Even if it is to discourage people from sleeping there, to be fair, the problem often is not the sleeping part, but the pee and poo and drug paraphanalia
People for the sake of making an emotional argument will boil this down as some kind of irrational hatred of homeless people. It turns out, people don't like the smell of urine and feces and garbage and drug use and petty theft and property damage in their neighborhood.
Short of solving homelessness and curing mental illness, people are just trying to solve the immediate problems in their own neighborhood while elected officials with the capability of actually doing anything to solve these kinds of problems continue to prove their inability to do so. This is literally all that any of us can do on our own.
Yea, I think people blame businesses, especially small businesses, when they do things to prevent homeless people from sleeping under their overhangs.
If you have a small business and you've got homeless people camping out in your doorway, nobody's going to come in. You have to get rid of them or you literally risk losing your business.
Local gas station across from my hospital was absolutely slammed with how busy they were. The owner was a fantastic guy, I remember him giving me some free chicken strips after a 30 hour shift.
Anyways, he started becoming very friendly to our local homeless population, and I guess it became well known. Gas station started becoming frequented by homeless people nonstop. I stopped going to the gas station after a homeless person tried to get into my car as I was filling up. It was a clearly dangerous situation.
I hate to say it, but I avoid certain gas stations with a lot of homeless or randos standing around cause I know they'll be asking for cigarettes or money and I hate social interactions
Turn them into customers, that'd solve all of our problems right? How about some UBI, we are fucking rich enough to make sense of this. Until then, deal with the problems
As someone who lives in the vicinity of homeless people.
Your compassion starts to wear thin when you start finding needles and feces on the bike path on the way to work. Not to mention the harassment. Do these folks represent the majority? No. But they color the problem for people who live near it.
I want to end homelessness. But I also want to be able to be around my apartment and feel safe and have stuff be clean. There is no conflict in any of that.
What often happens is that homeless people just get moved around so someone else has to deal with the problem. And there is stuff like this That's done instead of a systemic push from the top and from the bottom to get them necessary support to get off drugs, find housing, get mental health care, and have the opportunities to get them to be not homeless.
I mean it isn't supposed to be how much can you tolerate before you give up and demand they get exiled... it's supposed to be your compassion/patience wears out while fueling your motivation to bug the people who are in charge of a solution. It isn't oh finally they're gone, it should be "HELLO CITY HALL et al WHY ARE PEOPLE SUFFERING LIKE THIS" until they you know, close those fucking tax loopholes and provide services
The bigger issue is, there is no single simple solution and itâs not something that can be fixed by simply throwing money and resources at the problem.
Before the pandemic I used to volunteer quite a bit to help at shelters, do outreach and the like. You would be surprised how many WANT to live in a tent under an overpass, and even if you gave them a house, car, job, and some money tomorrow they would still live in a tent under an overpass. Itâs the lifestyle they want to live, and while mental illness does play a part itâs not the case for all of them.
Where I used to live they went on a binge of opening homeless shelters to try and filter them away from the areas they didnât want them in, they found that a shit ton of them donât want to stay in shelters and ended up closing them down.
There are absolutely people on the street that need help, and people that would jump at the chance to get out of it, but also a lot that wouldnât leave if you literally paid them to.
Homeless shelters aren't always great though. There's constant theft and chaos, which is why some will opt to sleep outside rather than the shelter. I read a good post on it awhile ago but don't remember the thread, but having to constantly watch your stuff and getting harassed by other people were the things that stuck out to me, especially if you're a homeless woman.
One of the major problems is that homeless people often become "ferally institutionalized". The vast majority of these programs that offer to genuinely help homeless people get back on their feet require you to stop drinking and drugging while maintaining a schedule. The institutionalized ones still want to drink, still want to drug, and still want to come and go as they please. So they literally refuse the help because they'd rather keep living as is than making necessary adjustments in order to function in society. Yes there are functional drinkers and druggies, but once you go homeless you're no longer a functioning drinker/druggie.
In my city, there is literally dozen homeless shelters. So I totally understand when they discourage homeless people peeing and pooping and sleeping on the benches in the city center. The city provides sleeping place and food for them for as little as 1 euro a day. Yeah, I don't want to sit on a bench where there are feces around, more so when there is a place for these people to be, that is warm and took care for.
Putting this to /r/assholedesign is just oversimplifying the issue and appealing to emotion.
