Being homeless a struggle, even with a $100k job offer

http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/being-homeless-a-struggle-even-with-a-100000-job-offer/

by pessimizer • 11 years ago

400 157 11 years ago

Why don't wrongfully convicted people Sue for damages and use the lawsuit to get there records purged? I sure there is a reason why people don't in general I'm just not clear what exactly this reason is. Anyone in the know care to elucidate me?

jrockway• 11 years ago

Suing the government is not all that easy:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_immunity_in_the_Unit...

johncolanduoni2• 11 years ago

It really isn't. A close associate of mine had a government official back out of a contract he signed (in the government's name) in a way that was so legally clear that it would have resulted in a summary judgement had it been anyone else. His lawyer advised him not to bother unless he could afford to pay the legal fees for a decade long court battle.

brudgers• 11 years ago

Poor people have trouble paying lawyers. Involuntarily homeless people tend to have more pressing issues than starting an extended legal action. Suing the state over a matter of principal is de facto if not de jure often amounts to little more than a luxury.

analyst74• 11 years ago

According to one of his comments, all the lawyers wanted upfront money to sue the city.

kriro• 11 years ago

He probably got an offer along the lines of "your record is cleared if you waive all rights to sue us over this".

asift• 11 years ago

Depending on where you live, it might be that certain court/legal records can never be expunged.

I know a guy who was sober (determined by multiple breathalyzer tests), but arrested for public intoxication. The case was immediately thrown out and the charges dropped, but he lives in a state where arrest records cannot be expunged. It's the only thing that shows up on his criminal record, but he's had job offers fall apart because employers assume he was actually guilty of public intoxication (a charge that usually only comes against people acting belligerent, violent, so drunk they can't walk, etc.) and just lawyered his way out of it. He thought about suing for wrongful arrest, simply to try and bolster his case in employment situations, but his attorney told him that it's nearly impossible to win a wrongful arrest suit and it would cost him 10's of thousands of dollars to even try.

pkaye• 11 years ago

I wonder if he could start his own consulting company?

SwellJoe• 11 years ago

It comes with a lot of the same problems as getting hired by a company as an employee. Meeting with clients when you can't travel easily is a challenge. Living in a homeless shelter puts you on the schedule of the shelter (there are in and out times that are strictly enforced at most of them, if you aren't in by the curfew, you don't sleep in a bed that night), which conflicts with the erratic schedule of an IT contractor. You need a phone that is reliable, and the ability to take calls and emails at any time, which being homeless does not really allow; my friends who are homeless often live by day in coffee shops and libraries and by night in shelters if they're lucky enough to get a bed.

Also, though I don't like it, the reality is that black folks in IT are also facing subtle discrimination on a daily basis. Getting hired as a contractor often has none of the same protections that large companies have in place for people of color being hired as employees (government contractors are an exception in that the government has guidelines in place to help insure minorities are well-represented, but selling to the government is a whole other set of skills that he may not have, and may not be able to obtain given his circumstances). Among people of color (and women) that I've discussed it with, they tend to prefer applying for jobs and working jobs in major companies because the HR processes are designed to be less discriminatory. Small firms, even when they intend to not discriminate often make "culture fit" decisions that exclude women and minorities. He's also older. Smaller IT firms are infamous for hiring young and overlooking older candidates.

I live in an RV (I did it for four years, traveling full-time, and now I'm back to it after a couple years of stability), and I'm being reminded of all of the ways it makes a "normal life" difficult. And, I'm not dealing with the kind of stuff he is: I have a vehicle and money to travel, I have a phone and reliable Internet, I have a private home where I can have phone/skype conversations with co-workers, etc.

Getting out of homelessness is really tough, is what I'm trying to say, and being homeless makes a lot of things that are obvious solutions to problems for you and I much tougher when you don't have the stability and savings and such to fall back on that you or I have.

djcapelis• 11 years ago

It's possible, but there's also some annoying bootstrapping costs for starting a company (yes, even a consulting company) that can make it a hard thing to do if you don't have any money or access to credit.

