A liberal didn’t build that bench.
What makes you think that? Do these not exist in blue states?
Because that bench was deliberately designed to discourage people from sitting there. To make people miserable. So which political party LOVES to be pointlessly cruel?
Both? 17.8 billion dollars to murder children with seems pretty pointlessly cruel to me. All jokes aside, are you not seeing these in the blue states? They don’t have these in New York?
On the contrary: a leftist didn’t build that bench, but it’s exactly the sort of thing a liberal would do.
False
How would sleeping on that bench be any better than the ground even without the arms? If it was cold at all you would freeze from below.
There’s an old saying - you’re warmer in a bush than on a bench
Provided, of course, that the leaves are variegated.
Or gentrified or whatever!
It feels safer to be a bit more above ground level, especially if people walk by
Hygiene.
pros of sleeping on concrete: heat from underground. cons: mice
Mice are just new friends, chief.
Mice are just new meals, chef
Mice are just new chefs, meef
Mice are just new chefs, Alfredo
Anyone can cook!
We got a figure out a way to remove first past the post.
There are really at least 3 groups, not liberals and conservatives.
There are progressives, neoliberals, and fascists.
Progressives believe the government exists to help all people.
Neoliberals say people should not be descriminated against, but wealth segregation is fine
Fascists are, well, fascists.
This post isn’t very region specific but I assume you’re talking about the USA.
Steps:
-
Vote DNC, Promote DNC, Volunteer DNC
-
DNC ammends constitution to reverse the Citizens United Decision, removing money from politics.
-
DNC ensures fair districting and proportional representation
-
People now have the power to enact real meaningful change
Simultaneously:
-
Promote FairVote, educate people door to door and on the streets, buy ad space if you can
-
Protect local broadcast infrastructure and donate to forums where people discuss these issues to keep them running
-
Utilize Artwork to get people’s attention on these issues.
Its unpopular, but its actionable and helps give space to further grow our progressive movement.
Tankies disagree, but don’t put forth a real adgenda. Such unserious group.
-
there already is a us state without first past the post, it’s electors voted for trump.
Revisiting and damn I made a good call to turn off notifications.
My visionary foresight knows no limits
Coward.
“No kid should ever be able to sleep on the streets”
This is not literally liberalism lmao
Literally means figuratively? What a country!
Every “liberal” city that I’ve lived in has had these, or a variant. So I’d have to say yes, it is liberalism in action
What makes those cities liberal?
They are run by self-declared liberal democrats. These benches were put in place under their administration.
Oh so someone calls themselves a liberal and that makes everything they do an example of liberalism?
No, it’s when almost every example is of liberals doing that same thing that makes it an example of liberalism
That’s actually not how a political ideology works! Do you believe that socialism is about exterminating your political enemies because nearly every socialist country in history did so? Or is it more likely that the people who label themselves with a political identity often fail to live up to their own ideals? Or that they never believed in those ideals in the first place and used it as a convenient tribe to gain power? Because liberalism has no opinion on the shape of park benches, that’s just stupid
How is this liberalism?
Why is this stuff being blamed on liberals and not conservatives all of a sudden? I feel like Trump and the right really succeeded in making you all hate each other while they run off with the country.
In my country at least the conservatives pull this shit, and if anything the liberals go to the other extreme too much, which is “just let homeless people make shanty towns in parks and subways it’s their right” both are stupid but one is very clearly worse in a mora sense
Technically speaking liberalism is about letting business do whatever they want without regulation. Some of those regulations are unions and fair pay and fair labor laws. Those things all do a good job or eliminating homelessness. Social programs could easily end homelessness, and a functioning, non abusive foster care system would eliminate a huge amount of homelessnes, poverty and crime. These require regulation business and taxing the wealthy sufficiently too fund program that help orphans, children in general, and the working class who have been largely shoved below poverty, the rest of our social problems would be eliminated by an education system that is geared tower maximum education for everyone capable and NOT saving money and making sure we don’t accidently educate poor or non white children too much.
In leftist spaces, the word liberal often has a different connotation more focused on economic liberalism.
They don’t usually feel the need to clarify, and everyone gets mad. It must be incredibly fun to be an asshole these days.
Conservatives wouldn’t build the bench.
