How Tech Can Make It Excruciatingly Hard to Apply for a Job While Homeless
Reading Time: 5 minutesHow Online Job Applications Exclude Hundreds of Thousands of Americans, Digital divide: Why it’s so hard to apply for a job while homeless—and what would make it better.
Vivien sat in the women’s day room at the Central Arizona Shelter Services, or CASS, Phoenix’s largest homeless shelter. The day room was slowly filling with people hoping to escape the 100-degree heat, and Vivien (which is a pseudonym to protect her privacy) was eager to share her story as she contemplated another day of being unhoused. Before contracting long COVID in early 2022, Vivien, who is 51, worked full time as a truck driver for a local delivery company. But then her acute COVID symptoms transitioned into intractable fatigue and exacerbated an underlying vascular disease, which put her in the hospital for months. While she managed to stay employed part time after her hospitalization, it wasn’t enough to make ends meet when her landlord raised her rent. When we interviewed her last summer, she’d been homeless for three months.
It’s hard to calculate the number of homeless people in the United States. At the end of 2022, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development placed the number around 600,000, with 60 percent living in emergency shelters, safe havens, or transitional housing. HUD counted the remaining 40 percent as unsheltered—living outside or in other places considered unfit for habitation, such as in abandoned buildings or underground.
In 2022, CASS, a private nonprofit agency, served 6,658 clients, 30 percent more than in 2021. Twenty-one percent were homeless for the first time, and 26 percent were 55 or older. Two-thirds were male, one-third female, and 1 percent transgender or nonbinary. Just over half were white, one-third were Black, one-quarter Hispanic, and 1 in 12 Native American. Over half had a disabling condition. One in 5 were fleeing domestic violence.
Vivien, who is Native American and homeless for the first time, came to CASS when she lost her apartment and had nowhere else to go. Working as a truck driver had become too physically stressful for her to continue full time. She wanted to find full-time employment but struggled to apply for jobs without a laptop or reliable Wi-Fi access. (When we interviewed Vivien, CASS had no Wi-Fi, although it has since been installed.) Vivien had limited data on her smartphone and no private place to apply for a job or have a video interview. When she considered her situation, Vivien recalled a previous job-search experience, when she was incarcerated. ‘In prison I could ask someone to help me find work after, I could use computers to find something for when I got out,’ she said. ‘Here, we are just on our own. Any issue I face, any hardship, I have to face it alone.’
Tech permeates every step of the job-search process. And for Vivien and hundreds of thousands of other Americans who are experiencing homelessness, this reliance on tech can close off crucial parts of that process—from searching for open positions to filling out applications and conducting interviews. According to a 2015 study by Pew Research, nearly 80 percent of job seekers used online resources in their most recent job search. Online interviews are on a similar upward trend. A 2020 survey showed 86 percent of professional organizations offered online interviews to job candidates, and a 2021 study showed 60 percent of recruiters planned to continue using video technology to interview candidates even after COVID restrictions were lifted. Virtual hiring practices that may increase accessibility for housed job seekers may, in fact, be an unscalable wall for homeless applicants with limited internet access and no private space for a video call. But luckily, there are solutions: Tech innovations in the private sector, at shelters, and by the government could lower barriers for people experiencing homelessness to gain a foothold in the workforce.
Most homeless shelter clients do have a smartphone, but many don’t have access to the tools that actually make that phone ‘smart,’ like unlimited minutes and data plans. Even in situations with secure and reliable Wi-Fi, emergency homeless shelters frequently lack the private spaces needed to research and apply for work or conduct job interviews.
For shelter clients who do have a smartphone and internet access, digital literacy challenges may still pose a barrier. The most recent national assessment of adult literacy from the U.S. Department of Education estimated that nearly 1 in 5 American adults lack basic functional literacy skills, and up to 40 percent can read and write, but struggle to accomplish higher-level tasks like filling out job applications. The biggest risk factor for low literacy? Poverty. Among shelter clients, the risk of illiteracy skyrockets.
Making the job application process more accessible requires efforts on several fronts. In the early days of the internet, when networks were slower and bandwidth was harder to come by, low-data websites provided essential information without pop-ups, ads, or autoplay videos. But as early cellular networks turned to ever-faster data superhighways, web developers have packed increasingly dense data into their sites to demonstrate their company’s technological prowess. These features can be exclusionary for low-data users (assuming those users have internet access at all). Instead, hiring sites should offer low-data application and communication options for job seekers, like simple SMS messaging and lower-bandwidth videoconferencing. Job-site aggregators like Indeed or LinkedIn could lead efforts to democratize job application processes by adopting changes along these lines for postings on their sites.
Shelters also have a big role in designing for digital integration. When we spoke to her, Vivien sat in the women’s day room at CASS, which serves as the recreation and lounge area within the dormitories. The 20-foot ceilings act as echo chambers where voices, smells, and clear sight lines support maximum visibility for safety. However, designing for maximum visibility does not provide the necessary privacy required for browsing employment opportunities or attending online job interviews or skill-building classes. Some clients seek refuge in a caseworker’s office or waiting room to have video interviews in a quiet space that does not belie their current status as a shelter client. While these ad hoc solutions can serve a handful of people, they cannot accommodate the hundreds of clients seeking solutions to end their homelessness. Moreover, sporadic access to private spaces does not allow people to respond quickly to unpredictable events like a last-minute job interview request or an online query for additional information. In addition to physical infrastructure, digital navigators—trained support staff who understand trauma and its impact, and who can coach users to navigate sometimes-complex online tasks like job applications—can provide a lifeline to help shelter clients with digital services.
Governments can also play a role in developing technology solutions to improve job application processes. People experiencing homelessness face a significant challenge in securing their identification cards and papers. Without multiple forms of ID, including at least one government-issued card such as a driver’s license or passport, workers cannot complete the legal documents required to earn a paycheck once they have been hired. For people who are homeless, retaining hard copies of precious ID cards can be a challenge. A technology shift to digital rather than paper ID for employment forms would provide an important solution to the identification challenge for many, erasing a significant barrier to seeking employment.
When Vivien considered her future, she pointed toward Phoenix’s Burton Barr library, a 228,000-square-foot copper-clad modernist architecture icon of downtown Phoenix that is a 45-minute walk from CASS. This building was constructed with ample feedback from the local community to support civic activities such as public access to the internet with laptops and quiet spaces available to reserve. Like many modernist buildings, the Burton Barr library is intended to evoke the promise of a brighter tomorrow. With its soaring industrial ceilings and expansive views of the city, this library is a place worthy to sit in and consider how your future might be better. Vivien wished she had more time to spend there. ‘I feel good there, like maybe I can do this,’ she said. ‘But I’m so tired from work I can’t get there much.’ Back in the day room at CASS, she tried to stay optimistic, but she was starting to lose hope. During her intake to the shelter three months earlier, she had been told it would be six months before she would be matched with a caseworker. While she waited, she considered what would make her stay at CASS more productive. ‘More data on my phone, more designated quiet spaces to make phone calls or attend Zoom meetings, and someone who’s got my back,’ she said without hesitation.
Reference: https://slate.com/technology/2023/06/job-application-homelessness-digital-divide.html
Ref: slate
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