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u/chickachickabowbow Oct 12 '21
I was gonna suggest that you could fit a wheelchair in there, before I realized you can fit a wheelchair just about anywhere else without doing this.
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Oct 12 '21 edited Oct 12 '21
I seem to remember it actually being designed to include wheelchair users.
My friend who is relying on a wheel chair to do anything found it ridiculous. It makes no difference, when you can just sit right next to the bench.
Edit: requested rephrasing
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u/frezik Oct 12 '21
It was advertised as being for wheelchairs. The jig was up when someone mentioned that people in wheelchairs brought their own chair.
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Oct 12 '21
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u/captaindeadpl Oct 12 '21
But that's pointless. Just place the wheelchair next to the bench, you'll still get a neat row of people.
Even better, with a normal bench the wheelchair user also has the option to sit while facing 3-4 friends on the bench.
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u/Toastedmanmeat Oct 12 '21
What if you are a wheel chair bound pimp and you prefer to have a hoe on each arm while you wait for the bus?
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Oct 12 '21
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u/captaindeadpl Oct 12 '21
Depends how much foot traffic there is. If it's just the odd passerby once every 10 minutes, it barely matters.
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u/boston_homo Oct 12 '21
Yeah but you don't put the wheelchair on top of the bunch. It would go in the middle.
Seriously? Think about that for a second. Wheelchair users would be wicked cool chilling on either side, I do not doubt this. I believe these benches are designed for wheelchair users as much as I believe voter ID laws are for election security.
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u/kas-sol Oct 12 '21
It was designed to be anti-homeless, it was excused as being for inclusion.
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u/NMT-FWG d o n g l e Oct 12 '21
But it would only inconvenience people in wheelchairs. Wheelchairs can go a lot of place so long as the surface allows it and there's not an obstruction. Having the back to the bench go between the two chairs creates a physical barrier that won't allow a wheelchair to go through or sit in the that spot.
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u/kas-sol Oct 12 '21
Which is why it's shitty for anything else than being anti-homeless.
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u/HaloGuy381 Oct 12 '21
One could permit a similar function by adding a simple hinge to fold up and fasten the seat part, and let someone roll a wheelchair into the spot, without depriving the homeless of somewhere off the ground (aka fewer bugs, better cooling/heat retention, etc) to rest.
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Oct 12 '21
No, it is designed to be anti-homeless. The wheelchair angle is the fig leaf. Someone above pointed out you don't need a hole in a bench to sit in a wheelchair, the wheelchair could be anywhere. The person in the wheelchair is already always sitting.
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u/XxAgentevilxX Oct 12 '21
honestly as someone in a wheelchair the back of the bench would probably block the handlebars meaning it would be more effort than just sitting next to it
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u/TarantinoFan23 Oct 12 '21
Red herring
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u/Generalissimo_II Oct 12 '21
Blue Öyster
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u/b0b0tempo Oct 12 '21
Golden Earring
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Oct 12 '21
It was for wheelchairs the same way crippling the USPS is for cutting costs
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u/WhompTrucker Oct 12 '21 edited Oct 12 '21
Please don't say wheelchair-bound. Just say wheelchair users. Wheelchairs are actually a huge tool for freedom and people aren't really bound or confined when using one. Nbd just some education
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u/deluseru Oct 12 '21
I don't use the term, but wheelchair-bound is technically correct. If you used a wheelchair to get somewhere and someone took away your wheelchair you would be stranded to some degree.
You are bound to the wheelchair if it is what allows you mobility/freedom 💙.
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u/Abrical Oct 12 '21
what's the point of doing a bench like this instead of just making 2 chairs?
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u/njester025 Oct 12 '21
They can market it as being more inclusive to those who rely on wheelchairs when it’s really just anti-homeless. Makes people who are ignorant feel good.
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u/EatSleepJeep Oct 12 '21
Ever wanted to stand but also lean up against something?
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u/quaderrordemonstand Oct 12 '21
Perhaps, but I didn't especially want to do that between two sitting people.
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u/-inhales-AHH Oct 12 '21
It’s called a power move
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u/Bbrowny Oct 12 '21
Step 1: lean on the bench Step 2: fart while staring at someone directly in their eyes
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Oct 12 '21 edited Apr 01 '22
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u/HighPriestofShiloh Oct 12 '21
And when you say middle school boy you just mean straight men in general right?
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u/RyanDrRyan Oct 12 '21
Something you could do easier on a tree or lamppost, why would you lean on something that only goes up to the thigh on most people. What kind of argument are you trying to make?
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u/FaceJP24 Oct 12 '21
If that was the point, they could just extend the backrest to the sides rather than taking a seat out from the middle. But it's obviously not the point.
