The city of San Francisco is home to some of the nation’s largest technology companies, including Twitter and Uber. At the same time, it has one of the largest homeless populations in the country. Homelessness and job displacement for local people continue to rise. But, one program is helping to connect the two worlds for job seekers. Del Seymour created the program. He was once homeless himself. For years, Seymour suffered from using illegal drugs. “And I wandered these streets like a zombie, day or night, for 18 years, using drugs, selling drugs, being arrested. I have 14 felony arrests in this neighborhood.” He spent those years in a neighborhood known as the Tenderloin, an area with an extremely high rate of homelessness and drug use. However, in recent years, large companies like Twitter, AirBnB and Uber have moved in or near the Tenderloin area. “But they started importing people from other regions and countries to work in the neighborhood,” Seymour said. That was hard for Daniel Henry, a formerly homeless man who hopes to get a technology job. “My friends see how tech savvy I am and, ‘You should be working in tech, and I was like, ‘You’re right, I should.’” A few years ago, Seymour started making phone calls to technology companies. He thought it was unfair for the companies to ignore local people, including homeless ones. “You’re not going to come in my neighborhood and ignore my people,” he said. “You’re going to include us in your business.” To everyone’s surprise, the companies started answering. As a result, Seymour started Code Tenderloin. It is a nonprofit organization that is giving homeless and other needy people a path to employment, including jobs in technology companies.
