Interviewing the Homeless: A Book?

Background

On the daily commute downtown, I constantly see homeless people on the light rail. Some of them are regulars who have been making the rounds for years, while others I only see once. Many of them have obvious symptoms of drug abuse or mental health problems, while others are difficult to distinguish from the other random riders. As a people-watcher I often wonder about the lives of these people. Well, I wonder about the lives of pretty much everyone, but with the homeless there's always a terrible mixture of wanting to help and simultaneously wanting to run away unburdened.

Usually I just do the running part. That's true for almost every social interaction, it's not just an aversion to kindness and generosity. As I've opened up to people to help or just talk, I've had a variety of results and stories. I've sometimes been scammed, only discovering this days or weeks later as I watch the scammer talk to some other kind, gullible soul; telling the the same fabricated sob story, or picking up their wheelchair and walking away. Sometimes I've been surprised at the kindness and generosity of a person temporarily on hard times. And I've been scared for my safety by the mentally insane and/or drug-intoxicated. One day I watched 3 law-enforcement officers subdue a man whom I presume was on PCP. He escaped two large officers after being tazed, and was finally taken down after another tazing by three officers.

My thoughts on this topic ultimately go back to the conflict of wanting to help those who really need it without fueling someone's vices. In addition, the local homeless advocacy groups discourage donating directly to the homeless, and encourage you to direct them to the local organizations for help. But most of the people asking for handouts have already been there. As a caring person, it can be challenging to decide how to respond to those who petition for help. I guess the question I really ask inside is, "What are the odds that I will help this person by giving them ... something?"

The Idea

To answer this question, I thought about writing a book by interviewing panhandlers. Offer to pay them for their time to tell their story. What is their life like? How did they get here? What are their plans or dreams? What help have they gotten, and how successful are they in their current efforts?

It's one thing to just blindly rely on the voices of those who work with these people every day in the shelters and missions. But it could provide a new outlook for the average person by demystifying the lives and stories of the local homeless. I bet that people would give more directly, and that they would donate more to the local homeless advocacy organizations.

Progress

I'm such an introvert, I don't know if I would ever have the courage to do this on my own.

Has it Been Done Before?

There is a book called, "Until They Have Faces" that compiles 110 interviews and commentary for homeless people in California. The mix is about what you expect, but the commentary is definitely biased.

I also found a collection of interviews called "Voices of Homelessness" collected and maintained by sistersoftheroad.org, a non-profit in Portland, OR. You have to register to access the information. They also published the book, "Voices from the Street: Truths about Homelessness from Sisters of the Road." I'm currently waiting for access to the database or for the book to ship.

Animal Sound Mixer Game

Background

When I became a new father, tablets and smart phones were still in their early years. But even at the early stage their usefulness for entertaining busy little toddler bodies was obvious. But it's challenging to find games that are affordable, entertaining, and ... not mind-melting? It's unhealthy for little kids to get much screen time, but YOU KNOW you're gonna put that kid in front of a screen for 5 minutes of peace.

A responsible parent at least tries to make that content beneficial for their child, but that can be a challenge. I've seen a lot of garbage time wasters out there for entertaining kids. I've seen some good animal apps out there that help kids learn animal names and sounds. I thought it would be cool to add another layer to those types of apps by letting kids change things around. Like one of those block games that has pictures of different animals on each side of the block, but the top an bottom can be rotated so you get a cat head with a dog body. The new element is to add sound to go with the visuals.

The Idea

Make an application that shows an animal on the main screen. The animal is divided into panels with head, torso and bottom. You could have vertical panels as well as horizontal panels depending on the animals. The panels can be swiped / rotated to mix the body parts from different animals.

Now here's the fun part: each animal has a sound loop for each body part. For example, the bottom / legs of each animal could be different percussion and bass loops. The torsos could all be harmony loops, and the heads could all be different melody loops. So by mixing up the panels you would get different sounds to go with your crazy animal mashups.

Progress

I took and Android developer class, but it's complex and time consuming still. I'm not sure I will take this one up.

Fear The Beard

Background

I like video games. Beards came into renewed fashion a couple years ago, so I was seeing them everywhere. One day I just had a random thought about a video game where the beard is a main part of the game.

The Idea

For some reason, when I think of the game style, the POW from Metal Slug comes into my mind (that's the image for this post). Imagine this guy, only clean shaven. That's how you start in the game; as a dude with no weapons. His only attack is a headbutt, but with his chin. As the game progresses, the dude's beard gets longer, and he can use it in more creative ways to move and dispatch combatants. It would be fun to use progression trees where points can be earned and spent on various beard skills. Some funny images that come to mind is swinging around and slashing dudes with a super-long Rip Van Winkle beard, charging like a bull with a ridiculous handlebar mustache, and a super-thick full beard that just swallows everything.

Progress

I'm not a game developer and don't plan to be one. But I think it would be hilarious if someone did this!