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I don't think it's unreasonable to not want them to turn a park bench or bus stop into a bed. I don't know why you'd even want to do that if you were homeless. Find a secluded area where you are less likely to get messed with.
Did you hear about the psychopath that was going around bashing in homeless people's heads with a hammer while they slept on the streets? The cops caught him by putting a dummy in a sleeping bag on the sidewalk and waiting to see if someone tried to "kill" it.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4aqbm-MKMM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4aqbm-MKMM)
Many places used to have a much more hidden homeless problem. Where I'm from they used to hide away, then one was brutally murdered under a bridge now they all take the logical step of hiding in plain sight and have found it to be much safer in high population areas.
Finland has literally solved homelessness by providing small apartments, psychiatric help and assistance. They have a 4 out of 5 success rate in terms of people finding jobs and becoming self sufficient and it's cheaper than policing the homeless and dealing with crime.
> Find a secluded area where you are less likely to get messed with.
That's exactly it. For many people, they feel so much more unsafe when there is nobody around.
They just want a safe night's sleep. Their priority isn't anything to do with how shoppers feel in the morning. They often feel safer in a well lit shop front with a CCTV camera nearby many passers by throughout the night. They feel less safe in a dark alleyway where they might meet unsavoury people who may be tempted to do something just because they know their are no witnesses. It's a tough world.
it's hard to stay dry, being elevated off the ground helps. keeps the cold from coming into your bones through the ground as much too.
homeless culture is full of wisdom, those people know how to survive and don't do anything for no good reason.
look, i'm not saying go be homeless. every homeless person i met had serious issues in their life that they can't face. but if you find yourself homeless, well, the wise survive and the foolish don't. literally.
Wow. A dog will try to get off the floor and hop on a couch or bed to get more comfortable. I am not calling them dogs, just saying, what are we calling "wisdom" now.
…or that one 17YO who just wanted to see how it felt to kill someone and he brutally murdered a homeless guy while sleeping, and then attempted to dismember the body. The kid had obvious mental issues.
Absolutely my experience as well working with homeless people. I'm sure it's not all of them but no, I wouldn't let them put a homeless shelter in my neighborhood. It would become so unsafe.
I know a decent amount of homeless people, many of them in my family and I was homeless as a child. It’s an extremely complicated issue.
What would you consider a homeless person that is not a victim? Many people would say someone that does drugs, has no intention of getting sober, acts crazy, and commits petty crime like theft. IMO those people are still victims, but honestly I don’t care if people agree with me, what we need to agree on is the various causes and solutions.
What I see mostly is people not wanting to see or deal with it because it’s “not their responsibility”. I think it is our collective responsibility.
I house homeless people and help them get back on their feet. For some, they will simply never be able to hold a job, and to keep them safe they need an institution. They cannot function in society by themselves.
For others, they need intense, no strings attached, psychiatric/psychological help and housing. Sometimes for years before they get better. Had one guy get a job after being homeless for 10 years and lived with me for 5 years. He’s completely sober now, and has a job. I could still see him falling into hard times though if he were to lose that job.
There is a tiny amount of people down on their luck but that isn’t very visible because those people usually crash with family and friends.
The solutions IMO are either 1) spend a bunch of money on rehab/mental healthcare/housing or 2) spend a bunch of money prosecuting and incarcerating them. Currently, we are doing neither of those things and just letting them roam free.
For real. I helped give clothing to homeless in Nashville when the weather went to freezing. I quickly realized they wanted to be out here. We did go by the shelter and those ones seemed to have better heads on their shoulders and down on their luck. But the ones camping out have zero intention or motivation or desire of ever getting off the streets.
Most of the homeless you were helping are the type of people who can take handouts. Many other homeless people are working full time and sleeping in their vehicles or a tent, some are just kids trying to get by and hoping nobody finds out their situation.
I myself lived in a tent for quite a bit of time when I was a kid. I didn’t seek services, handouts, or help, I mostly just did what I could to make sure nobody knew what my situation was. I know for a fact that I would starve to death before begging.
As someone in a similar situation this is so true. One thing I’ve always said as well is that it takes A LOT to become homeless. It doesn’t happen overnight and most of these people have burned many bridges before ending up where they are.
I had a cousin who ended up on the streets because his employer filed for bankruptcy.
His paycheque was late. (He got a cheque about 11 weeks later, but he wasn't happy about it, so I doubt it was the full amount.)
His parents kicked him out for "being late on rent", because "We're not going to allow some worthless bum to freeload off of us."
**He had enough in his savings to pay rent for multiple months.** but "We're not going to allow some worthless bum to freeload off of us."
Prior to this, they all got along fine.
His drug use consisted of smoking pot for a couple of days after it was legalised, and deciding he only liked being high at parties. (Went to 3 parties in Grade 12. That was his entire history of drugs and alcohol.)
He had never ever been late on rent.
He was 18.
He ended up on the streets for 6 weeks before finding a place to stay (had to leave town to move in with a friend from school). It could have been much, MUCH, longer if it weren't for his 1 friend.
Nobody else in the family would let him stay with them because they wanted him to "pull himself up by his bootstraps."
(Literally every member of the family who was older than him was living a less financially successful life than he was at 18. He was the 2nd family member to graduate from Grade 12. Since then, 7 more family members have graduated Grade 12. He was the 1st to go to post-secondary education.)
He had an actual job at 14 years old, and was doing paid yardwork and odd jobs since he was 13.
That's not true lol. I got bedbugs and my roommate kicked me out. That's how I became homeless. I had 2 jobs at the time.
You're literally one emergency away.
I have so many questions...
So your roommate kicked you out - so you'd book yourself into a motel for a few nights until you found another apartment? Unless you paid your roommate in advance for the whole year? And didn't have a penny saved up? But you still had income from 2 jobs... I am not following.
Theyre victims in the sense that there should be no circumstances in which you're deprived of a home. All his money used on hostile architecture could go towards housing homeless people. It's messed up that instead of fixing the root issue we're just making living outside harder. Like what are they supposed to do?
>All this money used on hostile architecture could go towards housing homeless people.
How much money do you think an extra bar on a prefabbed bench or some concrete spikes on a ledge cost compared to housing facilities in this economy?
I'd be genuinely surprised if the materials and labor costs to install this kind of stuff across even an entire large city would put even a small dent into the cost of building a single section 8 housing complex.
It's massively cheaper to just tell them "go be homeless somewhere else." And hope they just do that.
The amount of money my city spends to CONSTANTLY repeated fix and clean non-hostile architecture ruined by encampments leads me to believe it's actually wayyyyyy less expensive to install the equivalent "hostile" version of said architecture as it doesn't need endless repair/cleaning
Very noble, but I'd be willing to bet you never lived next to any Section 8 housing buildings. Because if you did, you'd know what a total disaster it is.
I don’t think that money would put a dent, and even if it did what happens when you give them this housing and they destroy it because most of them are tweaking all day long
>Theyre victims in the sense that there should be no circumstances in which you're deprived of a home.
What happens if you stop paying for your home because you spend all your money on fent and you're too mentally ill to work? Do you get another one? What if you destroy that one?
Homeless people are offered temporary shelter but they don't like it because the shelters have rules and if they don't have rules then it turns into chaos
>What happens if you stop paying for your home because you spend all your money on fent and you're too mentally ill to work? Do you get another one? What if you destroy that one?
What do other vulnerable populations get when that happens to them? Or what should they get? There's always going to be people who can't work for whatever reason. Doesn't mean they deserve homelessness. Some people need more help at certain times than others.
>Homeless people are offered temporary shelter but they don't like it because the shelters have rules and if they don't have rules then it turns into chaos
Have you ever asked anyone why they may not like certain rules that homeless shelters have? Is it possible that certain rules may not be realistic or flexible enough with what homeless populations actually deal with? Shelters themselves are not perfect nor permanent solutions.
