If Tech Really Wants to Help the Homeless, It Should Hire Them

[Narrator] Preston Phan's morning routine

usually starts here in the storage facility.

How you doing?

This is all my gear, yeah, kind of like

my own headquarters, I guess. (laughs)

Change of shoes, dirty laundry,

this is a blanket and pillow,

I hope to use that in the future when I do get my own place.

[Narrator] He's homeless, but that hasn't stopped him

from pursuing his dream job in the tech industry.

Any given day I don't really know

where I'm gonna be sleeping.

So, it makes it really difficult to plan for the next day,

if you want to succeed.

[Narrator] Preston already has some coding skills,

but he needs a network, so he joined Code Tenderloin,

a job training program for disadvantaged students.

So the population we serve are folks that are homeless,

folks who were formerly incarcerated,

folks who lack transportation,

people who don't believe they fit into tech.

[Narrator] The program was started in the Tenderloin,

a San Francisco neighborhood that's been synonymous

with code red despair for decades,

until five years ago, when the city started offering

companies tax breaks to lure them into the neighborhood.

But even with some of the biggest tech companies

now in the area, the homelessness and poverty remain.

Gentrification brings about displacement, evictions.

[Narrator] Chirag Bhakta is an affordable housing

advocate who grew up in the Tenderloin.

The Tenderloin is perhaps the only neighborhood left

in San Francisco for low income working class people

to find a home.

So right now the Tenderloin is going through

the first steps of gentrification,

and turning into a neighborhood of haves and have nots.

[Narrator] Instead of fighting the change,

some community-based organizations like Code Tenderloin

and Glide Memorial Church are working to make sure

impoverished residents also benefit.

A way forward for you.

As Code Tenderloin creates a platform for allowing

people who are part of the Tenderloin to engage

in this new economy, when you have someone show up

with a different vantage point,

that's a secret sauce for innovation.

[Narrator] In addition to hard skills like coding,

they help students craft resumes, practice job interviews

and network with tech employees.

We have four engineers from Twitter.

We realize these are early days in the program,

but like every community outreach effort

has to start somewhere.

And we're building the relationship,

and we're providing access to the Twitter engineers

as part of an ongoing project,

that we really want to improve over time.

[Narrator] But, Code Tenderloin can't

guarantee employment.

Around 90 students have gone through the program,

and only a handful have landed jobs in tech.

We're not asking tech to take someone who's unqualified,

or who lacks talent.

We're not asking for a handout,

we're not asking for a favor, we're asking for access.

We're asking for opportunity.

Companies have promised to be good neighbors

to the Tenderloin, have promised to provide

influx of capital into the neighborhood,

and to help with job training.

All that stuff sounds good on paper,

however, after so many years of the tech industry

being in San Francisco, have we actually seen

real improvement for the working class

and low income people in the neighborhood?

I think that question has yet to be answered.

(applause)

[Narrator] Preston's a little more hopeful.

I just graduated from Code Tenderloin,

I have applied for the REACH program at LinkedIn,

and hopefully I'll get into that program

and start working as a developer.

I think I do have a good chance, and I think

I should be given an opportunity,

just to prove myself in the tech industry.