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u/budlightguy Oct 12 '21
Was probably originally a bench and they just cut the section of the middle out of the bottom and added the 2 extra metal braces.
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u/Princess_Juggs Oct 12 '21
Oh boy a headrest for my mid-lunch mid-bench, on-the-ground meditation!
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Oct 12 '21 edited Oct 12 '21
It’s like the middle section of the back is just there to mock you. It would make more sense and be less expensive as two separate chairs, but instead they gave us this half-bench
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u/kukkelii Oct 12 '21
Those benches probably cost like $1500 each too. Having some specifically designed fuckyouhomelesspeoplebench probably won't be cheap. It's sadly quite ironic that people are willing to spend a lot of money to "fix" the homeless problem, their end goal is just the opposite.
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u/ProgrammingPants Oct 12 '21
This is designed to fix the homeless problem.
Specifically, the problem of having to see them.
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u/GelatoVerde Oct 12 '21
Two chairs
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u/IAtePizzaOnThur Oct 12 '21
having sex
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Oct 12 '21 edited May 09 '24
rock paltry chubby spotted ancient sable march mountainous hat sulky
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u/Uncanny-Player Oct 12 '21
What if we kissed on the social distancing bench?
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u/DamnnSunn Oct 12 '21
Straight to jail. Touching on the social distancing bench? Jail.
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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
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u/roblewk Oct 12 '21
I really want to disagree, as the homeless sleep near my home frequently. But then I recalled a woman at a bench across from my front window. She did all of those things last month. She even had wet wipes to “bathe” with. It was gross and sad and she left a disgusting mess despite a trash can right next to her.
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u/wallace321 Oct 12 '21 edited Oct 12 '21
This.
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.
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u/oddmanout Oct 12 '21
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.
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u/chaser676 Oct 12 '21
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.
They went out of business.
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u/flacdada Oct 12 '21
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.
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u/_Peavey Oct 12 '21
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.
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u/Hank_Holt Oct 12 '21
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.
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u/Zahn1138 Oct 12 '21
Excellent point. These discussions always overlook the fact that people do not hold any distaste for the homeless because of their homelessness in itself.
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u/NoDadYouShutUp Oct 12 '21
What if we lived in a society where people had a place to pee and poop and life wasn’t so miserable they needed to do drugs
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u/meregizzardavowal Oct 12 '21 edited Oct 12 '21
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.
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u/OwnQuit Oct 12 '21
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.
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u/DiscipleDavid Oct 12 '21
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?
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u/Vegan_dogfucker Oct 12 '21
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.
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u/november512 Oct 12 '21
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.
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Oct 12 '21
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.
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u/kateinoly Oct 12 '21
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.
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Oct 12 '21
They put porta potties next to some homeless tent camps here in Toronto and it took about 2 days before they were knocked over and destroyed.
You’re not dealing with normal people. They don’t give a fuck about your trash cans.
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u/app4that Oct 12 '21
Anyone against this idea clearly does not live where men are sleeping on your street night after night who refuse any and all help and then use your doorway as a restroom or a place to get sick or overdose.
It’s been a problem for decades and making outdoor beds is not going to solve it. But at least you and your family can use this bench in the park as it was intended.
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u/VinzClortho52 Oct 12 '21
"who refuse any and all help" Is soooooooooooo lost on too many people. Almost nobody wants to see people struggle, but if the struggle is due to a refusal of accessible help, it's tough to live with it outside of your front door. Agree with you completely.
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u/timthetollman Oct 12 '21
Yep. There's a significant homeless problem in my city yet there are empty beds in shelters every night. Plenty of homeless have mental health issues and they can't be forced into shelters. Others have drug/drink problems and can't drink or do drugs in shelters so they opt to stay outside.
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u/GreenTeaOnMyDesk Oct 12 '21
Serious question: is it wrong to not want homeless people in the park?
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u/Kipdid Oct 12 '21
It’s a shitty situation with no good answer yet, as the answer should be yes, but it takes only a very small amount of abuse to give plenty enough reason to answer no.
Basically yet another example of “beneficial thing becomes popular, attracts bad apple which proceeds to ruin it for everyone else”
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Oct 12 '21
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u/Kipdid Oct 12 '21
Yknow what, yeah you’ve got a good point, I was gonna point to how the necessary sobriety standards for the shelter means they couldn’t be an all-encompassing solution, but we should strive to fix the addiction issues that cause these bad behaviors too.
