Supporting homeless people with IVR systems

Tese de mestrado, Engenharia Informática (Engenharia de Software) Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciências, 2018 ; The homelessness in the world is in increasing, mainly due to the effects of the 2008 economic crisis which increased house prices, the cost of living and unemployment. And due to the current migration crisis, Europe faces. The social implications of both events and the current incapability of the support and the emergency services aiding a large amount of newly homeless people lead to a change of the typical profile of the homeless population, now most homeless people are now young adults, children, and families. Although this profile seems through Europe and the United States, in Portugal the typical profile of a homeless person is distinct. A homeless person is characterized be being Portuguese, male, in a working-age spectrum, single or divorced, with addictions, mental problems and unemployed. Current technologies and always-available connectivity enable just-in-time access to information and services. Homeless people can be great beneficiaries of such prompt access to information if it is easily attainable. We performed a set of formative studies with volunteers from a homeless helping association and with individuals who started the process of abandoning homelessness at a shelter to understand current technology usage, and access to information and services, by among the homeless population. We found that access to devices is pervasive in their everyday life. Either by using their own devices or by recurring to technologies provided by public services, like libraries and shelters. Although access to digital devices can be easy, access to needed information can be a challenging task, since most information is either obtained mouth-to-mouth among the homeless community or by talking with volunteers in person. We designed low-demand information access and communication platform, as an in- teractive voice response (IVR) system, featuring location services, information storage, asynchronous ...