Free Internet Coming Soon to Affordable Housing Communities

    Affordable housing residents in several public communities throughout the country will soon have access the Internet at little-to-no cost. In mid-July, President Obama announced a new Federal program aimed to provide free or low-cost Internet access in select Public Housing and other affordable housing properties. Currently, the focus is on 28 public communities in Albany, Atlanta and Macon, GA; Baltimore, MD; Baton Rouge, LA; Boston and Springfield, MA; Camden and Newark, NJ; Cleveland, OH; Denver, CO; Durham, NC; Fresno and Los Angeles, CA; Kansas City, MO; Little Rock, AR; Memphis and Nashville, TN; Meriden, CT; New Orleans, LA; New York, NY; Philadelphia, PA; Rockford, IL; San Antonio, TX; Seattle, WA; Tampa FL; Washington, DC; and the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. These communities were carefully selected by HUD after responding to its notice about this program in April 2015. In all, 40 communities in the nation expressed interest. The Obama administration and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) initiated a program called ConnectHome, which is aimed to provide affordable Internet access to low-income households.  The program was set up as an acknowledgement that the Internet is a necessary resource for learning new information, and with that, a great way to find opportunities of financial growth. Participating Internet Service Providers (ISP) include Google Fiber, Sprint, Century Link, Cox Communications, Cherokee Communications, Pine Telephone, Suddenlink Communications and Vyve Broadband. Google Fiber and Sprint will provide Internet access for free, while the other participants will charge a low monthly fee that begins at $9.95. Google has stated its program will also be extended to all other current and future Google Fiber markets not a part of ConnectHome, which includes the metropolitan areas of Austin, TX; Charlotte, VA; Phoenix, AZ; Portland, OR; Provo and Salt Lake City, UT; and San Jose, CA. You can click here or click the Google Fiber coverage map below to find more information about current and future Google Fiber markets.     In addition to providing Internet with no installation or monthly fee for these households, Google is also working with ConnectHome and local community organizations to offer basic computer training to tenants of supported properties. This initiative has already proved to be a success in Austin, TX. Working with the Housing Authority of the City of Austin, Google first provided its service at the Manchaca Village affordable housing community as an experiment. More than 90% of residents signed up to receive free Internet access, and more than half of the residents completed the basic computer training program. As said by Google in its blog post announcing this plan, 26% of households that earn less than $30,000 a year do not have Internet access. So, by targeting Public Housing and other affordable housing properties that are a priority of the ConnectHome program, these participating ISPs are going to have a significant positive impact on many low-income households. Even for low-income households that are able to afford Internet access, the service comes at a considerable price. Internet Service Providers often charge costly monthly fees, and using a smart phone data plan to access the Internet can easily get pricey as well. Take our own website, for example. In the first six months of this year, 69.38% of our users have accessed Affordable Housing Online through a mobile phone, 24.27% through a computer, and 6.35% through a tablet. Combining the data of mobile phones and tablets, more than 75% of our users visit our website through a portable device. Internet access on portable devices is often granted by an expensive data plan. By having free or low-cost Internet access available in your unit, this eliminates the need of data plans and allows low-income families to focus their spending on other areas. Simply put, giving free Internet access to low-income families connects them to a plethora of information that is otherwise unobtainable or hard to find. It eliminates the need of traveling to a public computer lab, and helps ease the stress of paying monthly bills. This is just the start of something great. As of now, there are only 28 public communities participating in ConnectHome, but organizations are encouraged to contact HUD if they want to be a part of this pilot program. It will take some time for all ISPs to officially implement this program to all proposed areas, and no timetable has been set. However, it is a great sign that this initiative is in the works, and it has opened up numerous ways to even further assist low-income families in the United States.