I put everything on my credit card to start mine, I doubt he has that luxury.

zodiac2• 11 years ago

Why is he failing background checks if he's never been non-wrongfully convicted? Genuinely curious to hear from anyone with experience on the employer side of this.

hueving• 11 years ago

Likely the department of corrections number somehow coming up so it shows that he spent time in prison. Even if it shows he was exonerated, many people will sadly lose interest right then because they get a vibe the applicant is 'in with the wrong people'. The US is terribly cruel to people that have done prison time, regardless of whether or not they were supposed to be there.

neoeldex• 11 years ago

Too bad it's only almost 1% of the total population.

jzwinck3• 11 years ago

There are two kinds of background checks. The official kind done by a dedicated team with access and knowledge to retrieve city, state and federal data. And the HR kind, where someone without an investigative background and education spends ten minutes doing web searches and online "stalking" to see if the candidate has any untoward elements in their past.

The first kind costs hundreds dollars per candidate. The second can be done for about twenty bucks worth of time. You can guess which approach most companies use.

It's easier on most candidates, too, because a real background check requires them to fill out paperwork. An ad hoc one they may never know about...unless they fail.

zodiac2• 11 years ago

The article states that he's gotten job offers before that were he couldn't accept, presumably because he failed the second kind of background check. Would the employers generally tell someone the reason for rescinding an offer?

forgetsusername• 11 years ago

There are two kinds of background checks.

IBM. Wells Fargo. Frontier Airlines. T-Mobile. Experian. Daimler Chrysler.

These are some of the companies listed in the article. They are some of the biggest in the world. They don't seem to me to be the type of companies that take the latter approach to recruitment, possibly opening themselves up to discrimination legal issues.

jupiter90000• 11 years ago

Even if you are found not guilty or not convicted of a crime, if you have been arrested or gone to court these things can show up in public records. These records could be expunged with some effort, depending on the laws in the jurisdiction. Such expungement orders should clear someone from public databases. If it hasn't been expunged though, the info will still show up.

Even if dismissed or wrongfully convicted, any mention of anything criminal would cause concern. It's that idea of "where there's smoke there's fire" type of thinking that seems to go on around this kind of stuff. When other candidates exist without the 'concerning circumstances,' why take a risk?

For better or worse, it makes sense. Seeing that someone was arrested for crack for any reason would raise suspicion. There would be little motivation to look into further details once seeing "arrested for crack" pop up in a search about a candidate.

ryandrake• 11 years ago

Companies' paranoid "where there's smoke there's fire" logic is the major problem here. I've applied for jobs (tech jobs at big-name companies you have heard of) where they require you to list mere arrests, even if there was no conviction or even if no charges were filed.

meesterdude• 11 years ago

Is there anything we can do for him? I mean this is just nuts.

jzwinck3• 11 years ago

Now that he's in the NYT he will probably be OK. The question is what to do about other people in similar situations.

I once received an application from someone quite famous. But he was famous because of a criminal case against him which was ongoing. We let this scare us off, because as a small company we didn't want the exposure if we did hire him. I'm not sure it was a very moral decision, but does your startup have time to deal with that?

barsonme• 11 years ago

Now that he's in the NYT

Pedant: the article is in the Seattle Times :-)

he will probably be OK.

I sure hope so. I always have mixed feelings when I read articles like this. On one hand, things should usually end up going well for the person (assuming they're legitimate) because of the exposure. But, on the other, it's sad to hear of them being in the situation in the first place.

sdrothrock3• 11 years ago

In his case, it sounds like the problem isn't homelessness itself, but:

1. A crappy background check system that reports him as an ex-con/drug dealer when he's been exonerated.

2. Companies using those systems and judging him without giving him a chance to speak up.

nickff• 11 years ago

Even the president is in favor of punishing people who have been suspected of crimes; it seems to be a popular position that people are not really innocent until proven guilty.[1][2] I find this trend deeply troubling, but it does seem at least somewhat popular.

#2 is at least partly due to the fact the if the companies allowed him an opportunity to refute the claim, they would be incurring various legal liabilities. The rules meant to protect job candidates often result in them being passed over at the first stage where it is realized they are 'complex' cases.

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201...

[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201...

sdrothrock3• 11 years ago

#2 is at least partly due to the fact the if the companies allowed him an opportunity to refute the claim, they would be incurring various legal liabilities.