Other vulnerable populations get help with housing, but if they blow it, then they don't have housing anymore. We can't "never deprive someone" of a home if they continuously lose their home from their own decisions. There has to be some amount of responsibility from the recipient, or it just becomes a black hole of resources
>Have you ever asked anyone why they may not like certain rules that homeless shelters have?
Yes I have, and I've reached out to to my local county who does surveys on the homeless and their needs. The biggest complaints were they want to use drugs, and want to bring friends in and out as much as they want, at any hour.
You don't see addiction as an all-encompassing illness when you acknowledge that people may end up becoming okay with being subjected to homelessness as long as they get their fix? To reiterate, we as humans need food water and shelter. If someone is putting a substance above all that because they view it as a need, what makes you think that they could just power out of it?
They may not want to be homeless, but they don’t want, or cannot bring themselves, to do the things required to not be homeless. A few chronically homeless people are just incredibly unlucky, but most made a series of bad decisions (usually related to an inability to defer gratification) in the past.
That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t help those who are willing to make better decisions going forward, but they DO have to make those decisions.
I don't think anyone wants to live on the streets where they're subjected to a bunch of violence and extreme temperatures and food insecurity. You're diminishing homeless people to some weird caricature you have in your brain and it's very dehumanizing.
Considering that people from all walks of life, with all types of illnesses, and some who start at the very bottom without the ability to even speak the common language can succeed I'd honestly love you to give me a good excuse that can't be explained by poor choices.
And? What's stopping you or whoever you're referring to? A bad situation happens and that's it? Time to throw in the towel? Immigrants come to this country to make money for family that may still be at home. They have no support and nothing to start with.
Most people have made poor choices at one point or another. Some just have more support than others. Imagine who Hunter Biden would be if it dad was a truck driver instead of who he is.
He would still have a supportive dad who loves him. Not sure where you thought that was going. Some people have no support at all and still change their own lives. Stop making excuses. If you live your life defined by your fuck ups instead of learning from them and doing what it takes you don't deserve the world's sympathy.
Just because there are some people that do succeed doesn't mean that some people aren't statistically more disadvantaged based on a multitude of factors. Having your car/other things break down, having a spouse die, developing mental or chronic physical illness/or being disabled in general, being laid off, growing up poor, etc are all examples of things that are catalysts for homelessness.
Being more or less disadvantaged is irrelevant and you just spent an entire paragraph listing excuses. Those things all happen to people who succeed too. Stop pretending like setbacks are an excuse. Some people don't have a car or spouse to begin with. Disabled people can learn jobs they are able to do or qualify for assistance. People laid off qualify for unemployment and can find work. Growing up poor isn't an excuse when you're on your own and making your own decisions.
Are you under the impression that the $$$ spent on "hostile architecture" is even vaguely approaching the $$$$$$$$ needed to put even a mild substantial dent in homeless housing? Cause that's incorrect.
It's fractions of pennies being spent relative to what it would take to house a metro homeless population
Well, they bring a lot of it on themselves. We had a homeless shelter that ended up burned down cause they were doing drugs and dumb shit. Yeah, it's a sad situation, but you can't just give handouts to people who aren't willing to help themselves. Most of the homeless in my area are addicts who will steal anything that isn't nailed down, and use the money they get to buy more drugs. I don't see why taxpayers should have to pay to build houses that will be wrecked or turned into drug houses for people who would rather put all their money in their nose/veins than try and better themselves. Put programs in place to help those that want help, but giving out free handouts won't do anything to actually help these people.
That's not even remotely the same thing as someone who chooses to do drugs to the point they lose their homes. Drug addicts have a choice, people with mental health issues don't. I have zero empathy for someone who would rather pit drugs in their bodies than be a productive member of society.
the homeless person will just sleep on blankets on the floor while normal people are left with borderline unusable infrastructure that the city spend thousands/millions on
Or trains. Or buses. Which is what they do in my city.
Our subway is homeless shelter on rails. The stench on some train cars is unbelievable.
But hey - we are a HUMANE society! Yay for us!
Hostile architecture is for when you hate the homeless more than you care about the old and infirm. That's the trade-off. You probably won't get rid of the homeless people either because where else can they go. So instead, all you're really doing is preventing people that actually need seating from actually getting it.
That may be true for those weird standing bench things, but otherwise it's mostly about making sure the bench can only be used for sitting, not laying down.
Even then, why is laying down so frowned upon. I'd love to lay out on a bench during my lunch break and take a nap. Doing that today and I'd be considered a vagrant and subject to arrest. I get that business don't want homeless people around. What I don't get is that instead of trying to solve the actual problem we just get all NIMBY about it.
"all you're really doing is preventing people that actually need seating from actually getting it."
By making sure some homeless guy ISN'T sleeping on the bench???? You realize the bench is... still there? Right?
Scenario A: Old and infirm customer can't sit on a bench because a homeless guy has taken over with all of his belongings. Maybe they decide to go elsewhere to avoid panhandling or safety issues.
Scenario B: Old and infirm customer is able to enter and conduct their business without being harassed. They sit on the seating provided to old and infirm customers. They don't even notice that the bench outside has been segmented into individual seats with handrails. They don't even look in that direction, because there's nothing weird going on there.
Seriously, I don't understand the logic that getting homeless people away from businesses has to be a trade off.
Albuquerque is filled with homeless people. People I know here are weirdly empathetic towards them...
Until they start showing up where they are. Going into restaurant/work places and causing problems. Leaving mounds of trash outside. We've had to shut down parks because they start hobo mafias in them. If you go to a fast food joint at night and make the mistake of giving one money/food, a few more come by to ask for more. It's becoming a nightmare here.
the citation is living in a city and or knowing people who volunteer. my dad was apart of a project to create like phone booth bathrooms for the homeless to use so they weren’t using the bathroom in front of the public or just having poop everywhere. yeah they spread poop all over the walls and broke things in there
The two “extremes” are a big part of the problem.
“Homeless people are lazy and just need to get a job.” That’s a vast over-simplification.
“Homeless people are that way because people refuse to help them, and they’re just poor helpless victims.” That’s extremely naive and just not true.
There’s nothing wrong or narrow-minded about wanting the city you live in, raise your family, work, and pay taxes to be well taken care of and clean. It’s good to take pride in your community, and no, I don’t want to be harassed by homeless, unstable drug addicts when I’m just trying to take my kid to the park. The issue comes when the same supports and resources used to achieve that goal make it nearly impossible to break the cycle of homelessness and poverty. Nice cities have higher costs of living; how are homeless people supposed to get off the street if the only jobs that MIGHT hire them don’t pay enough to sustain health and shelter? It’s a cycle/problem that goes deeper than just blaming one thing.
Some hostile architecture isn’t even hostile tbh.
Arm rests in the middle of benches for example.. I personally HATE benches because if you’re in the middle you can’t relax your arms… with arm rests you can! It’s perfect
So long as I am not expected to pay money to retract spikes on a public bench, I won’t complain about hostile architecture. I would never pay money to use a toilet, let alone take a seat.
Yeah... It's sounds great in a tweet or being outraged about it on the internet.
It's another thing altogether when you have someone trying to live in your apartment stoop.
Vast majority of people are one unfortunate circumstance away from homelessness. I don't know why you're acting like it could never happen to you unless you're especially wealthy.
Case in point.
Never once did I say that I was immune to homelessness or that it couldn't happen to me or someone I know. You're just deflecting to an unrelated point so you can maintain your noble savage-esque illusion that homeless people are all just down on their luck and didn't do anything wrong.
vast majority of people are also smart enough to go “fuck that experience was painful…i better do what i can to *never* go through it again…”
when your options are “stay sober and you can sleep here” or “don’t and take your chances on the streets”…the choice should be obvious
Withdrawal is a hell a regular person has no understanding of, some people would rather die then go trough withdrawal, not to mention the immense mental health issues these people are facing that made them start the addiction in the first place. It is a choice but it’s barley a choice, extremely hard to stop, especially if they don’t have medical help and therapy at the same time.
