He settled his disability claim for his police-force injury years ago and had little income. The GoFundMe for Schulman, the reserve police officer, could hardly have come at a more critical juncture in his life. “Once someone is hooked on caring and taking action, maybe that can become addictive.” “These are the kinds of acts of compassion that we should encourage,” she said. Still, Megan Hustings, director of the National Coalition for the Homeless, said crowdfunding sites could inspire a profound emotional shift in givers. Skills needed for successful crowdfunding campaigns “tend to match up with markers of privilege”, said Snyder, noting that the best crowdfunders may be those who are the most educated and are best at marketing themselves. Another mother posted pictures of her two young children, who were with her in a family shelter, and pleaded for people to help her get money for a deposit, but raised a mere $350. Photograph: YouCaringĪ single mother in the Detroit area started a campaign on YouCaring to raise $1,500 for a deposit on a new apartment, after her landlord told her she had to leave because of a remodel.
Ismael Chamu, a UC Berkeley student, was able to raise money to help find a home. One homeless man in Philadelphia ended up getting over $400,000 to buy a home, after he gave his last $20 to help a women whose car had broken down and his story went viral. “But if this is the new way to address homelessness, it’s very concerning.”Ĭrowdfunding campaigns to fight homelessness have achieved some high-profile successes. “I think in a one-off way, crowdfunding is a powerful way to help someone,” he said. The implications, he said, are troubling.
But that might not match up with those who need the help the most.” “If you have a large social network, media savvy and the ability to use computers, you tend to do well. “It’s a shift away from distributing resources to where they will do the most good, to more of a popularity contest” said Jeremy Snyder, an associate professor at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, who has studied the effects of crowdfunding on medical patients and others in need. Photograph: Dan Tuffs/The GuardianĮxperts warn that such sites hardly offer a level playing field to get help to the neediest.
“Income inequality is a gigantic issue and that drives a lot of these campaigns.”ĭave Schulman with his friend Clay Epperson outside Dave’s trailer in Fullerton, Orange County. “The government is there to help and there are many great NGOs there to help, but with all of these institutions and systems in place, many people fall through the cracks,” said Rob Solomon, the CEO of GoFundMe. Only about one in four Americans in need of government housing assistance actually receive it. Other crowdfunding sites, such as YouCaring, HandUp and YouHelp, also handle thousands of campaigns for people seeking to avoid homelessness each year.ĭepending on which way you look at it, this development is either an uplifting testament to the compassion of strangers or an indictment of a broken social safety net. In the last three years alone, people have created more than 280,000 GoFundMe campaigns in the US related to homelessness, raising over $69m from more than 1 million donations, according to statistics retrieved by GoFundMe after a request from the Guardian. With little hope of help from social service agencies, more and more people like Schulman are relying on online fundraising sites to avoid homelessness or even to get off the streets. “He was days away from being on the street with nothing.” “It was partly me just realizing that this guy was about to go off a cliff,” said Clay Epperson, the former officer who organized the campaign.