StreetConnect: SMS announcements for homeless people

Cellular phones are bringing computing to underserved communities. As people in these communities across the globe lack access to information, but do own cellular phones, apps are filling the gap by delivering meaningful information to improve lives. In this paper, we present StreetConnect, a tool created by students from Santa Clara University to serve the homeless population in our area. This tool provides a way for organizations serving the homeless to send announcements to registered users via text message, and for registered users to filter the messages they receive based on their interests, such as employment, food, or shelter. The tool has been deployed at a local organization and has the potential to be generalized and used in other scenarios as well.