Interesting! I'd thought it was simply done in the name of efficiency.

ekianjo• 11 years ago

it seems to be a popular position that people are not really innocent until proven guilty

Shouldnt that be instead: "people are somewhat guilty until proven innocent" based on the links you shared?

elcct• 11 years ago

Not sure what's the problem with drug dealing? If he was selling weed, then he was in fact doing a public service against fat cats in pharma industry. Also nobody is forced to buy drugs.

cshimmin2• 11 years ago

Well, for one thing the charge was for selling crack cocaine...

netcan2• 11 years ago

In a roundabout way, this is related to the big data world we live in, even though background checks & credit checks are not new.

From the perspective on a motor insurance company, for example, they don't need to serve everyone. If they can classify the world of potential drivers as high, medium & low risk, that's enough. Whether or not an individual falls into one of these categories "incorrectly" is not important, they're average figures and as long as they are "correct" for the people who take out a policy all is well. For an individual that ends up in the "high risk" category, it's inequitable and unfair. They might share characteristics with "truly" high risk individuals but not in ways that actually affect their chances of causing on an accident they just happened to be in a statistical cluster.

The BMI is an interesting example too. Weight bands for height works fine when looking at a population. You can fall into an obese weight/height band by being heavily muscled or broad bodied. Mike Tyson at his youngest, slimmest prime would have been classed as obese and very obese later in his career. Possibly "extremely obese" between matches. This is a good example because you can easily se how BMI works well enough for evaluating insurance risk but not for being "fair" for our puny human defections of fairness.

We are moving to a world of more data and more data based decision making. Online advertising for example, has transformed a big industry to one that is mostly driven by data based decision making.

The side effects of this will be many. There are certainly efficiency gains because that statistics are predictive. Having been arrested or serving time is probably predictive of risk, even if a conviction is overturned. There are also feedback loops that we don't want, biases and "traps." A homeless person is obviously high risk in that he shares measurable characteristics with other homeless people and they (almost by definition) actualize those risks.

There are real society-affecting risks here. It could become more expensive to be poor, as credit and financial services becomes a bigger part of how we purchase things.

SilasX• 11 years ago

Okay, but it should work in the reverse too. Just as there are ways to grind through the data and find non-obvious signals against an employee, there should be the same for signals in favor of an employee.

And there should be just as much incentive for big data techniques to help identify undervalued employees. For example, I'm sure you can find a separation between "vagrants who can code" and "vagrants who can't".

(An old-school example of such an insight would be early-GEICO's discovery that, "Hey, government employees have more reliable income than others'. So they're not as risky. We can use that!" So I heard.)

ithkuil2• 11 years ago

A crappy background check system that reports him as an ex-con/drug dealer when he's been exonerated

The article states:

Three months after his conviction, though, the King County deputy whose testimony led to Simmons’ conviction, James Schrimpsher, was fired for dishonesty in a different drug case [..] Simmons insists he didn’t sell drugs and believes he was profiled [..] he served the full prison term at the Washington Corrections Center in Shelton, plus a year of probation when he got out.

This means it has not been exonerated. The background check superficiality is not what this case is about.

The problem in this case is a system where it's not easy for a convicted person receive a retrial unless the defendant has big money.

That the deputy was being investigated for lying at the same time as Simmons’ trial had not been disclosed to Simmons’ attorneys.

Point 2 still holds.

sdrothrock3• 11 years ago

This means it has not been exonerated. The background check superficiality is not what this case is about.

The article also says

What’s alarming about Simmons’ story is that his drug-dealing conviction was eventually stricken from the record. He was retroactively exonerated in 2010 . . . He is listed on the National Registry of Exonerations as being wrongly convicted.

which seems to directly contradict your claim that he was not exonerated.

DominikR2• 11 years ago

The other side of the coin is that a manager of a company that allows an ex-convict to work in sensible areas can and will be held accountable if something goes wrong.

If you were a person that has put 20+ years of hard work into your career at some company would you be willing to risk it all (and by extension the life you built for your family) to put someone who as been convicted for hacking or fraud in the past in a position where he/she could cause considerable damage?

I think this can only be solved by laws that forbid employers to use or acquire this data. In that case no one could touch you for giving someone that chance.