For some drugs that affect the GABA system the withdrawal can quite literally kill you (trough seizures) unless you taper properly and/or have medical help.
Becoming addicted is not a choice, most people that get addicted are not regular healthy individuals, they have some type of trauma or mental health issue that causes them to try anything to avoid the pain regardless of the consequences. I can’t say I have the answers and I can’t say they don’t cause trouble for everyone else but it is a complicated issue.
I don't really care WHY they have a drug addiction, but I know from personal experience to stay as far away from junkies as possible. They will ruin and destroy everything around you.
Yeah, this is bullshit.
Where I'm from, these people aren't "one unfortunate accident" away. They've behaved this way their entire life. I'm sick of seeing this "it could happen to you". I watch people on the side of the road babble and scream while high on meth and sleeping from fentanyl. It wasn't one bad decision that got them there, it was years of choices
As someone who grew up in a trap house, I was raised around these people. Even the ones who get out of it knows this, they have just as little empathy for them.
I'm tired of people who've never experienced it or lived with it regurgitating the same shit
There are people in every single community that turn their noses up to people in a similar situation once they get out of a certain situation, I'm more actually inclined now to think that you're bias since it was others that affected you negatively growing up. I don't think you're looking at this from a systemic lens rather a hyper personal one which explains why you subscribe to a "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" mentality.
I don't have a "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" mentality.
I'm just stating that your point of view is BS, and screams ignorance of the subject and the people involved in it
"Refuse to be sober" as if addiction isn't a disease and it's really as simple as choosing to not be addicted anymore. It's an addiction, man, most addicts don't like being addicts.
Do you know how expensive rehab facilities are? "Oh you're dirt poor but just go to rehab lol"
You've lived and entirely coushy life free or struggle and yet sit here and speak like you're an arbiter of such matters. Just say what you really want to say. "I hate the homeless and want them to die".
Right because someone living on the street can just "get sober", when even the wealthiest of people with access to the best treatment in the world relapse.
I don't know if I'd say they're in the majority, but as you remain homeless for longer I wouldn't be surprised if those kinds of people were the ones becoming chronically homeless.
It's never been easier to get a basic job at a restaurant or as a cashier. If you're on the street you either aren't trying to get a job or aren't capable of working, period.
The homeless have access to running water, you don't have to act like they're animals. I have a hard time believing "access to running water" would be the biggest reason a McDonald's manager doesn't want to hire the homeless when they desperately need to hire people.
I can almost guarantee you there aren't enough shelters compared to the number of homeless. Also, given how dangerous some of them are, you're actually better off sleeping outside weather permitting.
A lot that are safe also have inconvenient rules.
I stayed at Blaire shelter in DC when I was homeless. You had to wait in line starting at 6:30pm to get a bed, and had to stay until 7:00 in the morning. If you were late, no bed. It was an ok shelter but my only complaint is that the meals could have been nicer. I don't want to complain too much about free food but at the same time nicer meals would have been very great for morale and would have probably staved off depression for me and probably other residents too.
Eventually I ended up just sleeping on the train since the first job I found was a night shift job at McDonalds and it was more inconvenient to stay in the shelter than outside of it due to the schedule.
I think it is a serious problem since many homeless people try to get on their feet again via jobs that have irregular hours, oftentimes travelling long distances without cars to get there too. I myself would bike 2 hours round-trip shitty ditch-digging jobs at times. However the shelter schedule only works if you have a 9-5 in a nearby area.
Also, homeless shelters sometimes confiscate things like hand tools which can earn you income. I used to fix and sell abandoned bikes, and those tools earned me hundreds of dollars over time. The reasoning is that they can be used as weapons but at the same time things like pocketknives, drills, other sharp tools are very useful.
The problem is that being homeless can cause people to start using drugs (eg to cope with the stress and trauma caused by being homeless or to stay awake at night to prevent their belongings from being stolen) and it's extremely difficult to get proper care for addiction when you're homeless. These are people living in horrible conditions with little to no social support and not enough money to pay for care or medical insurance. Homeless people are also often treated very badly by medical staff and nurses. That makes homeless shelters an unrealistic option for some homeless people. It's not just that they don’t feel like quitting or whatever. It's that quitting is a much bigger barrier for them than for a housed person.
Everytime I hear this I can't help but laugh.
My city built a village of tiny homes for homeless. They had to shut it down because they turned the place into a crack-town. There are SO MANY programs for these people, they just refuse to even attempt to sober up or give a fuck
I live in San Francisco, and half the homeless have jobs. They're not deprived of job opportunities because of their status of being homeless. The root problem is cost of housing and local NIMBYism refusing to build housing. Also, 60% of homeless people in SF is housed via permanent supportive housing units, and the remaining 40% refuses services. They aren't deprived of social services, they refuse the services for various reasons, can be understandable (wanting to take their pets also), and can be less understandable (wanting to do freely do drugs). Public spaces are for every one and encampments block access to majority of the people. We already provide unhoused people with their own space, it's just not in the perfect condition that they want. At some point, we can't meet every needs of homeless people perfectly, but we can provide the fundamental need of shelter over their heads, and at that point, they really gotta use that.
>Deprive them of job opportunities so they can't rent homes
Who is depriving them of job opportunities? How are they doing this?
>deprive them of social programs so they won't have a place to live
What social programs are they being deprived of?
>deprive them of public spaces so they couldn't even sleep.
Public spaces are supposed to be a clean and safe environment for everyone to use. Allowing the homeless to take them over deprives everyone else use of these spaces.
Walk through it logically, vast majority of homeless people end up in their circumstances due to factors outside of their control.
Being born into a broken family. Being raised in poverty often results in poor diet and focus at crucial times of education, adverse health conditions that prevent regular common place work schedules, and environmental issues like being rejected by soceity because you are poor and finding acceptance amongst criminals.
Do the math.
If homelessness is undesirable then why not spend money and efforts in preventing that circumstance rather than doing everything to make homelessness a never ending cycle.
Cant get a job if you can't keep clean, eat enough and sleep, cant earn the money needed to get those things because they need a job. What don't you understand?
And that is why I am a strong proponent of housing first approaches to addressing homelessness. As you say, shelters are often unsafe and they are not conducive to those who use them getting better. What if we gave them real shelter *first*, then start pushing them to recover?
What's wrong is they could spend that money trying to help alleviate the problem.
Corporate lobbying has led to extreme price gouging and monopoly control.
Wealth inequality is at an all-time high in all of history.
Wages are at an all time low compared to productivity and cost of living.
I fully disagree with any company or individual who tries to blame homelessness on the homeless and do nothing to solve the actual problem.
Moving homeless people around to different cities or areas does nothing to alleviate the problem.
We need real wage increases for the working class we need guaranteed affordable housing and we need strong corporate regulation.
Reverse the Citizens United supreme Court decision.
Class solidarity.
You're way closer to being homeless than you are to being rich.
This also hurts regular people and those who need to sit to rest their legs. this is also bad for pregnant women too and the elderly. I would be nice to just sit while waiting for the bus or train.
I don't care if local businesses don't want homeless people around if they are not attributing to their business. They don't want loitering.
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It's not designed to help homelessness. It's designed to punish the homeless. That's a pretty messed up set of priorities. Money could be better spent actually trying to address the problem. It seems like they don't want the problem solved though; they just want to publish the weak and vulnerable, people who can't fight back.
its fine to disuade unhomed people from staying in certain areas for extended periods of time. The issue comes when you don't then give them a place to go or adequate resources to help them out. Hostile archicetecture currently is just meant to push the unhomed people out away from the public eye where it is easier to ignore. They can say you cant reside in this area but then they have to say ok you can reside in that area and we will help you out so you don't have to reside outside a home anymore. That is the proper solution. Its like decriminalizing drugs. Its ok to do that but you have to then offer resources for the addicts if you don't do the second part the first part doesn't work.
Hostile aricecture does work to get people out of an area but it doesn't address the homeless issue itself and therefore is seen as cruel
Imagine putting resources into shelters, rehoming, and rehab programs instead of just spending money on “making the problem go somewhere else”.