They're really weird, because they seem to be pushed by people who genuinely want to solve the homeless problem...but tend to imply that if that bench was normal homelessness wouldn't be such a big deal.
Excellent point. These discussions always overlook the fact that people do not hold any distaste for the homeless because of their homelessness in itself.
No way. I guarantee more than half my large northwest county hates homeless for the sake of them not having home. There always needs to be someone lowerâŚ. Humans are dumb.
Exactly, but do the proprietors of that bench hold that responsibility, of solving all of the above problems? Likely not. Their responsibility is to provide a bench.
I still think itâs a ridiculous design, but I canât expect someone responsible for street furniture to win the war on drugs and solve homelessness.
Who is âweâ in this context? I doubt the government department for street furniture has any say at all on the welfare system. I think you need to go to politicians for the source of the lack of action in solving the root cause.
Depends if this is a "park bench" or a "public transportation bench". Former would likely be the Parks and Rec department, and the latter likely the local Transit Authority department. Neither of which exist to tackle the homeless problem. You bring a good point, likely a major disconnect here, and seems many people in here think the "Government" is some monolithic entity when it's actually a bunch of independent departments operating autonomously in their own "lane".
The entire goal is to install something people, assuming bus stop, using public transportation can utilize while taking the bus. Preventing it from becoming a homeless persons "home" is literally included in that. Some idiots in here thing the local Transportation Authority department is supposed to solve the homeless problem as well.
My dude, we're talking about a fucking bench, not breaking an entering. This is a completely disingenuous argument.
There's not always a shelter available.
Most homeless people carry their own lives with them, shelters allow a bag or two at most. They can't just leave their shit somewhere else.
Some have tools they use for jobs during the day, doesn't matter, shelters have limited space.
Shelters rarely allow for animals and dogs are often the only company homeless people have.
Shelters have a problem where people steal from one another, a consequence of concentrating poverty.
Shelters often put you in contact with people who have serious mental health issues, or people who will push drugs on you which is not exactly desirable if you're trying to stay clean.
Just waving your hands and saying there's shelters doesn't make it so you understand what life in a shelter is. It's absolutely our collective responsibility as a society to deal with this problem through social programs as it's our society that's creating the cycle of poverty that causes homelessness in the first fucking place.
Again, it is NOT the sleeping. I don´t know anyone who cares if people sleep outside. It isn´t an inconvenience to have to clean up feces and urine and needles in order to open your business, it is a health hazard.
I don´t think benches are the answer; mental health treatment, drug treatment and safe places to live are obviously the answer. There seems to be no willingness to provide these things, though.
I don´t think benches are the answer; mental health treatment, drug treatment and safe places to live are obviously the answer. There seems to be no willingness to provide these things, though.
Yes
Again, it is NOT the sleeping. I don´t know anyone who cares if people sleep outside. It isn´t an inconvenience to have to clean up feces and urine and needles in order to open your business, it is a health hazard.
Again, it's often the only place they have to sleep, designing benches so that you're not inconvenienced isn't a solution, it drives the problem away making people give even less of a shit about the issue in the long term.
If it was that big of a health hazard we'd actually try to prevent homelessness or at the very fucking least alleviate it but really it's just an excuse to be shitty.
In the fight between people having to shit in the streets, you saying "I'd love for them to have a place to live but we won't give them one so they can fuck off and die" is unhelpful at best.
Who said they can fuck off and die? Why can´t people use the public bathrooms that are available and sleep on the benches or in the doorways? Obviously, providing shelter is the answer, and at least in our town, various things are being tried with various levels of success.
What gives a person without a home the right to destroy my little non franchise coffee shop by pooping in the doorway? I either have to clean it up every morning or customers won´t come in.
You seem to think there is an easy answer and people just aren´t willing to do it. There is no easy answer. We have low barrier shelters, parking for RVs and Campers, sanctioned tent camps, non sanctioned tent camps, purchase of hotel rooms, tiny house villages, and more. Most if not all are provided, by the city, with portalets and dumpsters. I have personally talked with women who won´t stay in the tent camps for fear of sexual violence, and won´t go to the religious shelters because they throw them out for drug and alcohol use. I have personally talked with men who don´t like to be around other people, so they will find a place to be alone.
The reasons why someone will sleep, pee and poo in a shop doorway are more complicated than rich people being mean.
What prevents someone from sleeping on one of these chairs, exactly? Probably more comfortable than an airplane seat, and I've fallen asleep in those many a time. At least if they fall asleep on this, it's still useable by another person.