The question is if the outcome of such a law would be positive and where there should be exceptions to it. (for example convicted hackers being employed by banks)

serge2k2• 11 years ago

He's not an ex-convict.

fweespeech• 11 years ago

The truth is we've gone from a system where you are innocent until guilty to guilty to proven innocent [for everything that matters]. It really is a sad transformation.

lloyd-christmas• 11 years ago

Not to say that the system is working correctly, but from a quick glance to the comment section of the article, I'm not really sure if either of these is the real deal breaker. If it actually is him responding in the comments, he seems incapable of writing basic sentences. He also plays the race card several times in his commentary. For someone struggling to get a job, I find it utterly mind-boggling he would attach his name to comments like:

,,And ME thinks ,,,That maybe YOU should THINK !!! LOLOL
Again ,,,Your Kind ,,convict MY kind ,,,ALL the time !!!!!
You probably have a hard time accepting anything from a Black Person

There are countless more. From my perspective, most (definitely not all) are in response to non-inflammatory commentary. If I were HR and a basic google search turned this up, I wouldn't touch him with a 10 foot pole, let alone even bother with an actual background check. I use full sentences and am reasonably respectful with my username as "lloyd-christmas". If I used my real name, I'd likely be even more PC/respectful/cautious.

For someone that has first hand experience in regards to the impact of background checks, he's sure not making it any easier on himself.

ommunist2• 11 years ago

I believe the only clear way for him is to leave the US and land some international job at some place good as Australia or Sing. Yes, the US will loose a good cyber cop. But as you can see here, this is entirely the US systematic problem. Simmons does not deserve to serve lifetime living in the US, struggling for foodstamps.

cshimmin2• 11 years ago

How is that supposed to work? He can't even afford to leave Seattle.

ommunist2• 11 years ago

Companies pay relocation to a suitable candidate.

ShellfishMeme• 11 years ago

Many companies offer relocation packages including travel costs and temporary accommodation.

cgio• 11 years ago

Visas require background checks and I am not sure how that would work out.

lsiebert3• 11 years ago

passport is like $70 bucks.

Dr_tldr• 11 years ago

This is part of the larger tech hiring culture of "it's better to miss hiring someone good than to hire someone who might be bad." The guy in the story is hit especially hard by this, but HR's paradigm of fear/incompetence/inability to manage people after they're hired is a big piece of it.

It's not ever easy for someone classified as an ex-con to get a job, but tech discriminates more than most other professions.

tluyben2• 11 years ago

Well, HR / recruiters are a bit worse in most (tech?) professions; they seem really lazy when vetting people and just go for the stereotype great employee while discarding everyone else. So the only way back would be to go for a very small company in a smaller town. In the EU he would be hired for sure; I would hire him. I never cared about previous experiences/age/gender/race only about current skills and effort and we did very well by it.

alakkadshaw• 11 years ago

He could try working as a freelancer, on websites like Elance/Upwork or something and make some money. Then he could use that money move out of the homeless shelter and then look for a decent job.

insanebits• 11 years ago

The problem here is not a shelter but a previous criminal records.

+1 for freelancing idea, it might actually work if there are security jobs. But I think security in it's nature is something that needs assurance that person is capable of auditing the system.

jfoster• 11 years ago

You're right, though if he's very capable at security stuff, there's probably also other types of freelancing work that he'd be capable of doing.

halflings• 11 years ago

It seems like he has more experience in the enterprise world ("Security Compliance"), not sure that's the type of jobs you'd give to a freelancer, or at least not on Elance/Upwork.

morgante2• 11 years ago

One thing I'm curious about is how he actually ended up homeless. Before the conviction, it seems like he was doing very well (BMW, townhouse).

Why did he not have sufficient savings to survive after he got out of prison?