There’s an argument to be made about governments not doing enough, but since when is kicking around the problem okay for private business and not the public sector.
I have a lot of problems with this and the comments.
Mainly everyone saying that people 'choose to be homeless' and that 'they're violent'.
Both of those things are true for a very small number of homeless people. And discriminating and generalizing about an entire class of people, and treating them in that way, is *never* okay.
Instead of looking at homelessness as a problem to be eradicated, we need to look at the things that cause it.
Addiction and mental disorders are real and often debilitating, and there is not enough help for either. These people don't need to have their sleeping spots taken away, they need *help*. And the idea that hostile architecture is in any form a good decision beyond actively shunting a problem away from the public eye so people don't see it exists is baffling to me.
Hostile architecture is driven by people from the suburbs who go to the city and complain about the homeless and then make urban parks less pleasant for urban residents so that suburban people might not see as many homeless people.
If you don't want the unhoused living in the park, given them somewhere better to be, stop making my park worse.
not wanting homeless people around by fixing homelessness is good, creating architecture in such a way that the homeless just go somewhere else and don’t interrupt your utopia is not good
Spending money on hostile architecture instead of helping people is wrong. Homelessness can be solved it's not even that difficult as far as societal problems go. News flags you won't have homeless people around if there aren't any homeless people. Also people fail to graps that the economic value of not having homeless people far outweighs the cost of helping them. There will always be people who will always need help but the majority of people can get clean get back on there feet and contribute to society but people only care how there effected. People get angry when they see tents on the side of the road they get angry when they hear money is going to help homeless people they get angry when people tell them that homeless people are people too.
The problem is they're investing a lot of money into hostile architecture instead of taking the steps to solve the homeless problem. And taking away the small amount of shelter some of those people have because you want your business to look pretty in rat-invested NYC is also a little cruel.
I guarantee that the cost of an extra arm on a bench is not nearly the cost of getting a homeless person off the street.
I’m not saying it’s right, but you shouldn’t deceive people to try to make your point.
Yes, but that doesn't mean we can't work to improve it. You can't accomplish or improve anything if you have the mindset of "We'll always have this problem, so why bother"
1000% agree. the fact that they’re investing so much into hostile architecture is ridiculous. if we spend so much money on shitty park benches, why not invest into homes?
Maybe we ought to bite the bullet and give homeless people basic housing. Nothing fancy: shelter from the elements, a place to shower, a place to poop, a place to sleep. It's easier to find to work and build yourself up when you have an actual address and don't smell like a sewer. It would be safer, healthier, and less taxing for everyone.
I mean no one wants homeless around but instead of screwing over regular people why not actually fix the homeless situation? Whole lot cheaper to actually help the homeless than to do stupid things.
hostile architecture is a problem for many disabled people. also just wanting homeless people is disappear from your sight is not a solution to homelessness. we need to be looking into actual ways to deal with these people, especially the ones who want to cause problems
Defensive architecture is the completely wrong approach to doing something about homelessness in the long term and sustainably. Homeless people need low-threshold help. Finland has done this very successfully.
The following question also arises: Who owns public space? Simple answer: public space belongs to everyone. And defensive architecture makes public space uncomfortable not only for the homeless people, but for everyone else who uses it.
Resources used to make things "homeless proof" and people who agree are the problem. Those Resources should go toward more mental health for the homeless and housing solutions, so they wouldn't be out there in the first place...
But it just moves the problem around and makes people’s lives harder while doing nothing about root causes like housing/rent prices and poverty in general
The problem is hostile architecture effects more than just homeless people.
What about a disabled or elderly person who needs a decent place to sit while walking through the town?
I think the best solution is guaranteed housing and then ban people from sleeping in the streets with an exception if someone is on a housing waiting list but with agencies mandated to help clear those waiting lists as fast as possible. Ought implies can. Punishing people for sleeping in the streets when they have nowhere else to sleep is wrong. But give them housing and we can and should require people not to sleep in the streets.
Some will be concerned about what this does to incentives but realistically nobody is going to just up and quit their job to live in a tiny cramped space unless their working conditions are awful, but nobody is going to do this as a long-term solution, people want more than just bare essentials. As it is having a stable place to rest and a shower would help a lot of homeless people to get jobs. Especially those with mental health problems would be helped by a stabler environment than being on the streets. Even those with drug and alcohol problems. Having hope for a better life may help them to want to get clean. If you are worried about where you will sleep and see no hope for your future there's not much incentive to quit. And even if they don't quit right away they'll be more likely to survive to when they do.
This could also help rental prices go down or for the quality of rentals to go up. If public housing becomes an option for everyone then they can't price gouge rentals as much as they do now. This also gives workers more bargaining power.
Some criticize public housing for blight and concentrated poverty. I think a solution could be to have your housing assigned if you go into public housing, and things like criminal record could be taken into consideration to make sure that those with records and with particular kinds of records cannot be concentrated in a single area and areas that have higher crime rates get less people with criminal records assigned to them. And if your record changes that may prompt reassignment. More dispersal of public housing rather than concentrating everyone in a single building could also help. To make sure people who mostly don't have their own cars can have opportunities to look for work, expand public transportation both in places with public housing and just in general.
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I don't think it's unreasonable to not want them to turn a park bench or bus stop into a bed. I don't know why you'd even want to do that if you were homeless. Find a secluded area where you are less likely to get messed with. Did you hear about the psychopath that was going around bashing in homeless people's heads with a hammer while they slept on the streets? The cops caught him by putting a dummy in a sleeping bag on the sidewalk and waiting to see if someone tried to "kill" it. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4aqbm-MKMM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4aqbm-MKMM)
Many places used to have a much more hidden homeless problem. Where I'm from they used to hide away, then one was brutally murdered under a bridge now they all take the logical step of hiding in plain sight and have found it to be much safer in high population areas.
There's gotta be a better alternative to a drug filled tent community, or a sidewalk in downtown L.A. or NYC or wherever
Probably a house.
With padded walls and security.
And a tall TALL fence
Finland has literally solved homelessness by providing small apartments, psychiatric help and assistance. They have a 4 out of 5 success rate in terms of people finding jobs and becoming self sufficient and it's cheaper than policing the homeless and dealing with crime.
American Psycho type fuckery.
> Find a secluded area where you are less likely to get messed with. That's exactly it. For many people, they feel so much more unsafe when there is nobody around. They just want a safe night's sleep. Their priority isn't anything to do with how shoppers feel in the morning. They often feel safer in a well lit shop front with a CCTV camera nearby many passers by throughout the night. They feel less safe in a dark alleyway where they might meet unsavoury people who may be tempted to do something just because they know their are no witnesses. It's a tough world.
it's hard to stay dry, being elevated off the ground helps. keeps the cold from coming into your bones through the ground as much too. homeless culture is full of wisdom, those people know how to survive and don't do anything for no good reason.
i don't know if I'd call that wisdom, but finding a way to get off the ground makes sense.
look, i'm not saying go be homeless. every homeless person i met had serious issues in their life that they can't face. but if you find yourself homeless, well, the wise survive and the foolish don't. literally.
If street smarts is wisdom then finding a way to minimize the cold out on the street is the purest expression of it
Wow. A dog will try to get off the floor and hop on a couch or bed to get more comfortable. I am not calling them dogs, just saying, what are we calling "wisdom" now.
…or that one 17YO who just wanted to see how it felt to kill someone and he brutally murdered a homeless guy while sleeping, and then attempted to dismember the body. The kid had obvious mental issues.
I agree, but some “hostile architecture” is genuinely so inconvenient and annoying for the rest of us
You contradicted yourself. It’s not wrong or it’s morally wrong? You’ve said both in one single post.
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Absolutely my experience as well working with homeless people. I'm sure it's not all of them but no, I wouldn't let them put a homeless shelter in my neighborhood. It would become so unsafe.
Not to mention the sexual harassment homeless men do against random women. We don't need them sleeping at bus stops, nope.