Free public spaces don’t encourage people to go in to a shop hard enough. You wanna sit down? Starbucks has chairs. Want a sip of water, go buy a bottle.
Can I just say I used to live in a country with shanty towns and it sucks, it’s a shit show. Why would anyone want that? Slapping tiny homes on city parks isn’t a solution it’s just stupid
I was referring to like, parks, and town squares. Town squares are pretty rare in the US
U.s is weird in that you can go from state to state and it feels like completely different countries, some are gorgeous and well kept and others are straight up third world
Because it is popular to shit on liberals like everyone of them is a neo liberal. The truth is it is the conservatives that have been destroying public spaces like this. Although you could argue that the libs have not done much to stop them.
I live in a small tourist town and the conservative business owners have lobbied to take out all the benches in town because of a few homeless people. Now our elders have no place to sit. They even did it to our little mall.
So because homeless people we no longer have anywhere to sit in public and even private spaces. It is beyond stupid.
By your logic, anyone from Australia would say the literal exact opposite. Let’s not forget what Liberal parties around the world are like.
That being said, in the US there are no elected center left candidates except maybe two or three. Elected Democrats—liberals, usually—are just as traitor lunatic as right wingers when it comes to anti homeless designs.
The fact that you talk about “the other extreme” without even a hint of self reflection is troublesome at best. The other “extreme” is called housing, son.
Did an American just question my logic? You guys are kinda deranged and politically toxic
I’ll spell it out for you so you can join in on enjoying why your comment was particularly hilarious. You created the very narrow spectrum this post was made to ridicule: from far right (“conservative”) to right wing (“liberal”). You never even considered that it is only right wing to refuse to provide housing for people!
An angle grinder would make short work of those “arm rests.”
i doubt they are welded, a wrench or pliers might do
If you don’t do it perfectly, it’ll leave sharp edges.
I wouldn’t damage public property. You certainly can improve on it. A couple of weather treated 2x4s would raise the seat up, just high enough to clear the armrests. You wouldn’t draw attention to yourself while grinding, but instead it would look super clean and nobody would report it.
Ok, but the people at Covenant House aren’t the ones who decided to put the anti-homeless architecture in place.
Most charities are just scams. And yeah they might do some good, but charity is a symptom of failure. We are byproduct of our environment.
Anti-homeless architecture is meant to encourage homeless people to actually go to homeless shelters where they might get help finding affordable housing, not to mention help for whatever issues they have going on in their lives. It’s meant to combat the problem of some homeless people choosing to avoid getting help and continue to bury themselves in drugs/alcohol and sleep on things like public benches, where they prevent other people from using them for their intended purpose.
There’s nothing wrong with wanting people to get the help they need and stop being an inconvenience for the rest of their community. Are you against homeless outreach programs too? Do you think people should just be allowed to set up shack wherever they please in public spaces? I’m not trying to pretend that the lack of affordable housing isn’t at the core of the problem, but even if we had enough of that, there’d still be mentally ill people and drug addicts that would prefer to live on the street, just to avoid social workers pressuring them to address their problems.
but even if we had enough of that, there’d still be mentally ill people and drug addicts that would prefer to live on the street
How about we get there first and then you can hand wring about any of these supposed people who are left?
Nah, because these people are always going to be here. Do you have a better solution or are you just hand-wringing about people you don’t have to deal with in your daily life?
Those people don’t exist, they are just an excuse for you to be cruel
Your refusal to acknowledge their existence is what is cruel.
That may be true in some cases but most of the time anti homeless street furniture is just made to get homeless people to not hang around that particular area.
And what’s wrong with that? These people should be getting help, not taking up public space. I realize that it probably seems to you like an abuse campaign to insist they sleep somewhere else, but I would argue you’re an enabler who naively thinks they’re helping while actually just cooperating with these poor people’s poor adaptation strategies by giving them a place to stay in public space that isn’t actually a safe to stay in. Check yourself. Do you actually have these people’s best interests in mind, or are you just virtue signaling about the homeless, a class you see as less than yourself?
Why do you believe I see homeless people as less than myself? Quite a lot of people are only a short term breakdown away from being homeless, especially in ultra capitalist places like the US. Certainly they need help, but help is not always directly available, and you want to argue that while they look for help, making the world as hostile as possible is a good thing? And then you try to gaslight me with that? I think you need help.
making the world as hostile as possible is a good thing?
