To use Nextdoor, the neighborhood social network with an estimated 26 million monthly users, you first have to have an address. That means that discussions about homelessness—a common refrain in neighborhoods such as my own in the Bay Area—typically don’t include any of the unhoused people in the neighborhood who are being discussed. If someone can’t use the site, they also won’t be able to see the type of useful posts that often end up there—for example, where new doses of the COVID-19 vaccine are available.
“There’s information that people have firsthand that you might not get anywhere else,” says Yasmine Pomeroy, a teacher and Los Angeles City Council candidate who recently sent Nextdoor a letter asking for a change in its policy. “As a high school teacher, I get emails from my principal who has firsthand information that I could then post to Nextdoor and say, ‘Hey, this is a vaccine location that’s opening up today in our neighborhood.’ That’s important for people to know, not just people who have homes.”
Continue reading Fast Company here, courtesy of Adele Peters.