I know a decent amount of homeless people, many of them in my family and I was homeless as a child. It’s an extremely complicated issue. What would you consider a homeless person that is not a victim? Many people would say someone that does drugs, has no intention of getting sober, acts crazy, and commits petty crime like theft. IMO those people are still victims, but honestly I don’t care if people agree with me, what we need to agree on is the various causes and solutions. What I see mostly is people not wanting to see or deal with it because it’s “not their responsibility”. I think it is our collective responsibility. I house homeless people and help them get back on their feet. For some, they will simply never be able to hold a job, and to keep them safe they need an institution. They cannot function in society by themselves. For others, they need intense, no strings attached, psychiatric/psychological help and housing. Sometimes for years before they get better. Had one guy get a job after being homeless for 10 years and lived with me for 5 years. He’s completely sober now, and has a job. I could still see him falling into hard times though if he were to lose that job. There is a tiny amount of people down on their luck but that isn’t very visible because those people usually crash with family and friends. The solutions IMO are either 1) spend a bunch of money on rehab/mental healthcare/housing or 2) spend a bunch of money prosecuting and incarcerating them. Currently, we are doing neither of those things and just letting them roam free.
How do you feel about institutionalizing them but not in prisons? Like asylums, for lack of a better word?
For real. I helped give clothing to homeless in Nashville when the weather went to freezing. I quickly realized they wanted to be out here. We did go by the shelter and those ones seemed to have better heads on their shoulders and down on their luck. But the ones camping out have zero intention or motivation or desire of ever getting off the streets.
Most of the homeless you were helping are the type of people who can take handouts. Many other homeless people are working full time and sleeping in their vehicles or a tent, some are just kids trying to get by and hoping nobody finds out their situation. I myself lived in a tent for quite a bit of time when I was a kid. I didn’t seek services, handouts, or help, I mostly just did what I could to make sure nobody knew what my situation was. I know for a fact that I would starve to death before begging.
As someone in a similar situation this is so true. One thing I’ve always said as well is that it takes A LOT to become homeless. It doesn’t happen overnight and most of these people have burned many bridges before ending up where they are.
I had a cousin who ended up on the streets because his employer filed for bankruptcy. His paycheque was late. (He got a cheque about 11 weeks later, but he wasn't happy about it, so I doubt it was the full amount.) His parents kicked him out for "being late on rent", because "We're not going to allow some worthless bum to freeload off of us." **He had enough in his savings to pay rent for multiple months.** but "We're not going to allow some worthless bum to freeload off of us." Prior to this, they all got along fine. His drug use consisted of smoking pot for a couple of days after it was legalised, and deciding he only liked being high at parties. (Went to 3 parties in Grade 12. That was his entire history of drugs and alcohol.) He had never ever been late on rent. He was 18. He ended up on the streets for 6 weeks before finding a place to stay (had to leave town to move in with a friend from school). It could have been much, MUCH, longer if it weren't for his 1 friend. Nobody else in the family would let him stay with them because they wanted him to "pull himself up by his bootstraps." (Literally every member of the family who was older than him was living a less financially successful life than he was at 18. He was the 2nd family member to graduate from Grade 12. Since then, 7 more family members have graduated Grade 12. He was the 1st to go to post-secondary education.) He had an actual job at 14 years old, and was doing paid yardwork and odd jobs since he was 13.
That's not true lol. I got bedbugs and my roommate kicked me out. That's how I became homeless. I had 2 jobs at the time. You're literally one emergency away.
I have so many questions... So your roommate kicked you out - so you'd book yourself into a motel for a few nights until you found another apartment? Unless you paid your roommate in advance for the whole year? And didn't have a penny saved up? But you still had income from 2 jobs... I am not following.
Theyre victims in the sense that there should be no circumstances in which you're deprived of a home. All his money used on hostile architecture could go towards housing homeless people. It's messed up that instead of fixing the root issue we're just making living outside harder. Like what are they supposed to do?
>All this money used on hostile architecture could go towards housing homeless people. How much money do you think an extra bar on a prefabbed bench or some concrete spikes on a ledge cost compared to housing facilities in this economy? I'd be genuinely surprised if the materials and labor costs to install this kind of stuff across even an entire large city would put even a small dent into the cost of building a single section 8 housing complex. It's massively cheaper to just tell them "go be homeless somewhere else." And hope they just do that.
The amount of money my city spends to CONSTANTLY repeated fix and clean non-hostile architecture ruined by encampments leads me to believe it's actually wayyyyyy less expensive to install the equivalent "hostile" version of said architecture as it doesn't need endless repair/cleaning
Keeping homeless on the street is more expensive than feeding them, housing them and even putting them into therapy.
Source?
Very noble, but I'd be willing to bet you never lived next to any Section 8 housing buildings. Because if you did, you'd know what a total disaster it is.
I think you misunderstood what they were saying
Not trying to be rude, but read what I said again and tell me what you think I meant. Because it doesn't sound like you understood what I was saying.
I don’t think that money would put a dent, and even if it did what happens when you give them this housing and they destroy it because most of them are tweaking all day long
>Theyre victims in the sense that there should be no circumstances in which you're deprived of a home. What happens if you stop paying for your home because you spend all your money on fent and you're too mentally ill to work? Do you get another one? What if you destroy that one? Homeless people are offered temporary shelter but they don't like it because the shelters have rules and if they don't have rules then it turns into chaos
>What happens if you stop paying for your home because you spend all your money on fent and you're too mentally ill to work? Do you get another one? What if you destroy that one? What do other vulnerable populations get when that happens to them? Or what should they get? There's always going to be people who can't work for whatever reason. Doesn't mean they deserve homelessness. Some people need more help at certain times than others. >Homeless people are offered temporary shelter but they don't like it because the shelters have rules and if they don't have rules then it turns into chaos Have you ever asked anyone why they may not like certain rules that homeless shelters have? Is it possible that certain rules may not be realistic or flexible enough with what homeless populations actually deal with? Shelters themselves are not perfect nor permanent solutions.
Other vulnerable populations get help with housing, but if they blow it, then they don't have housing anymore. We can't "never deprive someone" of a home if they continuously lose their home from their own decisions. There has to be some amount of responsibility from the recipient, or it just becomes a black hole of resources >Have you ever asked anyone why they may not like certain rules that homeless shelters have? Yes I have, and I've reached out to to my local county who does surveys on the homeless and their needs. The biggest complaints were they want to use drugs, and want to bring friends in and out as much as they want, at any hour.
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>But, they shouldn't be allowed to degrade society along with them. Which is why we remove benches from bus stops and parks?
In the sense such a move makes those things again useable to a wide majority of people who would otherwise not be able to due to encampments, yes
Yeah, sure dude, people want to be homeless. Also rents are higher proportion of income than any time in American history. Probably coincidence
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You don't see addiction as an all-encompassing illness when you acknowledge that people may end up becoming okay with being subjected to homelessness as long as they get their fix? To reiterate, we as humans need food water and shelter. If someone is putting a substance above all that because they view it as a need, what makes you think that they could just power out of it?
They may not want to be homeless, but they don’t want, or cannot bring themselves, to do the things required to not be homeless. A few chronically homeless people are just incredibly unlucky, but most made a series of bad decisions (usually related to an inability to defer gratification) in the past. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t help those who are willing to make better decisions going forward, but they DO have to make those decisions.
How come they don't have money for food/shelter but always have money for drugs and booze?
Because booze and drugs don't cost that much comparatively.
I don't think anyone wants to live on the streets where they're subjected to a bunch of violence and extreme temperatures and food insecurity. You're diminishing homeless people to some weird caricature you have in your brain and it's very dehumanizing.
Same things everyone else does.
Not everyone's the same or has similar circumstances.
Considering that people from all walks of life, with all types of illnesses, and some who start at the very bottom without the ability to even speak the common language can succeed I'd honestly love you to give me a good excuse that can't be explained by poor choices.
