Because the do-gooders don't trust the homeless to spend the money the "right" way, most likely.

Most likely, taxation. If you paid the person, it would be a job, meaning taxes.

Giving jobs to those people in need instead of just some spare change is exactly the thing that can help them.

maybe because you're making the unfounded assumption that homeless == dishonest.

This is the most exploitative, ignorant, inhuman scheme I've ever heard of.

He is not a wifi hotspot. He is not a thing. He's not something for you to graffiti-tag to market your shitty pay-per-use wifi. He is a human being, and entitled to dignity.

If you're interested in helping, do so. Don't come up with some bullshit scheme to allow you to profit at the same time as you pretend to be helping.

Hey I plan too! Let's use battered women as sparring partners! We'll partner with Golds Gym, give them a t-shirt that says "I'm used to it!". We'll make a fortune off of all the misogynist muscleheads who hang out there. Then give the proceeds to, oh I dont know. We'll make up some "dont beat women" charity or something, make ourselves directors.

The cashier at McDonald's is paid a wage. This is just slavery.

Is to give those jobs to people who aren't homeless but merely out of work. Unemployment is crazy these days and I'm sure lots of not-bums wouldn't mind doing this for a little extra cash.

Actually, what we should probably do is bring back indentured servitude for homeless or unemployed people, and introduce slavery for people who are in prison for serious crimes. "Got a life sentence for raping and killing 19 little girls? Enjoy working in the plantation/factory/sewers forever, buddy." It would certainly solve the issue of people outsourcing jobs to other countries because the labor is cheaper...

That's actually a very complex question with a variety of answers. Some people are homeless because they refuse to work within a system. Some are homeless because they're addicted to drugs and alcohol to such an extent that they have ruined their lives. Some because they have mental illness that prevents them from functioning clearly in the modern world. Some because they fell on hard times and had no safety net. For the last one, yeah, they'll be reasonable and try to work within the structure to maintain a roof over their head. The other three, not so much. And if you treat them like they just need a job and a home and 2.5 kids and a dog then you won't get the results you seek.

Um, what?

Since when is doing something voluntarily with no coercion or pressure "slavery"?

I mean, if any of these people find the shirts oppressive and unbearable I imagine they could, you know, refuse to wear them.

Ooo "risking capital". Forming a limited liability company is about the least risky venture on the planet. For no other activity can one compartmentalise and get into a spiral of debt or misbehaviour while minimising personal consqeuences for debt or tort. Shareholders are even luckier, "owning" the company and creaming the profit while having no obligation to pay debtors in the company folds.

I started a business with a few thousand dollars about a decade ago. Went well. Sold it. Least risky thing I've ever done. Even if I'd invested ten times as much and e.g. mortgaged my house as security, I'd still have more protections than the average worker whose *house and everything else* are risk if he can't find a job. Even though I was working up to 18 hour days, the material rewards for succeeding as a business owner... woohoo... incomparable to every other poor sod who has to work two jobs same hours yet will enjoy a fixed pittance.

Succeeding in business is easy. Building a humane society is hard.

I'm not sure you are arguing that this is minimum wage laws hurting the poor. You're arguing that having to pay people at all is hurting them.

Minimum wage only means you have to pay the guy 10 bucks an hour, and not 2, for 3 days. (Or whatever the numbers are at this festival, minimum wage here is 10 bucks an hour). But if you could pay 2 bucks an hour they'd still have all of the other employment questions that have to be addressed (declaring it correctly to the revenue service).

To argue against the minimum wage you'd need to show how this business could run paying their people less than minimum wage, but can't manage at minimum wage, and then how those people would still be able to live at the price they can pay. When you're on a donation system though (even if the preferred price is 2 dollars for 15 minutes) you don't really know what the viable revenue stream is, and, in this case, because it's for a 3 day festival with the 'proceeds to charity' you can charge a ridiculously large amount of money, but you still have no idea how much take you'll have. It sounds like this is being run as a charity thing because well, it is. 3 days of work isn't going to be enough to meaningfully help someone out of a homeless shelter, no matter how much you pay them. But a few hundred or a few thousand bucks to the homeless shelter can help a lot of people for a lot more than 3 days.

Giving change I think is the WRONG sort of help. There are homeless people Im sure who would use the money well, but it seems like a self defeating proposition, not to mention dangerous:

* the more successful panhandling is, the more dishonest panhandlers there will be
* it cannot be ignored that there are many homeless people who are homeless because of drugs; in that case you would only be worsening the problem
* it could well be an attempt to get you to pull out your wallet for a quick mugging (they might not even be homeless)

If you want to help someone in a real, immediate way, and you are in a city, theres a good chance there is a diner or fast food place nearby. Invite them to lunch, get some coffee, whatever. This will address a real need, and it will be a heck of a lot safer (as youre in a highly visible place). If you have the time, sit and chat with them, as it may have been some time since someone actually talked with them.

Throwing money at them seems like a lazy, counterproductive way to address the issue.

Clearly you haven't travelled much or read any history.

FTFA:

"This is my worry: the homeless turned not just into walking, talking hotspots, but walking, talking billboards for a program that doesn’t care anything at all about them or their future..."

I don't get why that's a worry. The homeless are providing a service, which makes the productive members of society, and should provide them with a little self-respect. So what if the program doesn't care anything at all about them or their future? How is that different from the situation that almost every wage slave on planet earth - they're all providing a service for a company that pays them for it, and I don't think there are many employees that are under the impression that the company they work for is doing because the "care about them."

This program just does for the homeless the same thing that almost every company and government employee does to people: turns them into human resources.

Straw man. Anonymous Coward said nothing about shielding from monetary risk. He made it quite clear he was talking about shielding from accountability. Absent gross fraud and the like, the corporation takes the fall and shields the principles. That's what corporations are FOR. A corporation is a legally sponsored mechanism for getting away with things no one could personally get away with.

...but struggle mightily with the concept of "no, you don't deserve to eat or sleep unless you can pay for it".

So, you believe that life owes you something for nothing, eh?

Unless you are truly infirmed, or aged where you can no longer provide shelter and food for yourself, then no....no one owes this to you for free. It all takes effort. Why should someone that works to pay to eat and have good shelter, have to work that bit harder to give it to you so you don't have to?