San Francisco’s streets may be full of human excrement and littered with drug addicts’ used syringes, but by God, its low-income citizens can now get free internet service. They even won an award for it.
Mayor London N. Breed announced the San Francisco Department of Technology’s Fiber to Housing program just picked up a prestigious national award for its internet service plan for low-income San Franciscans.
The program, called “Closing the Digital Divide – Fiber to Housing,” is a collaboration between the Department of Technology, the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development and the local Internet Service Provider, Monkeybrains. The program works to eliminate the digital divide in San Francisco by bringing free high-speed internet to residents living in affordable housing.
“Providing low-income families with access to high-speed internet is about equity and ensuring every family in our city has access to the resources they need to pay their bills, connect with city services, or do their homework,” said Mayor Breed. “We believe that every person deserves an opportunity to thrive, and the Department of Technology’s Fiber to Housing program helps achieve that goal by closing the digital divide and providing fast and reliable internet access.”
“I am proud of the city agencies and their collaborative work to bringing quality internet access for public housing residents,” said City Administrator Kelly. “As we continue to build public housing units and our infrastructure, we must also look at our digital infrastructure through an equitable lens.”
The city walked off with a prestigious CIO 100 Award. Now, this may be an award that ordinary people have never heard of, but it’s a biggie. Previous CIO 100 award winners include corporations such as Amazon and The Walt Disney Co.
City officials were justifiably proud of the achievement:
City Chief Information Officer and Executive Director of the Department of Technology Linda Gurull said, “It’s truly an honor to receive this recognition for our Fiber to Housing project.” S“Bridging the divides in internet access and digital literacy is crucial to achieving San Francisco’s goal of digital equity,” she continued, “and I’m thrilled to accept this award on behalf of the city family.”
San Francisco is one of the world’s richest cities and home to many of the world’s largest high tech corporations. Nevertheless, city fathers (and mothers) say a digital divide still plagues the city.
Oddly enough, they use the following statistics to show how deep the divide is, but we look at them and say it shows just the opposite:
- Only about 12% residents lack high-speed home internet service.
- Only 14% of families in public school lack a computer connected to the internet at home.
- Only 14% of city residents lack basic digital literacy.
Most cities would be proud of statistics like those, but city leaders believe they should be higher in a city called home by so many high tech titans.
What does the future hold for low-income residents of the City by the Bay? Here’s how the city’s website describes its vision for the future:
The Fiber to Housing program started in 2018 and provides free, high-speed internet to low income residents by leveraging existing municipal fiber resources, staff expertise and private sector partnerships. In the first phase of the project, City staff connected over 1,500 low-income families with long-term sustainable internet access – at no cost to users. The project’s second phase is currently underway and will provide internet to another 1,600 units by June 2020. The completed project will result in a service benefit of approximately $400 million over 20 years.
sharon says
i am looking for cheap internet
CheapInternet.com Administrator says
You can find all the plans available in your state at this link:
https://www.cheapinternet.com/states
You still need to look into each listing to find out which cities are covered by each plan, but it’s a good place to start.
Lynn says
I applaud SF for rising above the cop-out approach so many other cities and states have adopted! Here in Spokane we are limited to discounted package that requires first that you pay for basic cable to be able to access the $10mo slow and limited internet…🙀 Low income folks can’t afford even basic cable…we fly on antenna tv…so this “discount ” isn’t a viable option, and pretty much reeks of scam funding!!!
If you really want to close the divide between the haves and have-nots, provide EVERYONE with all the same living amenities and then tax ALL households the same percentage of their income to pay for it. The rich will bitch but they’re making their profit off the backs of the rest of us, so it’s only spreading the wealth that we’ve all worked to generate!!! Then crime and addiction will fall because people won’t experience so much hopelessness and won’t want to lose what they have by going to jail.
Colleen says
I don’t understand why you can give other States Free services how about helping us here in Minnesota?? Why can’t you give FREE internet to Senior Citizens and Poor people here in the Northland of Minnesota??
CheapInternet.com Administrator says
It’s not “us” Colleen. We just reported the story.