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u/TCFi Oct 12 '21
I think the issue most people have is that you're making a shitty bench that is less useful for everyone soley to keep homeless people from using it
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u/ninerise Oct 12 '21
if a homeless person is sleeping on it, then it's not useful to anyone. A bench like this is clearly because the homeless population made normal benches unusable. It's not like this bench came first.
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Oct 12 '21
Clearly it’s being useful to the homeless person in that case. Probably more useful to them than it would be to you or me.
I get what you mean though, I too would prefer that they didn’t use benches and the like. But are we really going to try to take benches away from people to whom that is the best place they have to sleep? How fucking sad is that?
We need to help these people, not try to make their life even worse (and ours too because those benches suck).
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u/L0sAndrewles Oct 12 '21
No it’s not, some wanna think they’re caring people by saying they’re human and need some where to go etc, but at least here in Los Angeles, a lot of them have mental health issues and abuse drugs and alcohol, so I don’t think they should be sleeping at parks with a ton of kids around. As to where they should go, I have no answer. They already have skid row and the river beds. And LA is about to create a huge apartment building for them that costs like 14 million
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Oct 12 '21
It's not fixing the issue. It's simply sweeping homeless to sleep in the rest of the neighborhood instead of the park.
Basically it's local government not doing much and patting themselves on the back
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Oct 12 '21
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u/Hank_Holt Oct 13 '21
That's the ironic thing about these comments, because the vast majority of people angry about this bench seem to imply that if we just gave every homeless person their very own regular bench shit would be cool.
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u/_Peavey Oct 12 '21
It's wrong not to want them there, but it's not wrong not wanting them to turn the park into a drug den or a cesspit.
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u/Yes_But_Coffee Oct 12 '21
Every time I see one of these posts and the ignorant “you just hate homeless people” comments I just think. “You clearly don’t live in a place where it’s not uncommon to see human shit and needles all over the sidewalk, and have your car window smashed at 2AM.”
It’s not about hating homeless. Also, don’t be a dumbass, we all want to help them and wish our politicians would use the funds to fix this. But we also don’t want to walk around shit, piss, and needles while getting our cars broken into. Or…..having homes lees people walk into our homes in the middle of the fucking day
It’s possible to have both stances you know….
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u/fubinor Oct 12 '21
Benches are for the homeless?
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u/Nathanv625 Oct 12 '21
As much as they are for people with homes.
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u/HellImNewWhatDoIDo2 Oct 12 '21
Which also means no more than that. So they are not appropriate places to sleep, do drugs or use the bathroom.
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u/CommanderCuntPunt Oct 12 '21
You mean the local taxpayers? No the taxpayers have way more right to them than the drugged up homeless guy dropping needles everywhere.
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u/fubinor Oct 12 '21
Exactly my point. As long as no one is sleeping on it and taking up the entire bench it's all good.
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Oct 12 '21
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u/HellImNewWhatDoIDo2 Oct 12 '21
Exactly. People who get upset over this stuff are overwhelmingly from suburban areas where they never have to deal with homelessness in their actual day to day.
It ruins nice neighborhoods and drives families (and tax dollars) away. That is not ok.
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u/Sweatybballz Oct 12 '21
Wait, there are people who want the homeless to sleep on park benches and not in a shelter? How cruel.
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u/AndrewJamesDrake Oct 12 '21 edited Sep 13 '24
vase compare dull cause secretive faulty pocket head seed enjoy
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Oct 12 '21
And who are at the homeless shelter making it unsafe?
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Oct 12 '21
Damn shelter workers won't listen. I keep telling them I am allergic to blankets. So unsafe.
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u/hilinia Oct 12 '21
And isn't tied to obligated attendance at a religious service.
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Oct 12 '21
I used to be homeless, this is common at bus stops. Also cops won’t let you sleep anywhere, it’s miserable.
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u/HellImNewWhatDoIDo2 Oct 12 '21
People that get upset over this have never had to deal with homeless people ruining all the nice things around them.
You’d prefer a drunk / drugged out disgustingly dirty body all over the bench that’s supposed to be for productive members of society?
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u/CasualPenguin Oct 12 '21
This is an incredible messy topic imo and I have struggled to find an opinion on 'let homeless people sleep wherever' vs deterrents we've seen.
I would say though, it's pretty damn inhumane to refer to them as 'bodies' with a bunch of negative characteristics, they are fellow humans that society has utterly let down.
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u/kakka_rot Oct 12 '21
Oh look, it's already time again for our weekly post about hostile architecture. I'm sure there will be tons of positive, insightful conversation about how we should handle the homeless crisis, just like the other 500 times similar pictures have been posted.
