If you're one of the 6,000 plus homeless San Franciscans who desperately needs food and shelter, this solution is not for you. Neither is it for the artist being priced out of the city or the family being evicted from their longtime home.
Instead, the folks behind Wefunder would like to offer free rooms and sustenance for up to a week to "talented engineers and designers" in their SoMa "Hacker Palace." Quote: "It's pretty swank." Have a look.
The program is called Hacker Surfing, and it seems based on a couch-surfing model. You have to apply to live in the house, answering questions about your personality and skill set. That's because these guys are "desperately seeking talent," though they insist there's no obligation to work for them or one of the companies in which their startup invests. Wefunder is a startup for startups, and those startups are looking for tech workers.
Hacker Surfing's FAQ section has all the answers. "We like being around really interesting and motivated people, and if it's a good fit, we're confident things will just work out." So basically it is kind of a job interview slash home stay. You'll get your own private bed and can raid the stocked fridge, or even do work on the WiFi, perhaps in the bathtub, like so.
There's no such thing as a free lunch. These guys are courting talent, which isn't wrong. Letting someone in off the street who can't code up a web app wouldn't help them any. But what's kind of tone deaf is the offer for free food and housing to those who already have enormous opportunities in San Francisco in a moment when tons of people would kill just to stay in the city, anywhere. Do you actually need a place to live or food to eat? Are you getting priced out of San Francisco? Well, for this crashpad, you'd better learn to code.
