[jessedhillon]

> ... then I'd suggest that we start with some customer research. Do the jobless urban poor want to stand at a terminal in the street and perform menial tasks for spare change?

In SV it's very popular to assume that people are poor because they don't want to work. To the question of what poor people would want to do, the answer is very often "who cares what they want, they're poor!" It's not this blatant -- often it's couched in statements like the ones you see here that assume that people have chosen poverty -- but that's the basic sentiment.

> Buying into this concept as a way to solve urban poverty is no different than some Marketing VP sitting in her 50th floor corner office...

Well, this is at least consistent. If you think that people have merely chosen to be poor, then you simply need to persuade them to make a different choice.

If one acknowledges that they don't know much about the lives of poor people, they should do what they would with any other domain where they lack experience -- find a domain expert. IMO, the best way to start would be to find those members of the urban poor demographic who have the intelligence and the motivation, but not the skills, to solve their own problems. Then, you can help them solve those problems.

[yummyfajitas]

In SV it's very popular to assume that people are poor because they don't want to work.

This is more or less true. Go look up labor force participation rates of the poor - most poor adults don't have a job, and aren't looking for one.

[Drbble]

Why do you think that looking is the same as wanting?