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I wouldn’t normally vandalize a bench, but…
If someone were to pick the locks, they could randomly rearrange them and lock the benches open.
So they pay someone to lock / unlock it, that’s an externalized cost of not solving the issues elsewhere. A little too much on the individualistic side of things.
If we think the logic through, it is very insidious. The city has decided that the public perception of locking up benches is far more preferably then allowing a place for people to sit/sleep.
In essence, it is better for a bunch of people to be collateral in punishing the homeless then it is to be seen making homeless people’s lives marginally better.
These little things add up and make you realize that that ol statistic of “California spends 100k/year per homeless person combating homelessness” hold weight. They’d rather spend on services and police to do this stuff than address the underlying issue.
It sounds like there is too much diffuse of responsibility
Damn people choosing to be broke. To the debtor’s prison with them.
A symptom of homelessness being a thing although it’s a quite understandable mitigation too.
I hate the practice of Hostile Architecture/Anti-Homeless Architecture, just let someone sleep till the sun comes up. As long as they ain’t hurting anyone or the area then, it’s whatever.
I kinda get it to an extent. I’ve had friends that lived in a bar district that couldn’t get out of their door because the same guy set up shop on their stoop every morning. They tried to convince him to just move to the side leaving them enough room to get in and out without trying to step over him. They tried to get him to work with services to help but he had no f’s left to give. He peed there, never crapped there, though. I do wonder where he went to do that.
The right answer is to properly support, help, and house the homeless, and a city with the wherewithall to maintain a park could definitely make a dent on that.
I agree that support is needed, but I can’t take this argument seriously.
Your anecdote is an annoying case, sure. But one personal experience isn’t representative of the broader homeless population, and it’s certainly not a good argument for hostile architecture.
Using a single cherry-picked encounter to draw sweeping conclusions is exactly how you get policy that “solves” a stereotype instead of a real problem. Broad statistics don’t care about your one story, and neither should public policy.
Ok, let’s turn that argument on it’s head. In what world is not blocking benches and seats in a public a better solution than state funded programs to get the homeless sheltered and fed. I can tell you right now that the numbers of shelters available are shit everywhere I’ve been and most have little to no support for mental health, addiction or anything, just draconian rules about in/out times and in most cases fees.
edit addon:
They don’t need the benches, they shouldn’t have to be on the benches. they shouldn’t feel the need to be on the grate in the winter or camping under an underpass.
Mental illness and homelessness go together like sex and cigarettes. You can have 1000 days of harmless hobos sleeping on benches, and all it takes is 1 or 2 stark-raving madmen attacking or harassing people to shift attention and spark concern about safety (falling property values because that neighborhood has a “bum problem”)
I’m not saying it’s right, it just how things work.
Edit: I’ve paid high rent to live somewhere and had to deal with panhandlers, hobos, and thieves. Kindness wasn’t a valuable tool. Needless to say it hits different when you are the one being affected.
I agree that support is needed, but I can’t take this argument seriously.
The way I see it, someone at city hall went out of pocket several hundred dollars to customize those benches. And then they’re paying someone to come out every morning and unlock them (or not and just leaving benches locked indefinitely). All so life is now harder for people already sleeping rough.
Does anyone really believe the city councilor or mayor or whomever who went through that trouble is going to be releasing money to improve municipal services for homeless residents? I certainly don’t.
Sometimes I walk around town late at night. Last week I saw a guy with a sleeping bag napping in the park gazebo. He wasn’t bothering me or anyone, so I just let him be.
We’ll I hope you at least reminded him of his obligations to the Epstein Island class.
I guess it’s time to put a bench there, get a hammer drill, put some holes in the cement, and bolt that fucker to the ground, and then round the bolts so they can’t take it out.
Mildly infuriating? This is disgusting shit.
I guess this is how English and Spanish work but coming from language where the word “free” is not used in similar manner I find it somewhat funny that here we have “free zone / zona libre” and it means that the bench is locked and so many things are prohibited.
The Spanish is a bit easier since it literally translates to “Zone Free of…” followed by a list of things it’s a zone free from but I agree, since a “drug free zone” and a “gun free zone” mean that there is, ideally according to the sign, no drugs or guns but a “weapons free zone” would mean you’re free to shoot combatants on sight, whereas a “weapon free zone” would mean an area without weapons.
using “something free” to say that thing is prohibited sounds so 1984…
You can open a Master Lock with a Master Lock.
Dystopian as fuck.
more like “wildly infuriating”
I am surprised they are even there at all. Better than no benches I guess.
Tbh, I think I’d prefer no architecture to hostile architecture.
If we can’t have a chair without malicious intent, we don’t need the fucking chair.
I can’t walk but about 2 meters at a time now. I think with my boomer brain. Seat, sit. But you are correct.
You can take one for the team here: go there at 9a, walk a bit, collapse while trying to find somewhere to sit, then sue the fuck out of the state/county for discriminating against the infirm.
You get a pay day, hostile architecture gets treated as a liability instead of a solution. Win win!
I am Canadian. We aren’t so sue’y up here. Sounds too much like work.
I am Canadian.
Please send help. I’m stuck in the smoldering crackhouse to your south.
We aren’t so sue’y up here. Sounds too much like work.
Sounds nice. Don’t ever let your country become like mine.
I mean… what courthouse am I going to be spending time at? I gotta figure out lunches.
Courthouse? No no, white house. It’ll be like 1812 all over again.
Lunch is on me.
If people don’t have anywhere to exist, they can’t legally exist, even if they do. But that’s the whole point, isn’t it? Hiking the homeless will just die quietly offscreen?
as a former park worker, i would be so pissed if i had to lock and unlock all the benches twice a day, such s massive waste of time
