, or one day of being in the wrong place is enough--and yet it is completely accepted that something of that sort happening to you places you into a class unworthy of rights and basic services afforded to others. it's absurd!

Not quite to aggressive architecture levels of dickishness, but still.

Yes, why provide free internet access to check their email and maybe get a reply to their job applications? Better keep them out of work /s

The problem unhoused people face is not nighttime library access it's housing. We all know that the reason they're shutting their wifi off at night is because while for some homeless people this wifi is a lifeline, for some others it's where they get their porn or where they hang out to do drugs and browse the internet. But the fundamental problem remains the same, because they have no where to go home to, whether someone is fapping or connecting with helpful resources, it's all done in public.

I guess the thought process is they wouldn't be as likely to make that area their permanent camp spot if they didn't have wifi access... Maybe....I dunno

Being honest, I kinda get it. Sure your building is for public use but just because its for public use doesn't mean it's a housing complex

Probably too tired of cleaning up human shit from around the library. This is SF we're talking about. There's literally a poop map

Well written piece. Homelessness is a multifaceted issue.

I do know that if you have no cell service, having internet / Wi-Fi is essential to stay in touch with others. More communities should offer free Wi-Fi.

What's the reasoning there? Are people without houses not allowed to use the wifi during the day? Is there something bad that happens if you use the internet without a house at night?

Ironic. Frisco has let a LOT slide in that city

But how are they going to look for jobs at night now?