It's 100% asshole design, entirely designed to push a problem away instead of dealing with it.
Once again you miss the forest for the trees, and are acting like if we just gave every homeless person their very own park bench then everything would be cool. Let's just take a plot of land at the edge of town and fill it full of benches for the homeless. There...we solved homelessness Reddit.
Oh fuck off with the disingenuous bullshit. I'm saying that designing benches to drive the homeless away isn't a solution. Not that letting sleep on benches is a good thing. Cut the crap.
There is housing for every single homeless person in NYC. Yet you still have people choosing to live like that. It's not the parks job to house the homeless. It's job is to be a park, which it can't be if it's overrun by violent drug addicts.
Do you have a source for this? I tried to find something but the most I could find was a recent article where NY purchased some apartments for low-income and homeless families... Housing almost 400 homeless families.
Since this mentions families specifically and it's less than 400 of them.. it would take a lot of these buildings along with other sources such as Catholic homeless centers, etc... Before it gave every homeless person in NY a place to live.
So specifically, do you have a source that states all homeless people have a safe place to go in NY and are choosing to sleep on the street?
He's probably talking about shelters. The "problem" with shelters is you have to be sober. And a lot of these people are just too fucked up to even attempt that.
A lot of them are also just crazy. There's an issue where a lot of people with mental health issues or drug problems suffer from a type of psychosis where they become paranoid about the people helping them. If you offer them a place to sleep then they can't take it because they're paranoid you'll do something to them. It's also an issue with getting these people on medications.
The homeless population by and large is composed of extremely mentally ill people who are often drug and/or alcohol addicts. Space isn't a problem. THEY are the problem.
If you don't treat the drug/mental health problem, they can't get a roof to sleep under. And if they don't have a roof to sleep under, how the hell do you except to treat the drug/mental health problems?
That's literally what they're doing all in one go. If you will try to get sober then they'll give you a roof over your head along with access to medication. The problem is many of these homeless people simply refuse to do their part in getting sober; so the state/city refuse to house them if they refuse to put in the effort to show they genuinely are trying to better themselves.
Yep, not to mention that the withdrawal from alcohol can kill you, if not treated. Then there is the angry outbursts from inreased irritability, attempts of suicide from increased depression, insomnia that would keep you awake at all hours of the night, mental psychosis, etc... All of which will likely get you kicked out of these shelters anyway.
Currently one... though, throughout my life, we've had six separate people/families live with us until they could get back on their feet. That's with my mom making $9/hr and the small amount if SSI she got from my dad's death when I was a kid, but none of that is relevant to the topic of voting and raising taxes to care for people.
Homeless people are going to poop and pee anyway. If garbage and waste were the issue, trash cans and public restrooms are the answer, not weird chair-benches.
Sure, I agree, but in my town, even where there are 24 hour portalets and public bathrooms, sometimes people who sleep in shop doorways still poop and pee there. I´m sure the person is not in a clear mental state when they do it, but the shop owners still have to clean up the human poop before they can open the shop. I saw a woman a couple of weeks ago pull down her pants and poop in a parking lot, half a block from a public restroom. So if you make it so people can´t sleep somewhere, there is less likely to be human poop.
Youâre not dealing with normal people. They donât give a fuck about your trash cans.
"Normal" people would also be pretty pissed if that was installed next to their homes. Trash cans attract extra garbage to near your home and porta potties make your "neighborhood" smell. Look at any suburban co,munity meeting deciding where to put up trash cans Oh they need them but not outside My house! The porta potties attract drunk people pissing in, on and near them and with little to no way of shielding themselves from that I can understand local homeless getting rid of the cause. The price of the extra smell, shouting and reduction of peace and quiet for the minor convenience they get is too high
I'm sure I'm wrong and they all love having bunches drunk idiots just outside shouting and hollering at their one friend taking a piss at the porta potty and then getting the kind of genius idea of heckling the hobos only drunks can come up with at 2 in the morning every night.
Dude is literally trying to argue that providing homeless people a place to sanitarily use the bathroom and dispose of their garbage is a negative....like what? They act like the homeless people aren't pissing/shitting and disposing of garbage on the ground...or I guess maybe that is the better option in their opinion. Dude is fucking absurd.
The porta potties attract drunk people pissing in, on and near them and with little to no way of shielding themselves from that I can understand local homeless getting rid of the cause.
So your excuse for their behavior is that even the homeless don't want the homeless next to them?