Oh, please, seriously? I advocate for a feature in public spaces that disincentivizes homeless people from sleeping on park benches and you think I’m trying to create a living Hell for them? After I’ve already also advocated for more to be put into affordable housing and outreach services for them? Get over your self-righteousness, man. Demonizing me won’t convince me or anyone else.
And for the record, gaslighting is when you lie and manipulate a person ways that specifically cause them to doubt their perception of reality; it’s not a catch-all term for saying something someone else thinks is untrue.
Perhaps you should read your own comments with that in mind.
Well you do seem Keen to insist in enabling a dangerous and damaging behavior in them
Well if it it’s the change of tune.
Fuck you.
Ah yes, petty insults
The leftist huckster’s crutch
Fuck you.
Amazingly, you think because someone has a mental illness that they chose to live on the street.
You: “I’m sure if given the chance to have a place to live, an unhoused person would reject it”
They remove benches and rest stops/bus shelters to stop the unhoused from occupying them to the detriment of people using the service. And you see nothing wrong with that.
It’s very obvious to most why this is done.
But not you.
Amazingly, you think because someone has a mental illness that they chose to live on the street.
No, I don’t. I’m a therapist that works at a mental health clinic, so I’d wager I have a better understanding of the psychosocial conditions affecting these people than you do. And I know the feeling psychosocial impacts have on the homeless better than you do. I’ve seen and worked with people living on the street. Can you claim to have the same experience?
Jesus Christ, do you even know what you’re talking about?
I’m not going to waste my time with you, because you haven’t demonstrated you have even an inkling of an understanding of what you’re dealing with.
Get educated before you spout off, nitwit.
I’ve actually been homeless. Have you?
No. But since you have experience, let me ask you: did you spend time sleeping on public benches and do you think features that attempt to prevent this are an attack on homeless people? And just to be clear, since this is a text-only format, I’m not being sarcastic or trying to make light of your experience; I’m genuinely curious.
When I was homeless all the shelters were full, and housing was a year plus wait for anything. I often slept in a concrete tube under a bridge. Then the government came in, removed the tubes, and puts spikes all over the concrete under the bridge. Yes I felt it was an attack. I was forced to move further out from where I could attain help, and do something to sustain myself, only making it harder for me to exist. Dealing with the government to maintain my place of residence, and medical treatment, is a part time job, where I spend, literally, 4-6 hours on hold with places like Jobs and Family Services, and the local housing authority. I can absolutely understand how easy it would be for me to stay homeless if I were say, schizophrenic. Luckily I am not, and I can maintain things like schedules, keep dozens of appointments per month, etc.
This is one of the worst possible ways to encourage people to seek help. it shows a deep lack of understanding what day-to-day life is for the homeless, especially ones who are very mentally ill.
As I said to another commenter, “anti-homeless” measures like these make zero sense if there aren’t resources for the homeless available. I’m sorry, it doesn’t sound like resources were available to you, and that truly sucks. Your state should do better.
However, in places where resources are available, homeless people still sometimes refuse to utilize them, and then measures like this become valid and utilitarian.
Luckily, I became homeless in very late '99, where at least the area I was in, didn’t have anti-sleeping measures installed on public benches, yet. Until I secured a shitty car to live out of, on the days I wasn’t lucky to have a friend offer a spot to crash, parks were the only hope. I was removed by the police from them a bunch of times, told I cannot be sleeping there. When asked if they know any place I could spend the night, they spent zero time trying to help me. Told me to get out of there already.
It was really tempting to commit a crime, serious enough to get booked for few days, where I could catch up on sleep without freezing. Fact those benches didn’t have anti-sleeping measures, made for a few great nights where I could get some decent rest, which wouldn’t have happened nowadays. So yeah, hard to say it’s not an attack on homeless people, specially when the public servants have zero fucks to help you out.Sounds like the area you were in didn’t have adequate homeless shelters. Where I live, you could always have gone there. The cops wouldn’t necessarily have taken you there, but you could certainly have gotten there in your own.
I will admit that “anti-homeless” bench features don’t make much sense unless you have places and resources for homeless people to fall back on. But if there are said resources, I see the utility of these features to disincentivize homeless people from using public benches as a substitute for getting professional help.
