How Street Sense, The Salvation Army, and Samaritan are using tech to help the unhoused, as people shift to cashless payment apps and don't carry spare change
Ashraf Khalil / Associated Press :
Context & Ripple Effects
As payment startups made low-cost digital transfers more routine, coverage documented both the promise of app-based giving and the exclusion risks of a cashless shift. This story follows the practical response: service organizations are adapting their outreach and donation methods to a public that increasingly has no physical change to give.
The issue is not simply fundraising. Earlier coverage of app-based direct giving showed digital payments can create new person-to-person channels, while the push toward a cashless society raised the prospect that people without banking access could be left behind.
First-order effects
- Street Sense, The Salvation Army, and Samaritan can use technology to maintain routes for public support as cash donations become less available.
- Unhoused people and the organizations serving them become more dependent on digital tools to connect needs, donors, and assistance.
Second-order effects
- Charities and mutual-aid networks face pressure to make digital giving simple enough to compete with the convenience of payment apps, rather than relying on spontaneous cash donations.
- The move shifts more giving through platforms and connected devices, making access to payment accounts and digital infrastructure more consequential for both donors and recipients.
Third-order effects
- If cashless behavior continues, support for people outside formal financial systems may increasingly depend on intermediaries that can translate digital payments into usable aid.
- The pattern reinforces the broader inclusion challenge later identified in research on cashless policies' disadvantages: payment convenience can alter who is able to participate unless alternative access paths remain available.
The trend: Cashless consumer behavior is pushing social-service and giving organizations to build digital bridges for people who may be least equipped to use mainstream payment systems.