Meet Detroit's Homeless Web Designer, Job Matchmaker
Detroit (WWJ) - How many tear-jerker homeless signs have you seen? Some are earnest, "Will work for food." "Mom willing to work for diapers." Some are light-hearted. WWJ listeners might remember hearing about a man outside Red Wings and Tigers games with a sign that read, "No lie here. I need a beer."
Then there's the sign Abe Hagenston has set up on the north side of the Woodward overpass on the southeast corner of 8 Mile, touting a web site, Spanging.com (pronounced "spain-jing").
Hagenston says he's been homeless on and off for seven years. Some of that time he spent building web sites for other people to make money. The idea occurred to him to make a website to collect donations, and ask people for odd jobs along the lines of yard work, painting, window washing, etc... that he and other homeless can do.
"I've got about 20 or 30 friends around here all homeless all various skills that would love to get some work ... "
He says spanging is a verb he picked up in another part of the country derived from the act of collecting spare change. Most days is doing that on the north side of the Woodward overpass, southeast corner of 8 Mile, but he hopes the website will help him gain employment and help others.
He encourages people to go to the website and request homeless for odd jobs as well as donate a penny. Hagenston wants to be able to make one homeless person per day, a millionaire.