Liveability in Barcelona

Improve the livability in Barcelona:
A new approach to donating money to homeless people in need

It is estimated that roughly 3,000 people who are living in Barcelona are homeless. This figure has been increasing since 2008 by approx. 50%. As public support for these homeless people are limited, many of them rely on donations from individuals through begging activities in order to finance their lives on the streets. The homeless on the streets usually receive these donations in form of small cash giveaways from people who walk by them.

However, only a very small percentage of individuals are willing to donate money to homeless people on the streets, with the majority ignoring them when being confronted in such a situation. The reasons for that are twofold: On one hand, people are not entirely convinced that giving money away the homeless would really help them. People might tend to believe that if everybody gives an Euro or two to this homeless person, lets say every 5 minutes, extrapolating this “earnings” over a 16 hour day, would make the homeless richer than the average working class, which seems unfair. Another reason is that individuals are not sure if their donation is used in a good way. Who can really assure that the homeless is using the money in a right way and what is keeping them from buying alcohol or other drugs, which would worsen their situation, instead of buying real necessities? And maybe the most critical reason is that individuals are oftentimes not sure, if the homeless beggar is indeed really in need, or if he or she is just pretending to be. Many of us have hear of cases where there might be organized criminal rings behind the beggars who will confiscate their money once they return to their home base at the end of the “working day”.

On the other hand, even if individuals believe that giving out money is the right thing to do, because one actually believes that the beggar is in real need, the process of doing so is everything but convenient.  More often than not people get confronted with beggars while they are on the run. If you see somebody you would like to give, lets say a dollar, you would need to stop, take out your wallet and hope that you have that exact dollar amount readily available for donation. But what would you do, if you have only a 5 dollar or 10 dollar bill? Are you then donating 5 dollar instead of the 1 dollar you actually wanted to give or are you asking the homeless for change? You could always go to the next store to change your money but this would even take up some more of your limited time. Another reason, why this process of donation is becoming more and more complicated is that with technological advances in Fintech, many people do not at all carry around cash anymore, but prefer to use their credit card or mobile phone app to pay for their purchases.

As we can see here, the reason why not everybody is giving money to street beggars is not necessarily because they are greedy. No, there are many reasons to believe that giving them money does not always seem to be the best thing to do. Also, even if it is the right thing to do, there is no convenient way to do so, which reinforces the hesitant behavior.

Based on that, there is a need for individuals as well as for homeless people with regard to donating money, which could be described as the following: A convenient way for people to donate money, which assures that the receiver of the donation is really in need and that the funds is used towards the right purpose. This coupled with a smart cashless way to provide donations would not only create a trustful relationship between giver and receiver but also to provide and an uncomplicated way of giving out donations, and in the end increasing the amount of donations.

A potential solution could be establishing a third party organization which verifies the need of a homeless based on a simple application / registration process. During that process the applicant needs to provide the necessary information in order to have the organization determine the level of need. Information could include whether or not he or she as place to live, a job or any funds available. Once the application is successfully approved, the applicant receives a donation number with some sort of identifying object (a t-shirt, a base-ball cap or just a simple sign with the number on it for other people to see) with a donation account attached to that. The intent of the donation number is to route the funds donated by individuals towards the dedicated accounts. The important feature of that account is that it will only pay out the money donated up to a maximum daily, weekly or monthly amount. This should create additional trust in the donation process and should eliminate any doubts the giver might have about the probability of the homeless becoming rich through donations. Any funds which are in excess of the daily, weekly or monthly allowance could be deferred or saved to later periods, helping the person in need with constant flows of funds and prevents the homeless to spend all available funds at once. Also, the funds are not paid-out in forms of cash-money but can only be used towards buying food or other necessities. This should, again, create additional trust and provide the donating person with the certainty, that the money is used for the right purpose. Donating money will also become more convenient as cash money is no more necessary to do so. All information the giving person needs is the donation number of the homeless combined with the donating app of the organization, which can easily be used via any mobile phone or via the internet at any time. This solution makes it even possible for people who do not carry any amount of cash with them and who are in a hurry and do not have time to stop. Even if the person is not sure if he or she should donate or not, the decision can still be made at a later point in time as long as the donation number is remembered or written down.