This seemed like the perfect place to reveal this solution. I apologize for the granularity of detail, but I thought it was important to make sure this is done correctly. After several months spent racking my brain, I have come up with a mobile app currently under provisional patent and in the early stages of Droid/Apple development that is going to attempt to solve several existing socio-economic issues we are currently facing.
1) The city you live in doesn't give a shit if you can afford to live there.
2) The creditors of your bills don't give a shit if you can afford to pay them.
3) The wage gap is widening and the cost of living is increasingly untenable.
4) Citizens serving critical roles in our day-to-day society are being marginalized and the corporate endeavor of replacing them with automation or workers desperately willing to accept less is progressing every day.
At the risk of over-simplifying, the app in the works is designed to serve as a crowdfunding for bills. Upon registration, each user creates a 2 headed profile: First, you designate the source of your outbound funds in case you feel compelled to pay toward any amount of someone else's monthly obligations. Second, you register a list of whatever monthly obligations you have that you're comfortable with sharing (i.e, Water bill $100, Wifi Bill $75, Rent $1800 etc) along with an account number that only the app knows. All payments are handled directly by the app and can be paid only toward bills accompanied by registered account numbers that the recipient would have to provide.
Each registered user can see the monthly obligations of other users and contribute any amount toward those bills to provide relief, to contribute toward shared responsbility (in shared accommodation settings such as a roommate), to improve the quality of life and general morale of their community, or to just serve as a good citizen. The financially stable, who simply wish to send only outbound payments do not have to list accounts of their own if they choose.
GoFundMe is a great example of a platform that has adequately demonstrated that the contingent of the financially stable are, for the most part, generous and kind when presented with situations of hardship. But those situations are a one time deal, require a story which may or may not be true, are rife with fraud, and result in the recipient receiving cash from the fundraiser.
That's great for the recipient, but as someone who has experienced hardship, when you hand cash to someone who is depressed or struggling, they will spend those funds on the menial things that provide temporary happiness and do nothing to solve monthly struggles. This app focuses specifically on paying established, monthly costs of simply existing. For others. And that cannot be understated.
The end result is observable monthly liquid income in each person's bank account (because not as much is going toward their bills) that they can use to bail themselves out of consumer debt, to spend on their own mental health, to forward toward the financial plight of others, and to flip the middle finger to the establishents that think we are incapable of taking care of our own.
You can limit your searches for contribution targets to only family/friends/contacts, search by zip code (if interested primarily in boosting your local community or maybe your home town), or more advanced search features if you're interested in spreading contributions among strangers.
This isn't going to be app ultimately feasted upon by spam or bullshit. Your profile is simply a picture (if desired), a name, hometown, and 2 hearts flanking your picture. Established bill accounts confirmed by the app upon registration. No fabricated stories, no links to phishing scams. The left heart is a graphic representation of how much of your monthly financials have been paid for by others. E.g, if you list $1000 worth of monthly bills and others have paid $300 towards it, your heart icon would be about 1/3 of the way full. The other heart represents a donation status to appeal to those who wish for clout to accompany their generosity. Color-coded tier status that is tied to how much relief you've provided to others over the course of your account. This status could be shared via social media if you care to boast about your contributions. I doubt the recipients would mind.
The more proliferation the app achieves, the higher the percentage of your bills paid and the more confidence we can have in societal obligations to help one another out.
Please provide input so we can make this as beneficial as possible for all.
Edit: Im omitting consumer credit card accounts because I feel like this would enable users who might be encouraged to spend more on credit if others are paying toward their balances. That doesnt help those of us in a vulnerable financial condition. The only eligible accounts on this app are for balances that currently exist and are currently taxing present users on a monthly basis. Utilities, wifi, rent, student loans, vehicle loans, student lunch accounts, layaway, unforeseen expenses (funeral, layoff, etc).