The time you went to Starbucks and left your keys inside your house doesn’t count, Brian
Get educated before you spout off, nitwit.
Oh, the irony! 🤣
You do realize you’re just embarrassing yourself all over this thread, right?
Ah yes, sharing they have experience working with homeless, how embarrassed they must be
Claiming that they have experience working with homeless, but demonstrating that they’re a callous asshole (and probably very bad at their job, if they aren’t outright lying).
Says they are a therapist and that they know better than anyone. Doesn’t know anything about me.
HOW EMBARRASSING IT MUST BE FOR YOU TO EXIST.
Right, the person throwing insults in all caps says I’m the one who should be embarrassed. 🙄
You still don’t get it, do you?
You have no idea how you appear to be insulting because your head is so far up your ass you smell like meconium.
I made a neutral comment, stating my opinion without any insults, and have been getting insulting comments like yours ever since. You want to throw barbs, but object to them being thrown back.
Grow the fuck up. I’m done with you in particular.
Shelters, even if there was enough space, can be dangerous for vulnerable people, do not allow pets, and rarely provide medium term housing or transitional opportunity.
Anti-homeless architecture simply attempts to push the houseless further away from urban centers, and consequently food kitchens, shelters, and other resources. This is deadly when extreme weather occurs or acute health problems arise.
It actively makes the city more dangerous to those most fucked by society.
As far as “wanting” to live on the street, this is a narrative made up to victim blame and deny empathy. It only needs one or two examples for the false narrative to be cast on the population writ large.
You’re stupid if you think this is the effect anti-homeless architecture is having in the places it’s being implemented. They have very little impact to begin with. I don’t pretend to think that shelters can’t be improved, but if people refuse to utilize the resources we have, we must either come up with new resources or reevaluate our investments in the resources we currently employ.
It’s a political problem. Houseless people are there because there’s no political willpower to create systematic change to support them. So you’re absolutely right when you say:
we must either come up with new resources or reevaluate our investments in the resources we currently employ.
The only problem is the answer to this question is more often on the side of the investment not being worth it, so the problem is left unaddressed.
Not where I live. There are plenty of options for the homeless in my city, but we still have problems with homeless people taking up public space because they would rather be left alone and not address their problems.
Do you think I’m lying? Can you not empathize with this problem? Do you really think all homeless people flock to the resources available to them? None of them resort to vagrancy at all? Do you think the inventors of these bench features had steepled fingers and were like, “Let’s fuck these homeless MFers even harder!”?
Providing resources only goes so far. As a therapist, I can easily tell you that merely making help available does not guarantee the needy will come get help. Sometimes, you have to make it impossible for people to escape the consequences of their actions before they’ll do the work necessary to get better.
I’ve worked with hundreds of homeless people, usually trying to help them before the cops sweep their camp, or keeping their car rolling so they can keep living in it.
There was a ubiquitous set of conditions:
- can’t afford housing even though they had a job.
- lost identifying documents, usually in a sweep, and working on replacing them. You can’t get work without these.
- no reliable postal address
- no support network
I’ve never met anyone who wanted to be living on the street.
I’m not talking about crust punks train hopping. I’m talking about the people who missed a day of work for whatever reason and couldn’t make rent one month. Now they’re in a tent near available services because the shelter kicked them out after the max stay of a week.
Being a therapist gives you no expertise here and it seems to me that a therapist who sees punishment as a viable means for behavioral change is kind of shit at their job.
It sounds like wherever you are does not have adequate services for their homeless population. That’s a serious problem, and I would obviously advocate for the expansion of said services over sleep-prevention measures added to park benches.
But I am a therapist with experience working with homeless people, and contrary to what you apparently think, my experience does give me expertise on their lives. Where I live, they do have options. I’m sorry your state doesn’t serve its homeless population as well as mine. We can both agree that’s a bad thing. What we disagree on is that this simple park benches feature is/isn’t an “attack” on homeless people. I also hold the position that methadone clinics are a disservice to opioid addicts—due to my extensive experience with that population who are still addicted to opioids, and whose methadone clinics actively encourage them to remain on methadone rather than titrate off of it. Are you going to tell me that being against that is an “attack” on heroin addicts?