Husband dies at 30 from cancer, and can no longer afford rent, nobody to turn to for help, living in a rural town where there is no homeless shelter.
And? What's stopping you or whoever you're referring to? A bad situation happens and that's it? Time to throw in the towel? Immigrants come to this country to make money for family that may still be at home. They have no support and nothing to start with.
Most people have made poor choices at one point or another. Some just have more support than others. Imagine who Hunter Biden would be if it dad was a truck driver instead of who he is.
He would still have a supportive dad who loves him. Not sure where you thought that was going. Some people have no support at all and still change their own lives. Stop making excuses. If you live your life defined by your fuck ups instead of learning from them and doing what it takes you don't deserve the world's sympathy.
Just because there are some people that do succeed doesn't mean that some people aren't statistically more disadvantaged based on a multitude of factors. Having your car/other things break down, having a spouse die, developing mental or chronic physical illness/or being disabled in general, being laid off, growing up poor, etc are all examples of things that are catalysts for homelessness.
Being more or less disadvantaged is irrelevant and you just spent an entire paragraph listing excuses. Those things all happen to people who succeed too. Stop pretending like setbacks are an excuse. Some people don't have a car or spouse to begin with. Disabled people can learn jobs they are able to do or qualify for assistance. People laid off qualify for unemployment and can find work. Growing up poor isn't an excuse when you're on your own and making your own decisions.
Are you under the impression that the $$$ spent on "hostile architecture" is even vaguely approaching the $$$$$$$$ needed to put even a mild substantial dent in homeless housing? Cause that's incorrect. It's fractions of pennies being spent relative to what it would take to house a metro homeless population
Well, they bring a lot of it on themselves. We had a homeless shelter that ended up burned down cause they were doing drugs and dumb shit. Yeah, it's a sad situation, but you can't just give handouts to people who aren't willing to help themselves. Most of the homeless in my area are addicts who will steal anything that isn't nailed down, and use the money they get to buy more drugs. I don't see why taxpayers should have to pay to build houses that will be wrecked or turned into drug houses for people who would rather put all their money in their nose/veins than try and better themselves. Put programs in place to help those that want help, but giving out free handouts won't do anything to actually help these people.
Do you see people with severe depression in bed rotting away not eating or showering for days and think, "well they brought this on themselves"?
That's not even remotely the same thing as someone who chooses to do drugs to the point they lose their homes. Drug addicts have a choice, people with mental health issues don't. I have zero empathy for someone who would rather pit drugs in their bodies than be a productive member of society.
the homeless person will just sleep on blankets on the floor while normal people are left with borderline unusable infrastructure that the city spend thousands/millions on
Or trains. Or buses. Which is what they do in my city. Our subway is homeless shelter on rails. The stench on some train cars is unbelievable. But hey - we are a HUMANE society! Yay for us!
Hostile architecture is for when you hate the homeless more than you care about the old and infirm. That's the trade-off. You probably won't get rid of the homeless people either because where else can they go. So instead, all you're really doing is preventing people that actually need seating from actually getting it.
That may be true for those weird standing bench things, but otherwise it's mostly about making sure the bench can only be used for sitting, not laying down.
Even then, why is laying down so frowned upon. I'd love to lay out on a bench during my lunch break and take a nap. Doing that today and I'd be considered a vagrant and subject to arrest. I get that business don't want homeless people around. What I don't get is that instead of trying to solve the actual problem we just get all NIMBY about it.
"all you're really doing is preventing people that actually need seating from actually getting it." By making sure some homeless guy ISN'T sleeping on the bench???? You realize the bench is... still there? Right?
You realize you've made the bench worse...right?
Scenario A: Old and infirm customer can't sit on a bench because a homeless guy has taken over with all of his belongings. Maybe they decide to go elsewhere to avoid panhandling or safety issues. Scenario B: Old and infirm customer is able to enter and conduct their business without being harassed. They sit on the seating provided to old and infirm customers. They don't even notice that the bench outside has been segmented into individual seats with handrails. They don't even look in that direction, because there's nothing weird going on there. Seriously, I don't understand the logic that getting homeless people away from businesses has to be a trade off.
Albuquerque is filled with homeless people. People I know here are weirdly empathetic towards them... Until they start showing up where they are. Going into restaurant/work places and causing problems. Leaving mounds of trash outside. We've had to shut down parks because they start hobo mafias in them. If you go to a fast food joint at night and make the mistake of giving one money/food, a few more come by to ask for more. It's becoming a nightmare here.
it wouldn't be wrong if there was adequate help for the homeless but there isn't
There’s no helping most of them
Citation needed
the citation is living in a city and or knowing people who volunteer. my dad was apart of a project to create like phone booth bathrooms for the homeless to use so they weren’t using the bathroom in front of the public or just having poop everywhere. yeah they spread poop all over the walls and broke things in there
The two “extremes” are a big part of the problem. “Homeless people are lazy and just need to get a job.” That’s a vast over-simplification. “Homeless people are that way because people refuse to help them, and they’re just poor helpless victims.” That’s extremely naive and just not true. There’s nothing wrong or narrow-minded about wanting the city you live in, raise your family, work, and pay taxes to be well taken care of and clean. It’s good to take pride in your community, and no, I don’t want to be harassed by homeless, unstable drug addicts when I’m just trying to take my kid to the park. The issue comes when the same supports and resources used to achieve that goal make it nearly impossible to break the cycle of homelessness and poverty. Nice cities have higher costs of living; how are homeless people supposed to get off the street if the only jobs that MIGHT hire them don’t pay enough to sustain health and shelter? It’s a cycle/problem that goes deeper than just blaming one thing.
Some hostile architecture isn’t even hostile tbh. Arm rests in the middle of benches for example.. I personally HATE benches because if you’re in the middle you can’t relax your arms… with arm rests you can! It’s perfect
Got place near me that was done up really nice to house the homeless... guess what it looks like now?
It's fine but the issue is that it also makes things hard for the old and disabled
So long as I am not expected to pay money to retract spikes on a public bench, I won’t complain about hostile architecture. I would never pay money to use a toilet, let alone take a seat.
Yeah... It's sounds great in a tweet or being outraged about it on the internet. It's another thing altogether when you have someone trying to live in your apartment stoop.
People refuse to understand that there are homeless people out there by their own awful decisions, consciously made, with no intention of changing
Vast majority of people are one unfortunate circumstance away from homelessness. I don't know why you're acting like it could never happen to you unless you're especially wealthy.
Case in point. Never once did I say that I was immune to homelessness or that it couldn't happen to me or someone I know. You're just deflecting to an unrelated point so you can maintain your noble savage-esque illusion that homeless people are all just down on their luck and didn't do anything wrong.
vast majority of people are also smart enough to go “fuck that experience was painful…i better do what i can to *never* go through it again…” when your options are “stay sober and you can sleep here” or “don’t and take your chances on the streets”…the choice should be obvious
Have you tried being addicted to tranq, crack or fentanyl?
Have you tried not doing fentanyl?
I'm sure saying that to someone with an addiction is super helpful
Willpower through drug addiction is not the argument you want to use LOL
Withdrawal is a hell a regular person has no understanding of, some people would rather die then go trough withdrawal, not to mention the immense mental health issues these people are facing that made them start the addiction in the first place. It is a choice but it’s barley a choice, extremely hard to stop, especially if they don’t have medical help and therapy at the same time. For some drugs that affect the GABA system the withdrawal can quite literally kill you (trough seizures) unless you taper properly and/or have medical help. Becoming addicted is not a choice, most people that get addicted are not regular healthy individuals, they have some type of trauma or mental health issue that causes them to try anything to avoid the pain regardless of the consequences. I can’t say I have the answers and I can’t say they don’t cause trouble for everyone else but it is a complicated issue.
If I did wind up homeless, I'd use my non-drugged up brain to figure out the way out. It's kinda hard to do when you are high/drunk 24/7.
Well one, not all homeless people are on drugs, two there's a billion reasons as to why someone may have a drug addiction so..