(Not trying to blame him for anything, trying to plan for my own life. I strive to maintain sufficient savings so that I would never be homeless even if I never worked again.)

tdicola• 11 years ago

Making just shy of $100k in Seattle could be tricky to build up a lot of savings and live in a desired/fancy area with an expensive car. The median home price is well north of $500-600k.

nostrebored• 11 years ago

Plenty of people live in West Seattle/Kent/Renton/Vashon. You can even live in the CD and still be in commuting distance for affordable rates. There's also no shame in having a roommate. I live in Queen Anne in a 2br house and still have net savings at a comparable salary. Also if you're living in cap hill, slu, Queen Anne, etc., you don't need a car. Everything is in walking distance or busable. You can even go hiking with the buses here! It all just depends on how you live.

caseysoftware• 11 years ago

I suspect any savings he did have would have gone to his legal defense. It's an all or nothing thing, you wouldn't hold back if you were wrongly accused and had everything to lose (as demonstrated).

jpindar2• 11 years ago

In the comments, if that is actually him posting under his name, he says "I was in Debt and had JUST started that particular contract ,,an attorney wanted 10.000 up front and I did not have it !! ."

tehwalrus• 11 years ago

In drug cases, aren't someone's assets all seized?

huac• 11 years ago

From the story, he didn't seem like he owned the house or car - possible that he paid the leases while in prison.

The mental debt of being in prison probably doesn't help anyone's financial situation either.

manigandham• 11 years ago

1 year is a long time to keep paying bills - especially from inside prison.

jokoon• 11 years ago

Artificial selection at its finest.

exhomeless4• 11 years ago

I was homeless for about a year and a half. The first 6 months were spent sleeping on the streets, and when possible, in a shelter - but realistically, in the area where I was, most shelters were not really a safe place to be, and the few that were filled up early. The remaining time, I crashed at a drug dealers house and helped sell in return.

I didn't have much more than the belongings that fit in a mid-sized duffle bag and for a while I mostly survived by cleaning bathrooms at coffee shops before opening hours where the employees didn't really want to do that part of their job - and in return I would get some coffee and a bite to eat. Any money I did get, I saved up.

Once I had access to the internet again, and at least a warm place to sleep at night that I considered safe, I started making contacts on IRC. Eventually I had enough money to relocate across country via Greyhound, a couch to crash on when I arrived and prospects for a new beginning. I quickly jumped from $25k to $40k to $60k etc and am currently at $160k with a whole new life and an amazing career ahead of me.

It's possible to get out of the situation if what got you there isn't addiction or mental illness - the system does little to help, and without being resourceful it's easy to get stuck in that position for a long time. But it can be done. Granted, I never had the ex-con/drug dealer status haunting me in background checks, but I have been upfront in interviews before and still got the job. Greatest accomplishment in life? Escaping homelessness.

gabalese• 11 years ago

Great story indeed, and really inspirational. But that just reaffirms what other commenters already pointed out: the problem is not homelessness per se, but a (unfair) criminal record that doesn't mix really well with a job in security. What I find incredible, though, it's that this record still persists after he has been cleared of the past accusations.

Filligree• 11 years ago

It persists on the internet. This type of situation is essentially the reasoning behind the EU's "right to be forgotten".

coldtea2• 11 years ago

It's possible to get out of the situation if what got you there isn't addiction or mental illness - the system does little to help, and without being resourceful it's easy to get stuck in that position for a long time. But it can be done.

Glad it worked out in the end for you!

I have a small issue though with the "it can be done" thing.

Getting to have 10 top 10 hits at the charts can be done too. The question is how easy it is, and what percentage will be able to do it.

The reason I'm saying that is that, while giving the message "it can be done" is good and can help people not give up in a similar situation, it can also give the false idea that it's a workable situation when it might not be save for very few outliers (and even for them, mostly when the right "stars" and chances are aligned, and not just due to their determination and work).

This also gives some people a chance to overlook the issue, thinking ("it can't be done, so people who don't do it are just lazy, not trying enough, thus, we don't need to help them").

For such issues who plague thousands, people who have escaped can often be the worse sources to learn about the difficulty of the situation -- because they tend to generalize their outlier experience (and sometimes minimize the chances that helped them escape), and sometimes look back at others still in the same situation as not trying enough (since that will justify their self-image as them being "more worthy/resourceful/persistent" than them).

exhomeless4• 11 years ago

I am certainly an outlier and am not sure what the probability of it occurring really is. I think there are systemic issues in how homelessness is treated that I was lucky enough to get past - what concerns me is the lack of support and aide that people in that situation actually receive. Addiction and mental illness barely gets the attention it deserves, and getting people back on their feet is extremely tough regardless of their determination, or skills. I don't want to make it seem easy, because it certainly wasn't - and maybe I did have a one-up in terms of resourcefulness - but without changes in the way homelessness is treated, from government as well as how it can be stigmatized, it's an additional blocker for those trying to re-enter society and make a difference in their lives.

realisation• 11 years ago

There's two parts to this issue. One is being successful by typical worldly standard. The other are emotional scars. Maybe, it's not necessarily feasible for everyone to achieve hoisting themselves from homelessness into a white collar above average paying job. Maybe that's not possible. But this is besides the point.

