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At first, it just sounds crazy that people who cannot afford a home need a cell phone. But read this piece from the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times, and it makes more sense.

One of the hardest things for homeless/jobless people to do is to be available if an employer wants to contact them. They have no mailbox -- but with a cell phone, even a prepaid phone, they can be in touch.

On top of it all, as you think through this story, there are fewer pay phones these days.

The Times' story says:

Pinellas County homeless advocates say they also have noticed the proliferation of cell phones among people who can't afford a place to live. But Pinellas offers an alternative for people who can't afford cells but need to provide a phone number to potential employers.

It's called Community Voice Mail. It works by providing homeless people a phone number and a way to record a message. The numbers can't be used for outgoing calls, but people can check their messages from any regular or pay phone.

"We're finding it very useful and we're getting more and more people signed up for it," said Sarah Snyder, executive director of the Pinellas County Coalition for the Homeless.

Tracey Crocker, a homeless advocate who was homeless herself before moving to Florida and meeting her husband, said the phones provide a sense of security. Especially for women.

Christa Eland, 47, doesn't have a cell phone but gets by with a calling card.

"The only problem is that when I try to call my kids, I always get the answering machine," she said. "They don't have a way of calling me back, so I waste all my minutes talking to a machine."

Last year, The Washington Post produced a piece on the Community Voice Mail initiative.

A Week on Food Stamps

An interesting story, or maybe just a political stunt, is unfolding in Oregon. The governor and his wife will spend seven days living on the equivalent of a week's worth of food stamps, $65 for a family of two. According to the story, he won't be the first state legislator to try this.

It could be eye opening to follow food-stamp recipients through a month or two. How do they make ends meet? Could you live within those means? I know plenty of journalists who are darn close to qualifying for public assistance.

Here is a daily blog from Reno (Nev.) News and Review reporter Kat Kerlin, who went on a "food stamp diet."

The piece includes this passage:

I've been on a diet for the past month. It's not one I expect to sweep the nation anytime soon. It's called the Food Stamp Diet. It's not to lose weight or improve my health -- in fact, I feel like crap, and I think I've gained a bit. The idea is to see what it's like to live off the equivalent of food stamps for a month.

$155 a month. $38.75 a week. About $5 a day.

That means no booze, no restaurants and some careful grocery shopping.

But let's set something straight. This experiment is not a realistic interpretation of food-stamp life. The $155 a month I'm using is the maximum given for one person on food stamps. To get that amount in real life, I'd be jobless and homeless. I'm neither. I have a well-equipped kitchen with an oven, fridge, freezer and microwave. I can store, heat and chill anything I want. I have a car, which I can use to go to the budget-friendly supermarkets rather than the nearest place within walking distance that accepts food stamps. And my food-stamp life has an end in sight -- one month. That's it. By the time you read this, I hope to be eating sushi somewhere.

Al's Morning Multimedia

OK -- this is something I like. USAToday.com has built a ton of online reporter profiles with links to past work. TV and radio stations should do this, linking to the best stories that reporters and photojournalists produced recently. Why do we have to have the "Mt. Rushmore" photograph showing the anchors on top of every TV Web site? Show me some of their work when you roll over their Web site images.

Synthetic Track Produces Fast Times

As you begin thinking about Kentucky Derby-related stories in the next few weeks, here's one you can localize with your nearest horse racetrack. (The Derby is May 5.)

Since Barbaro's injury and death, there has been a lot of talk in the thoroughbred horse industry about synthetic racetrack surfaces that would be easier on horses' legs. One question that everyone in the horse world wondered about was whether the softer synthetic tracks would change race speeds. The answers are coming with spring race meets.

At Keeneland in Lexington, Ky., the "under-tack" times were "freakishly fast." The under-tack runs are not actual races, but time trials for horses about to be offered for sale. There is some evidence that cool or cold weather affects the synthetic track in ways it does not affect natural surfaces.

This is interesting partly because there were concerns that times would slow on the Polytrack surface. California tracks are installing the surface, too.

Jockeys and trainers at Turfway Park in northern Kentucky have agreed overwhelmingly that the synthetic track installed there is safer than a traditional dirt or sand track. In the fall 2006 race meet, there were three catastrophic breakdowns in 4,479 race entries.

Thoroughbred Times says:

During the 2007 winter-spring meet, seven horses had to be euthanized due to injuries sustained on Turfway's Polytrack surface. Turfway was the first North American track to install a synthetic surface.

No fatalities occurred last year. Fourteen horses were fatally injured during the track's last meet run on a dirt surface -- the 2005 winter-spring meeting.

Last year, The Washington Post did a very good piece on how race strategies may be different on synthetic tracks.

Editor's Note: Al's Morning Meeting is a compendium of ideas, edited story excerpts and other materials from a variety of Web sites, as well as original concepts and analysis. When the information comes directly from another source, it will be attributed and a link will be provided whenever possible. The column is fact-checked, but depends upon the accuracy and integrity of the original sources cited. Errors and inaccuracies found will be corrected.