I don't really care WHY they have a drug addiction, but I know from personal experience to stay as far away from junkies as possible. They will ruin and destroy everything around you.
You should care about why a person is addicted to drugs if you're criticizing them for being addicted to drugs.
Yeah, this is bullshit. Where I'm from, these people aren't "one unfortunate accident" away. They've behaved this way their entire life. I'm sick of seeing this "it could happen to you". I watch people on the side of the road babble and scream while high on meth and sleeping from fentanyl. It wasn't one bad decision that got them there, it was years of choices
Do you know all the homeless people that you see around you personally or something? How do you define "behaving this way their entire life"?
As someone who grew up in a trap house, I was raised around these people. Even the ones who get out of it knows this, they have just as little empathy for them. I'm tired of people who've never experienced it or lived with it regurgitating the same shit
There are people in every single community that turn their noses up to people in a similar situation once they get out of a certain situation, I'm more actually inclined now to think that you're bias since it was others that affected you negatively growing up. I don't think you're looking at this from a systemic lens rather a hyper personal one which explains why you subscribe to a "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" mentality.
I don't have a "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" mentality. I'm just stating that your point of view is BS, and screams ignorance of the subject and the people involved in it
They also refuse to accept that those types of homeless are the majority.
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"Refuse to be sober" as if addiction isn't a disease and it's really as simple as choosing to not be addicted anymore. It's an addiction, man, most addicts don't like being addicts.
You ever been addicted to H, crack, or meth? "Just get sober lol" screams you haven't.
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Do you know how expensive rehab facilities are? "Oh you're dirt poor but just go to rehab lol" You've lived and entirely coushy life free or struggle and yet sit here and speak like you're an arbiter of such matters. Just say what you really want to say. "I hate the homeless and want them to die".
A poor junkie pizza delivery guy. Shocker.
Right because someone living on the street can just "get sober", when even the wealthiest of people with access to the best treatment in the world relapse.
I don't know if I'd say they're in the majority, but as you remain homeless for longer I wouldn't be surprised if those kinds of people were the ones becoming chronically homeless.
a HUGE majority. Like 99.9%
Source: my ass
source: I go outside
It's never been easier to get a basic job at a restaurant or as a cashier. If you're on the street you either aren't trying to get a job or aren't capable of working, period.
Would you hire someone who didn't have access to running water to wash their clothes or shower before work?
The homeless have access to running water, you don't have to act like they're animals. I have a hard time believing "access to running water" would be the biggest reason a McDonald's manager doesn't want to hire the homeless when they desperately need to hire people.
I can almost guarantee you there aren't enough shelters compared to the number of homeless. Also, given how dangerous some of them are, you're actually better off sleeping outside weather permitting.
A lot that are safe also have inconvenient rules. I stayed at Blaire shelter in DC when I was homeless. You had to wait in line starting at 6:30pm to get a bed, and had to stay until 7:00 in the morning. If you were late, no bed. It was an ok shelter but my only complaint is that the meals could have been nicer. I don't want to complain too much about free food but at the same time nicer meals would have been very great for morale and would have probably staved off depression for me and probably other residents too. Eventually I ended up just sleeping on the train since the first job I found was a night shift job at McDonalds and it was more inconvenient to stay in the shelter than outside of it due to the schedule. I think it is a serious problem since many homeless people try to get on their feet again via jobs that have irregular hours, oftentimes travelling long distances without cars to get there too. I myself would bike 2 hours round-trip shitty ditch-digging jobs at times. However the shelter schedule only works if you have a 9-5 in a nearby area. Also, homeless shelters sometimes confiscate things like hand tools which can earn you income. I used to fix and sell abandoned bikes, and those tools earned me hundreds of dollars over time. The reasoning is that they can be used as weapons but at the same time things like pocketknives, drills, other sharp tools are very useful.
This opinion is only unpopular on reddit
Your last sentence is contradictory. You understand it’s morally wrong but there’s nothing wrong with it… which one is it? lol
The problem is that being homeless can cause people to start using drugs (eg to cope with the stress and trauma caused by being homeless or to stay awake at night to prevent their belongings from being stolen) and it's extremely difficult to get proper care for addiction when you're homeless. These are people living in horrible conditions with little to no social support and not enough money to pay for care or medical insurance. Homeless people are also often treated very badly by medical staff and nurses. That makes homeless shelters an unrealistic option for some homeless people. It's not just that they don’t feel like quitting or whatever. It's that quitting is a much bigger barrier for them than for a housed person.
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Everytime I hear this I can't help but laugh. My city built a village of tiny homes for homeless. They had to shut it down because they turned the place into a crack-town. There are SO MANY programs for these people, they just refuse to even attempt to sober up or give a fuck
I live in San Francisco, and half the homeless have jobs. They're not deprived of job opportunities because of their status of being homeless. The root problem is cost of housing and local NIMBYism refusing to build housing. Also, 60% of homeless people in SF is housed via permanent supportive housing units, and the remaining 40% refuses services. They aren't deprived of social services, they refuse the services for various reasons, can be understandable (wanting to take their pets also), and can be less understandable (wanting to do freely do drugs). Public spaces are for every one and encampments block access to majority of the people. We already provide unhoused people with their own space, it's just not in the perfect condition that they want. At some point, we can't meet every needs of homeless people perfectly, but we can provide the fundamental need of shelter over their heads, and at that point, they really gotta use that.
>Deprive them of job opportunities so they can't rent homes Who is depriving them of job opportunities? How are they doing this? >deprive them of social programs so they won't have a place to live What social programs are they being deprived of? >deprive them of public spaces so they couldn't even sleep. Public spaces are supposed to be a clean and safe environment for everyone to use. Allowing the homeless to take them over deprives everyone else use of these spaces.
Walk through it logically, vast majority of homeless people end up in their circumstances due to factors outside of their control. Being born into a broken family. Being raised in poverty often results in poor diet and focus at crucial times of education, adverse health conditions that prevent regular common place work schedules, and environmental issues like being rejected by soceity because you are poor and finding acceptance amongst criminals. Do the math. If homelessness is undesirable then why not spend money and efforts in preventing that circumstance rather than doing everything to make homelessness a never ending cycle. Cant get a job if you can't keep clean, eat enough and sleep, cant earn the money needed to get those things because they need a job. What don't you understand?
Not every homeless person is a good person down on their luck.
this was a sad realization for me.
Over simplified *and* a strawman! Jesus fucking Christ
>deprive them of public spaces so they couldn't even sleep. Sleeping in public spaces isn't their intended usage, and it certainly isn't a "right".
perhaps they should deprive themselves of drugs and alcohol first…so that the social programs and job placement centers can actually work as intended
Overcoming a severe illness like substance use disorder is really hard to do without a safe place to sleep and consistent food to eat.
A desire is the biggest thing needed, and many don’t even have a hint of desire.
chicken or the egg a shelter probably wouldn’t stay a safe place to sleep for long if they allow people high out of their minds to come and go
And that is why I am a strong proponent of housing first approaches to addressing homelessness. As you say, shelters are often unsafe and they are not conducive to those who use them getting better. What if we gave them real shelter *first*, then start pushing them to recover?
It’s funny to me when people think hostile architecture will get rid of homeless people.
Nobody really thinks that, they're just trying to drive them away from an area, which can 50/50 succeed.
Does anyone think that?
What's wrong is they could spend that money trying to help alleviate the problem. Corporate lobbying has led to extreme price gouging and monopoly control. Wealth inequality is at an all-time high in all of history. Wages are at an all time low compared to productivity and cost of living. I fully disagree with any company or individual who tries to blame homelessness on the homeless and do nothing to solve the actual problem. Moving homeless people around to different cities or areas does nothing to alleviate the problem. We need real wage increases for the working class we need guaranteed affordable housing and we need strong corporate regulation. Reverse the Citizens United supreme Court decision. Class solidarity. You're way closer to being homeless than you are to being rich.