What is eminently more possible is achieving emotional worthiness. When a person is rejected, however that came to be, this activates a physiological response in them which causes them to perceive scarcity, which wreaks havoc on any number of processes in daily life that, building up, can rip a person down.

What are the antidotes to this response? In my experience, gratitude is a strong antidote, when & where you can find it.

RealGeek• 11 years ago

Glad you were able to break the vicious cycle and build a career.

What job do you do now? What skills / education helped you get the job?

exhomeless4• 11 years ago

Engineering - self taught, and I have a GED (for non-U.S., this is a credential that is treated as an equivalent to passing high school).

buro96• 11 years ago

Fully escaped?

I've spoken openly of my 30 months sleeping rough on the streets of the UK. I may have "escaped" homelessness, but the mental scars accumulated whilst on the street do still haunt me. I feel it, the sense of worthlessness, the self-doubt. There's a feeling that I shouldn't be alive let alone here in this workplace or surrounded by good people, a feeling that I don't quite belong.

One can put a roof over one's head, get a job, that leads to a career, obtain an income that is above-average... but can one truly escape something as traumatic as being homeless for any sustained period of time (covering 1 Winter at least)?

I'm less sure on that. I live in the hope that I'm wrong.

And of course, Christmas comes around and people return to family and those who don't are the waifs and strays, an annual reminder that we're not the same.

exhomeless4• 11 years ago

Personally, yes I think I have fully escaped. It's been 16 years since then, and I see my scars as a personal trophy of sorts - a motivator on what I can accomplish if I set my mind to it. It wasn't always like this - but it's what I have conditioned myself to do after the traumas that I have endured related and unrelated to the homelessness.

I hope that you are working to get past any demons that haunt you - you deserve it, everyone does.

RyJones2• 11 years ago

I haven't lived in my car since 92 or so and I still notice nice places to park where the police won't bug me.

DanBC• 11 years ago

May I ask: What would have helped? And what would help now?

Homeless people and people who are vulnerably housed in the UK have pretty lousy treatment from "services", a lot of which is provided by faith and voluntary groups.

There are huge amounts of stigma, and a lot of misunderstanding of alcoholism and drug use and mental illness.

eternalban2• 11 years ago

Are you seeing a therapist?

cerebrum• 11 years ago

I never was homeless but I hate christmas. Since I have a good career now I always travel to some warm place during christmas.

temphack• 11 years ago

I wasn't really homeless but when I was a teenager I struggled with food for some years. I mean, sometimes eating only once per 2 or 3 days. For weeks or months.

I can say now I'm much better, maybe not part of the 1%, but surely part of the 2% :)

But not fully escaped. They say hard times build character. That's true, but the physical and psychological sequels are with me for ever. Nobody should be that poor.

eli_gottlieb• 11 years ago

There's a feeling that I shouldn't be alive let alone here in this workplace or surrounded by good people, a feeling that I don't quite belong.

Funny. I've never been homeless, and that's how I feel a lot of the time.

Bahamut• 11 years ago

I too have a somewhat similar, but not quite same story myself - I spent 2 years homeless, but I had a roof above my head from various friends throughout that time. I was still poor though - nothing homed that in more than being so poor that one week, I ate oatmeal almost exclusively for a week. I had sold most of my material possessions as well, excepting my clothes and desktop/laptop & monitor.

Somehow I mustered up the will to continue job searching throughout that whole time, even putting up with a really crappy situation at one point where I had to sleep in the same room as a former friend who would masturbate loudly at night, thinking I was asleep (but the noise would be what would wake me up).

Job searching alone did not prove fruitful in my case - after 2 years, I pivoted into teaching myself programming, and entered the web development profession a half year later with a modest ~$50k salary for my first job. Slightly more than 3 years later, I am now at a $160k salary with a career that shines brightly with substantial open source software work.