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u/atomiccheesegod Oct 12 '21
I used to have a big heart for homeless people, then I lived in Seattle for a while. 90% of them are drug addicts with serious mental health issues that have a lengthy criminal record.
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u/Past-Signature-6178 Oct 12 '21
If yall want homeless people hanging out in front of your shit just invite them to your place. Build em a nice comfy bench. See how long that lasts lmao.
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u/jpritchard Oct 12 '21
Now two taxpayers can sit and enjoy the park, rather than one freeloader hogging the resource to himself.
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u/OwnQuit Oct 12 '21
You're thinking too small. Think of all the people who can now enjoy the immediate surroundings of the bench now that there isn't a crazed violent addict living there chasing off people who just want to peacefully enjoy the park.
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u/TheWhiteWallOfWonder Oct 12 '21
People act like all of these are bad, but in my area the homeless frequently break into cars in our parking garage, smash windows, throw things at people, scream at kids and pets, and their repercussions when they’re caught on camera EVERY TIME are going to jail where they get warmth, food, and structure.
I understand some are great people on hard times, but also some are terrible people that are where they are because of poor choices and lack of morals.
If a few of these benches replacing full length benches decreases some of the crimes the homeless commit in my area, I’m for it.
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u/Az0riusMCBlox d o n g l e Oct 12 '21
Looks like something that was marketed as "wheelchair-friendly" when it doesn't really need to be.
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u/BallisticTorch Oct 12 '21
I suppose one could see it that way. However, that gap is the perfect size for a wheelchair. Without more context of the surrounding area, I can't say for certain that is why the gap is there.
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u/TacoOrgy Oct 12 '21
Nah it's so people in wheelchairs can use the bench too. Are you some ableist who thinks people can just sit next to the bench in their wheelchair???
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u/jonyprepperisrael Oct 12 '21
2 bros chilling on a bench 5 feet apart cause they are not homless
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u/useles-converter-bot Oct 12 '21
5 feet is the the same distance as 2.21 replica Bilbo from The Lord of the Rings' Sting Swords.
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u/RedditorsRSubhuman0 Oct 12 '21
You're all disgusted by this design right until you go out and find an actual bench with a homeless person sleeping on it and go "ughhhh". You can be dicks but don't be hypocrites.
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u/Whit3boy316 Oct 12 '21
Here I thought it was considering people in wheelchairs, but then I thought “why would they need this”
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u/Themis3000 Oct 12 '21
Putting money into supporting homeless people to help keep them off the street 🚫
Putting money into making every part of the city streets unsleepable so they literally can't be on the streets ✔
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u/Dingobabies Oct 12 '21
Unpopular opinion but seeing and walking past filthy homeless beggars is not something I enjoy so I like when my city takes steps to discourage them from loitering in nicer parts of town.
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u/GimmeDiLightMan Oct 12 '21
Fucking agreed. Everyone acts so righteous and gets upset when these kinds of posts come up but they've never had to deal with homeless crackheads living in their area.
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Oct 12 '21
I also dislike dealing with homeless people. Most of them would have better lives if they weren't so unpleasant.
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u/madman1101 Oct 12 '21
i mean, i get it. i'm sorry, but an area doesn't look attractive or appealing when there's homeless people loitering and sleeping on benches. Shelters exist, and often go unutilized. do we need to put more money toward the issue? yes. are steps being taken to address the issue? yes.
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u/whitefella1 Oct 12 '21 edited Oct 13 '21
Yeah they should totally leave blankets and pillows out there too!
Holy shit when will people realize that not everywhere is appropriate for drugged out or drunk bums to have as their new personal bed.
People on Reddit would rather have homeless sleeping centers in public elementary school gyms before they’d approve a single bench that doesn’t give way to homeless people shitting all over it.
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u/BigDickKenJennings Oct 12 '21
It's probably a wheelchair friendly bench but either way, who cares if it's anti homeless. Everybody is fine with homeless people sleeping in parks until it's in their neighborhood. We can do more for mentally ill homeless people than saying "just sleep on a bench."
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u/Goblicon Oct 12 '21
I don't know about the "homeless" in the rest of the world, but here in California they are bums, junkies and alcoholics. They don't need a place to sleep, they need a place to be locked up.
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u/jurzdevil Oct 12 '21
Unless there is a concrete base below the pavers they just anchored it to 8 tiny pavers that can easily be pulled up.
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u/Ninventoo Oct 12 '21
r/neoliberal’s solution for wheel chair accessibility and to end homelessness.
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Oct 12 '21
hell, why not just install chairs everywhere instead of wasting money on the extended backboards?!
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u/[deleted] Oct 12 '21
At this point its just anti-the-concept-of-a-bench