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.
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 it’s a ridiculous design, but I can’t expect someone responsible for street furniture to win the war on drugs and solve homelessness.
Who is “we” 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.
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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