I’m sorry you’ve had the experiences you’ve had, but my position is entirely defensible, and you haven’t presented me with any evidence to the contrary. Moreover, your contention that I’m a “bad” therapist speaks volumes about your naïveté regarding my profession.
Hey maybe I’m stupid too, but it seems to me it’d be way fucking easier and cheaper to just put some flyers in a little letterbox attached to the bench advertising the nearest homeless shelter or something, rather than inconveniencing literally everyone who wants to use the bench. But what do I know, I’m probably just stupid
Flyers wouldn’t prevent homeless people from using the bench as a bed, preventing other people from using it for its intended purpose, and would be almost entirely ignored.
Literally anyone using the bench potentially prevents someone else from also using the bench. Why is it a bigger deal when it’s a homeless person doing the using? Also, I’m sure there are other more attention grabbing options than a flyer, if we use our imaginations a little bit. Why is your focus on prevention and not education/outreach anyways?
Literally anyone using the bench potentially prevents someone else from also using the bench. Why is it a bigger deal when it’s a homeless person doing the using?
If the homeless person was just sitting on the bench, it wouldn’t be an issue. The bench features we’re talking about aren’t designed to prevent people from sitting on them; they’re designed to prevent people from lying down on them comfortably, thereby taking up more space and using the bench for a purpose it was not intended.
You chided me for calling someone else stupid, so I’m trying to be nicer, but I honestly don’t feel like I should have to explain this to you.
Why is your focus on prevention and not education/outreach anyways?
As I’ve said in other comments, I support outreach attempts as well. My focus is on this prevention technique because it’s the topic of the thread.
Imagine trying to spin anti-homeless architecture as pro-homeless.
“Welcome! What brings you to the homeless shelter today?”
“Well, it’s that bench. You see, I was choosing the unhoused lifestyle, and I was fine with all the other stigma and physical discomforts, until I realized that the city wants to discourage my presence in public spaces. Fuck these armrests, I decided I’d just come to this shelter, get treatment for my addiction, get counseling for my traumatic past that fed the addiction, get an education, get a job, rent a house, save money, then buy a home instead. It’s just not worth trying to get comfy on that bench.”
Anti-homeless architecture is meant to encourage homeless people to actually go to homeless shelters
Umm no… anti-homeless architecture isn’t meant to encourage people to go to homeless shelters, it’s meant to make it inconvenient to be homeless where “rich people” might have to see and acknowledge you. Its goal is to make the problem easier to ignore not drive people to get help.
You can’t disconnect the problems you are pretending are separate.
So leftism is about wanting more comfortable public benches for the homeless to sleep on, while liberalism is about not wanting people to be homeless at all?
Do you ever get tired of needing to be outraged by everything all of the time and just want to be in a society where people actually work to improve things rather than just expressing impotent outrage? Ah but that would require doing work and leftists don’t want to do any work or they might be screamed at by other leftists for being “liberal.”
Fuck you.
LOL
You didn’t need to write that, everyone already knew you were a douche.
LMAO
For those not in the know, covenant house is a homeless shelter for kids based in NYC. They house homeless children up to age 21. I emancipated myself when I was 16 and started college. Stupid me didn’t realize that the dorms closed during Thanksgiving, Christmas, and other holidays. Going back home for the holidays was out of the question because my mother let my rapist back into the house to live with her, (the reason why I emancipated myself in the first place.) I spent every holiday my freshman year of college at covenant house. I slept on a mat in a room with a bunch of other kids, but it was better than being on the streets and I didn’t go hungry. I learned my lesson after that year and rented a room sophomore-senior instead of deciding to live in dorm housing. For anyone that knows any homeless children that need help, they have a crisis line called the 9 line. 1-800-999-9999.
I’m a side sleeper. I can sleep on this bench. Given the other half of the government would get rid of the bench altogether, this is a good compromise. Now if you want to get rid of the divider altogether, the fascist side of the government needs to be thoroughly and consistently beaten. That’s just the system. You can make an argument that the “ideal” left is incompetent too for always losing.
I’m a side sleeper. I can sleep on this bench. Given the other half of the government would get rid of the bench altogether, this is a good compromise. Now if you want to get rid of the divider altogether, the fascist side of the government needs to be thoroughly and consistently beaten. That’s just the system. You can make an argument that the “ideal” left is incompetent too for always losing.