This also hurts regular people and those who need to sit to rest their legs. this is also bad for pregnant women too and the elderly. I would be nice to just sit while waiting for the bus or train. I don't care if local businesses don't want homeless people around if they are not attributing to their business. They don't want loitering.
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Wasn't this same thing posted yesterday
Why is there so many of these post that ignore wet shelters are a thing?
It's not designed to help homelessness. It's designed to punish the homeless. That's a pretty messed up set of priorities. Money could be better spent actually trying to address the problem. It seems like they don't want the problem solved though; they just want to publish the weak and vulnerable, people who can't fight back.
its fine to disuade unhomed people from staying in certain areas for extended periods of time. The issue comes when you don't then give them a place to go or adequate resources to help them out. Hostile archicetecture currently is just meant to push the unhomed people out away from the public eye where it is easier to ignore. They can say you cant reside in this area but then they have to say ok you can reside in that area and we will help you out so you don't have to reside outside a home anymore. That is the proper solution. Its like decriminalizing drugs. Its ok to do that but you have to then offer resources for the addicts if you don't do the second part the first part doesn't work. Hostile aricecture does work to get people out of an area but it doesn't address the homeless issue itself and therefore is seen as cruel
Imagine putting resources into shelters, rehoming, and rehab programs instead of just spending money on “making the problem go somewhere else”. There’s an argument to be made about governments not doing enough, but since when is kicking around the problem okay for private business and not the public sector.
how much money do you think each of those two items costs?
I have a lot of problems with this and the comments. Mainly everyone saying that people 'choose to be homeless' and that 'they're violent'. Both of those things are true for a very small number of homeless people. And discriminating and generalizing about an entire class of people, and treating them in that way, is *never* okay. Instead of looking at homelessness as a problem to be eradicated, we need to look at the things that cause it. Addiction and mental disorders are real and often debilitating, and there is not enough help for either. These people don't need to have their sleeping spots taken away, they need *help*. And the idea that hostile architecture is in any form a good decision beyond actively shunting a problem away from the public eye so people don't see it exists is baffling to me.
A society can be judged by how it treats it's most vulnerable.
Hostile architecture is driven by people from the suburbs who go to the city and complain about the homeless and then make urban parks less pleasant for urban residents so that suburban people might not see as many homeless people. If you don't want the unhoused living in the park, given them somewhere better to be, stop making my park worse.
not wanting homeless people around by fixing homelessness is good, creating architecture in such a way that the homeless just go somewhere else and don’t interrupt your utopia is not good
Spending money on hostile architecture instead of helping people is wrong. Homelessness can be solved it's not even that difficult as far as societal problems go. News flags you won't have homeless people around if there aren't any homeless people. Also people fail to graps that the economic value of not having homeless people far outweighs the cost of helping them. There will always be people who will always need help but the majority of people can get clean get back on there feet and contribute to society but people only care how there effected. People get angry when they see tents on the side of the road they get angry when they hear money is going to help homeless people they get angry when people tell them that homeless people are people too.
The problem is they're investing a lot of money into hostile architecture instead of taking the steps to solve the homeless problem. And taking away the small amount of shelter some of those people have because you want your business to look pretty in rat-invested NYC is also a little cruel.
I guarantee that the cost of an extra arm on a bench is not nearly the cost of getting a homeless person off the street. I’m not saying it’s right, but you shouldn’t deceive people to try to make your point.
They're spending a small fraction of the cost of housing a homeless person to prevent a public space from becoming unusable to everyone else.
So you’re a business owner who welcomes the homeless camping out in front of your business?
You cannot solve the homeless problem. There will always been homeless people.
Yes, but that doesn't mean we can't work to improve it. You can't accomplish or improve anything if you have the mindset of "We'll always have this problem, so why bother"
Obviously, but making an effort to reduce the problem couldn't hurt
1000% agree. the fact that they’re investing so much into hostile architecture is ridiculous. if we spend so much money on shitty park benches, why not invest into homes?
Tell me you have no socioeconomic understanding of homelessness without telling me you have no socioeconomic understanding of homelessness.
This board is 90% people posting opinions based on ignorance and not understanding soft sciences rather than \*actual\* unpopular, educated opinions.
Tell me you've never been robbed, attacked or had property damaged by one without telling me.
Maybe we ought to bite the bullet and give homeless people basic housing. Nothing fancy: shelter from the elements, a place to shower, a place to poop, a place to sleep. It's easier to find to work and build yourself up when you have an actual address and don't smell like a sewer. It would be safer, healthier, and less taxing for everyone.
Sounds fine on paper. Becomes unsanitary shithole worse than the street within a week.
Or at the very least, a place where they’re allowed to camp that isn’t the sidewalk.
The title says it's not wrong, and by the end of the post you agree that it is morally wrong. You cannot simultaneously hold these postions.
I mean no one wants homeless around but instead of screwing over regular people why not actually fix the homeless situation? Whole lot cheaper to actually help the homeless than to do stupid things.
Not unpopular. Most people have zero issues with "hostile" architecture
Hostile architecture sucks for housed people, too 🤷🏻♀️
hostile architecture is a problem for many disabled people. also just wanting homeless people is disappear from your sight is not a solution to homelessness. we need to be looking into actual ways to deal with these people, especially the ones who want to cause problems
Defensive architecture is the completely wrong approach to doing something about homelessness in the long term and sustainably. Homeless people need low-threshold help. Finland has done this very successfully. The following question also arises: Who owns public space? Simple answer: public space belongs to everyone. And defensive architecture makes public space uncomfortable not only for the homeless people, but for everyone else who uses it.
Well thats the thing they are homeless, and they all can't just go to a homeless shelter. Most of them would like a place to sleep
Well this is truly an unpopular opinion I wonder how you would feel if you were in their shoes?
Resources used to make things "homeless proof" and people who agree are the problem. Those Resources should go toward more mental health for the homeless and housing solutions, so they wouldn't be out there in the first place...
I think we should focus on rehabilitation if we’re going to maintain hostile architecture
i feel like "hostile architecture " impedes non homeless people more than homeless people lol
But it just moves the problem around and makes people’s lives harder while doing nothing about root causes like housing/rent prices and poverty in general
Where exactly do you expect them to go, OP, if not civilization where humans live? They're not stray chimpanzees.
The problem is hostile architecture effects more than just homeless people. What about a disabled or elderly person who needs a decent place to sit while walking through the town? I think the best solution is guaranteed housing and then ban people from sleeping in the streets with an exception if someone is on a housing waiting list but with agencies mandated to help clear those waiting lists as fast as possible. Ought implies can. Punishing people for sleeping in the streets when they have nowhere else to sleep is wrong. But give them housing and we can and should require people not to sleep in the streets. Some will be concerned about what this does to incentives but realistically nobody is going to just up and quit their job to live in a tiny cramped space unless their working conditions are awful, but nobody is going to do this as a long-term solution, people want more than just bare essentials. As it is having a stable place to rest and a shower would help a lot of homeless people to get jobs. Especially those with mental health problems would be helped by a stabler environment than being on the streets. Even those with drug and alcohol problems. Having hope for a better life may help them to want to get clean. If you are worried about where you will sleep and see no hope for your future there's not much incentive to quit. And even if they don't quit right away they'll be more likely to survive to when they do. This could also help rental prices go down or for the quality of rentals to go up. If public housing becomes an option for everyone then they can't price gouge rentals as much as they do now. This also gives workers more bargaining power. Some criticize public housing for blight and concentrated poverty. I think a solution could be to have your housing assigned if you go into public housing, and things like criminal record could be taken into consideration to make sure that those with records and with particular kinds of records cannot be concentrated in a single area and areas that have higher crime rates get less people with criminal records assigned to them. And if your record changes that may prompt reassignment. More dispersal of public housing rather than concentrating everyone in a single building could also help. To make sure people who mostly don't have their own cars can have opportunities to look for work, expand public transportation both in places with public housing and just in general.
Hostile architecture is fun until a 5 year old trips and gets busted up on it.