Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Water, Toilet Paper, Tents

One of the hardest things in the software development world is figuring out what you're supposed to build. Not "how" or "when" or for "who", but "what". There is an entire discipline built around this called Requirements Engineering. One of the core principles is that you need to talk to the stakeholders and figure out what they need. Be willing to listen to your customers.

With that in mind, we received some interesting feedback for helping the homeless this past weekend. On Friday, when we were handing out flyers for the Turkey in the Park event the next day, we also handed out bottled water and granola bars. One guy told us that the two hardest things to come by on the street were bottled water and toilet paper, and somebody else chimed in and agreed about the TP.

Then my friend Sara sent me the following after the Turkey in the Park this past weekend:

I met a couple at Turkey in the Park who desperately needed a tent. So yesterday Myah and I delivered a tent to them that we had in storage for a long time. While I was very nervous about going to "Tent City" in the mission district, we ended up having a nice afternoon setting up the tent and talking to many of the individuals that live there.

While we were there we noticed quite a number of individuals that do not have tents and wondered if this is something that your organization is or can get involved with. The couple that I met, Boyd and Christina, said that they can help us identify the specific individuals that need the tents and that won't sell them off for drugs.

This couple also said that they are part of a grass roots organization to establish a permanent "Tent City". They are working with state legislators and the media to have some land set aside. This might be something that your organization can help advocate.

P.S. I had a good time at Turkey in the Park and your organization is helping me better understand the homeless problems in Sacramento.

Interesting things to throw into our planning: water, toilet paper, tents.

By the way, I'd like to find out more about the grass roots organization working on a tent city. Does anybody here know anything about that?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I heard about TP too. Surprising, but that makes sense. I imagine that many public restrooms do not have TP stocked (and they are not open during the night) and eateries likely don't want homeless people to use their facilities. I haven't heard much about a tent city or really processed through whether something like that is a good idea. Anyone have thoughts?

Anonymous said...

I think a tent city is a good idea. They have one in Portland called dignity park. Although there is many issues that can arise from a tent city it is worth a look.

We should be giving the TP a thought and I had not untill this point it has value where there is none. It the woods they call it mountain money.

Anonymous said...

I have always been looking for tent donations but have not had much luck getting people to donate those but will keep it in my thoughts and will be thinking how we can be helping in this area.

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