If you like running your mouth in comment sections then homeless posts on this sub are fucking fantastic. It's a bitchfit between Team Hollywood Homeless vs Team IRL Homeless, and I love a good bitchfit.
Instead of investing in safe places for the homeless to go, and programs to help them get off of the streets... Because this option is cheaper for them and they won't have to increase their taxes.
You blame the elected officials as if these people didn't elect those officials. While I agree, no one wants to see homelessness or the effects of it in their neighborhood, these people do not care about the homeless, they care about themselves and their wallets.
I mean as a voter I only care about homelessness insofar as I can avoid seeing, hearing, smelling, or really experiencing it with any of my senses in any place Iâd like to be.
I donât care what happens I just want them gone. I know Iâm not alone in that.
Yeah seems like there's a real blind spot in the only customers can use restrooms, and restrooms only available in businesses model that every city planner seems to keep encountering god bless em. At some point you are going to have to admit they do not give a shit
Restrooms are often for customers only as there still is cost in water, power, toilet paper, soap, and paper towels to compensate for. On top of that there is less incentive for addicts to use them to shoot up or do their drug of choice. It's not like they make you spend 20 bucks or something either, and can just buy a pack of gum, some gas, or something to drink.
So all homeless people are covered in shit and piss and are drug addicts who don't know how to use a bin.
The reality is that none of that behaviour is exclusive to homeless people and painting everyone in a group with the same brush is part of the problem.
You have convinced me that you totally do not have an irrational hatred of homeless people.
You said you hate other people's shit, piss, and drug paraphernalia? I need you to be more specific about which particular group of people you're talking about, there's so many. Then you need to explain if it's rational to hate everyone in that group because of a few individuals.
If you want to be surrounded by homeless people and all their problems then invite them to your own fucking house you dick head. See how long it takes you to break when your shits stolen, theirs people pissing and shitting in your yard, needles left lying. I bet you last 3 days before you reconsider your position. It's not these people's problem to solve homelessness, they're trying to make their neighborhoods a nice place to be while you morally grandstand high on your own bullshit.
Only privileged suburban sjws act like you. Spend 20 minutes walking thru an inner city and then spout this nonsense.
If you have shit or piss on you I hate you. The only exception is if this is not my first impression of the other person and I have previously built a relationship with that individual. In that case I would help them out knowing said shit/piss will not be weaponized against me.
You imply that half of Wal-Mart workers piss, shit, and discard needles inside Wal-Mart. That's the issue bud. If you wanna shit, piss, and throw needles on the floor in your own home you fucking have at it champ.
They arenât all addicts, or people who shit on benches. The problem is, a good chunk of them are, and itâs difficult to compensate for that group. While anti-homeless benches and the like suck, itâs hard to really avoid the negatives if they donât.
Not all people with homes are addicts or people who shit on benches. The problem is, a good chunk of then are, and it's difficult to compensate for that group.
The fact is the ones who aren't addicts will utilize shelters while some will qualify for work/housing programs. The ones that live on benches are generally the ones that are addicts that refuse to get sober and take similar advantage of the existing help available.
I would guess probably a specific group that handles parks; like the parks board. And why would they do that? So they hopefully have less homeless issues to deal with. Or is the parks board supposed to solve homelessness and issues of mental health in your estimation? "The city" isn't a real entity.
Thank you for pointing out that grammatical issue. I was wondering if someone would read it that way. I'm not sure how that would be corrected to refer to "the smell of" piss and shit but not "the smell of" the additional issues caused by the homeless.
The parks department is an extension of the city. They are government employees, and this falls under local ordinance. The parks department is not supposed to solve homelessness, but their funding comes as a result of city taxes. So yes the parks department is not supposed to solve the root issue, but the only reason that bench is there is because the city deemed the funding acceptable and the parks department installed the bench. For the city to approve of the funding and design of that specific bench is ridiculous and dehumanizing. It's not that cities can't help people, it's that they won't, and then antagonize them. How would you feel if you were homeless and had to sleep on the freezing cold ground instead the luxurious comfort of a street bench?
And to make your point a little clearer, you could say "I dislike the smell of piss and shit, as well as the specific issues I perceive as the cause of the homeless and not the cause of the government, because I'm a sniveling cunt." Hope that helps.
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u/kateinoly Oct 12 '21
Even if it is to discourage people from sleeping there, to be fair, the problem often is not the sleeping part, but the pee and poo and drug paraphanalia