Fear of being caught blindsided & not prepared propels me to continue to work hard and develop my career. The last thing I want is to regress into that situation again.

spyder• 11 years ago

Why don't they do the background check before the interviews so they don't waste eachother's time and money just to later have a background check fail. Does a background check costs more than an interview and paying for the flights?

jschwartzi2• 11 years ago

It's probably because the interviewer's time is a sunk cost, whereas the background check would require accounting approval.

manquer• 11 years ago

Not a for a single candidate, if you however need to do it for all candidates before they are evaluated it will be much costlier :). Doing it after the interview for few candidates is much cheaper.

Also it may take weeks to do the full check, you will loose the candidate if you wait for so long to do the assessment .

tuxracer• 11 years ago

Take someone who has already demonstrated the know how to make money selling illicit drugs and, as punishment, ban them from legitimate employment for life... That must be super effective! /s

imgabe2• 11 years ago

Are there charities set up that could help with something like this? I mean it would literally take less than $5k to get this guy set up. A couple suits of decent clothes, a security deposit and first months rent for an apartment, a bus ticket to wherever his job is.

That is a bargain for removing a homeless person from the system. Local governments and shelters should be jumping at the chance to do it.

jschwartzi2• 11 years ago

It's not just that. It sounds like he gets the offer, but it's contingent on his background check clearing.

If that's all he needs though, where's the Kickstarter?

imgabe2• 11 years ago

Maybe I was confused. It sounded like some of them were possible but he had no way of getting to the city where the job was. Or maybe he was just saying that even if one did come through he couldn't follow up on it.

lisper• 11 years ago

I spent two years trying to get a homeless person off the street, and made a movie about it:

http://graceofgodmovie.com/

chatwinra• 11 years ago

This just backs up why I think Finland's recent move[1] to give every citizen a basic salary is the way forward.

You'd then give everyone that basic level of security and enable them to progress in life. Yes there are potential flaws with the Finnish scheme (some people on benefits may ultimately lose out, and millionaires getting the same amount as poor people) - but crucially it would probably stop most, if not all, of cases like this, where someone can't escape the pull of homelessness even with opportunity there.

1 - http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/finland-plans-to-give-ev...

kuschku• 11 years ago

Germany has something called "Grundsicherung", which is even below unemployment benefits, but can be gotten by anyone, even without having a place of residence. That means if your homelessness is not based on mental issues or being too proud to accept help, you have at least a possibility to get out.

kraftman3• 11 years ago

“I am very pleased to offer you the full-time position of Senior Analyst, Security Compliance,” - so why doesn't he take that job? Or are they offering him the job and then by the time he goes to take it they've googled him and changed their minds?

kevinchen• 11 years ago

Yes, that's entire point of the article.

kraftman3• 11 years ago

It just seems strange to me that they learn enough about him to offer him a job, and then only after they've done that do they google him and find out his past. Surely you'd do that fairly early on?

MrApathy• 11 years ago

Very likely the offer is contingent upon the successful completion of a background check. A thorough background check (criminal, education, credit) can cost a few hundred dollars, so firms won't proceed until an offer has been accepted.

Even though he was exonerated, his prison stay and other convictions may show up. He can explain, but a firm can rescind an offer for whatever reason they want (outside of protected statuses, which does not include criminal background). For a security position firms may want perfectly clean backgrounds.

kraftman3• 11 years ago

Ahh, I was wondering why they would leave it that late, but avoiding extra costs makes sense.

d_theorist• 11 years ago

It seems like the conviction is what's preventing him from taking up the job offers, not being homeless.

brotoss• 11 years ago

What is this article actually about?

That he's getting $100k offers pending background checks and failing them?

Bad title.

Laaw• 11 years ago

Seems like this story is more about the struggle being black.

SZJX• 11 years ago

It's a bit weird though. Why couldn't he just rent a house/borrow money to pay for a temporary residence, then pay off using his paycheck? If his case was indeed already listed as exonerated, then he should be able to at least take some loans. But indeed, whetehr he was truly guilty or not, the stigma put on people via even just one conviction is just horrible. This seems such an ancient and brutal practice in today's world.

Being homeless a struggle, even with a $100k job offer

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