Okay, I admit this may be a bit of a stretch but perhaps there's a seed of an idea buried in my fantasy notion.

Buying a domain name in the retail market might cost you $10 - $20 with discriminating shoppers able to snatch them up at $7 or so. These are yearly fees so we'll need to keep that in mind.

There are plenty of people making a fair living buying and selling domain names and even more people (making more money!) buying and developing domains, monetizing through advertising networks like Google AdSense and Yahoo! Publisher Network (among others).

What if you bought a domain name for a homeless person? It could be something that simply increases in value as virtual real estate or it could be something that is ultimately developed into an ad-supported revenue stream. This assumes the homeless person has some means of retrieving postal mail (seems weird but I believe there are places to accommodate mailboxes for those without a home).

It would be helpful to have a centralized system to automatically get a domain name started with content, ads, etc. (I like Frank's experiment with wiki technology). Of course, unless the guy buying the domain is also going to get things started off, the homeless person would need some sort of free access to the internet. Does such a thing exist in urban areas?

The point is, buying a domain name could be like starting someone off with a bank account which delivers extremely high returns, perhaps allowing for basic existence (a daily meal?) fueled solely by the interest.

This might seem too difficult given some of the barriers. But think of the TV commercials we see where donating "just pennies a day" can sponsor a child. What if some of those organizations had a method in place for folks to sponsor by purchasing a domain on someone's behalf? Could that not provide the money needed to assist properly? At least in the aggregate?

Perhaps it's a pipe dream but maybe, just maybe, there's something valuable to extract from the basic principle.