Homeless individuals with smartphones cannot keep them charged, cutting off access to digital government services

Approximately 50-60% of homeless individuals in San Francisco own a smartphone, often an older model received through the federal Lifeline/ACP program or a nonprofit. So what? Government services have moved aggressively to digital-first: Covered California enrollment, CalFresh recertification, Medi-Cal renewal, and even shelter waitlist notifications increasingly happen via app, text, or email. So what? A smartphone with a dead battery is useless, and a person sleeping on the street has no reliable way to charge it — public outlets are rare, library hours are limited (and many libraries restrict outlet use), and portable battery packs cost money they do not have. So what? They miss time-sensitive notifications: a CalFresh recertification text that requires response within 10 days, a shelter bed availability notification that expires in 2 hours, or a callback from a housing navigator. So what? Their benefits lapse, requiring a full re-application that takes 30-45 days, during which they have no food assistance; they lose their place on housing waitlists that took months to reach; and they cannot be contacted by the caseworker who was trying to connect them to a permanent supportive housing unit. So what? Each missed digital interaction resets months of progress toward stability, and the cumulative effect is that the most vulnerable people — those who are unsheltered rather than in shelters — are systematically excluded from the digital systems designed to help them. This persists structurally because city agencies have optimized for cost savings by digitizing services without building parallel infrastructure for populations without reliable power access. Installing public charging stations is opposed by neighborhood groups who view them as attracting encampments, and no agency owns the mandate to provide electricity access to unsheltered people.