Twitter Helping the Homeless

A new website called Underheard in New York started a system that give the homeless of New York a prepaid cell phone that allows them to create and update their own Twitter feed in a hope that getting them as many followers as possible makes their ideas and their pain known to the rest of the world.

“We had the idea to use social media to help out the homeless,” said one of the interns, Rosemary Melchior. “One goal was to increase the interaction between homeless people and the community around them.” The agency gave her and her two partners, Robert Weeks and Willy Wang, $1,000 and this directive: “Do something good, famously.” They created a Web site called Underheard in New York, whose goal is to “help homeless New Yorkers speak for themselves through Twitter.”