Posted: 02nd Nov, 2005 By: MarkJ
The office of the deputy PM, John Prescott, has moved to encourage homeless hostels and community centres in deprived areas to install broadband. Surprisingly many homeless people already use the Internet to look for work and accommodation:
The idea is set out in a report by the ODPM's social exclusion unit, which wants to encourage hostel managers to spend more cash on providing internet access.
An ODPM spokesman said having an e-mail address could be the first step to finding a permanent place to live.
"It gives them a permanent address, where if they are moving between hostels details are being sent to them about longer-term places." ODPM minister Jim Fitzpatrick said such a move would also help bridge the UK's "digital divide".To be fair, anybody able to access the Internet could easily get a free e-mail address (e.g. Hotmail). It's also unclear whether the government would fund the broadband; certainly Hostels probably couldn't do so on their own. More @
BBC News Online.