A quick look at his linkedin profile shows a 17 year gap in his work history and a very vague sense of what skills he has, I imagine that's what giving him problems.
How do you make yourself more desirable if you have been out of work?
I am not homeless but not able to land work and have been working in a different industry for 5 years but want to get back in to what I went to school for which is Computer Engineering.
To make yourself more desirable to employers, I'd have personal projects that demonstrate your abilities.
I'm a freelance writer slash "creative". I've been that way for over five years. I also have creative projects and those have been generating revenue and opportunities for me.
It's not easy. I was homeless for several weeks about a year ago. Couldn't cover the rent. But I've done factory work for many years and I'd choose this any day.
It's going to be hard, but open source is really your best friend here.
Personally I'd suggest finding a new project that's up and running with a very committed founder, and put a lot of effort into contributions.
If you pick something like openphoto, you'll be able to make a difference, make a good track record of work done by yourself, and if openphoto takes off, then you'd be in the perfect position to get hired to work on it.
If open source is too much work, you can also publish in trade journals. For example I published an article on JSR-170 for IBM DeveloperWorks in 2006 when I was unemployed. It took about a weekend to write, and IBM paid me $600 for the piece (and boy was I desperate for the money). I had companies asking me for interviews within days due solely to that article. The oddest thing is that I continue to get interview requests from that piece (and a few from PHP Architect), even though it was written in 2006.
By the way, the reference to "SoloFX Enterprises" is fake. As I said, I was unemployed at the time, so I just made something up. You'll find several other articles from me right around the same time period.
Most of the time with sensational stories you only get the 'shock' side of the story. Like forgetting last years case Ted Williams (radio voice guy) was a drunk and drug abuser.
Or untold police brutality stories which neglect the office point of view. Not that I condone police beating the crap out of people, but I understand every one has a breaking limit, and often after watching those videos I think I wouldn't have lasted half as long as the cops did. But a cop having to face 3 abusive people in an uphill struggle to do his job... until he pulls out a baton and pacifies one or two ... is no where near a great story as a abusing his power.
Lots of homeless people have mental defects that can be hard to see at first. I wouldn't mind betting there maybe something else as well. Even something as simple as depression.
I suspect he has these going against him. Age , weight, race, long term unemployed, homeless, new city, industry knowledge which he probably hasn't kept unto date on, and drive... lets face it younger people have more drive to be prove themselves than older people.
Pretty hard to top of the pile when lots of other applicants wouldn't have that.
I'd say the best thing for him would be teaching, seems he has a warmth about him, proven kindness (with parents), seems intelligent enough, and as long as theres no mental defects. One year in a local community college and he'd be set. No doubt there will be an online effort to help this man out. And I'd chuck him a dollar to be a teacher.
There is a bit of an obsession with telling the whole story in this thread and it's exactly what I'd expect out of HN readers (we're always skeptical, or maybe that's just me). The reality is that it's impossible to tell the whole story in 7 minutes 25 seconds.
I'm guessing the question really is: is what we're listening to and reading an honest portrayal of events. That's anybody's guess.
It's not the whole story, for sure. It's a story with details and facts chosen based on the biases of the folks covering it (I believe the business of news, particularly news magazines, is closer aligned with the entertainment industry ... having a story go viral increases pageviews, advertising dollars and subscriptions [I'm not implying malice, here, just trying to analyze perspectives]).
