Damn people choosing to be broke. To the debtor’s prison with them.
Park benches don't "open" until 10am
Submitted 2 days ago by sanitation@lemmy.today to mildlyinfuriating@lemmy.world
https://lemmy.today/pictrs/image/e0a1a6e5-3313-47f5-b989-e405024197c7.jpeg
Comments
buzz86us@lemmy.world 8 hours ago
Hueristic_Autistic@lemmy.world 19 hours ago
I hate the practice of Adversarial 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.
rumba@lemmy.zip 13 hours ago
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.
spicystraw@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
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.
WorldsDumbestMan@lemmy.today 1 day ago
Why are they so obsessed with making sure the homeless don’t get a basic, involuntary need? Like just shoot them if you are going to be this cruel, and you are going to kill them anyway.
raze2012@lemmy.world 1 day ago
The cruelty is the point. They’ll say a homeless person doesn’t deserve a fee hundred bucks a month to get back on their feet, but they’ll spend 100 grand a year per person to make them more miserable. It’s just good job security (and satisfaction) for the police unions.
WorldsDumbestMan@lemmy.today 1 day ago
They spend YOUR money too, possibly making you homeless in the process.
Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Cruelty is definitely a big part of it but also NIMBYism. If we don’t see the homeless people, we don’t have to think about them and try to find solutions.
myplacedk@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Yes, I really can’t wrap my way around their way of thinking.
There are people who have such big issues in life, and such bad options, that a bench in a park is their best option for a place to sleep. That is horrible, and something must be done. And politicians think removing their best option is a solution?
If people can show enough compassion to invest in getting these people back on their feet, if you are really just going to ignore them - at least to that. Let them be.
If we’re talking drunk people causing issues, and they need to learn to go home instead - then I’d get it. Not my preferred solution, but I’d get it.
WorldsDumbestMan@lemmy.today 1 day ago
I think everyone CAN get together to make a difference, everyone who cares.
HubertManne@piefed.social 1 day ago
drunk and disorderly is arrestable. This is only for stopping sleeping 100%
merc@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
And politicians think removing their best option is a solution?
Because it gets them votes. The politicians aren’t the problem, they merely reflect public attitudes.
Colonel_Panic_@eviltoast.org 1 day ago
Capitalism requires there to be a threat of what happens if you “don’t work hard enough” or don’t play ball with those in power. Nevermind that most homeless people aren’t that way due to laziness or anything they did wrong, just unlucky situations or medical debt or being laid off at an inconvenient time or something.
It would be far cheaper to our country to have free housing, UBI, universal healthcare and social programs everywhere than what we are doing now, but what we are doing now makes about 1,000 people INSANELY wealthy at the expense of the other 342,000,000 people in the country, so that’s what we keep doing for some stupid reason.
Maybe one day everyone will wake up and stop enabling systems that create this shithole.
whereitsat@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
they’re still sticking to the trope that the homeless are lazy, uneducated bums; at best they’re what happens to good citizens after falling into addiction.
they all WANT to be there, but we definitely don’t want them!!!
but that narrative should be falling apart as conditions deteriorate…
but you know, american education lol.
Demdaru@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Lemmy lol. Answer is simple. Everyday folks don’t like seein’ them, as they consider them lowlifes. City is doing “something” about it, so city is doing good. There are shelters, so it’s not like these people have no options.
Everyday folk don’t think about shelters being overcrowded, homeless being alcoholics/druggies just to cope with their situation and thus not being able to use shelters, or the fact that I’ve seen software devs, here on lemmy, mention being homeless or being in the past.
Most people are reactive, not proactive. They see dirty homeless person, they feel yucky, they tell said person to gtfo without thinking about the fact that it’s a person in the first place.
Hueristic_Autistic@lemmy.world 18 hours ago
Yeah but being proactive is illegal unless you’re part of some organization and making profit somewhere along the way.
By that I mean it’s fucked up in the US, how I cant by a few boxes of frozen burgers, cook them make a bunch of burgers and start handing food out; unless I was part of some organization that somewhere along the way is making money or hype to make sure their other businesses get business.
x00z@lemmy.world 1 day ago
The bourgeois don’t want to look at the plebians.
merc@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
Sure, commuters with jobs are the bourgeoisie.
chiliedogg@lemmy.world 1 day ago
We need societal-level solutions to homelessness. We need housing, free healthcare, free mental healthcare, criminal justice reform, and more. But until we can do that, the reality is, concentrations of the homeless are associated with higher crime, reduced patronage of businesses, and decreased property values.
It super duper sucks, but homelessness is a really difficult problem for cities and property owners they aren’t equipped to address. Since they can’t fix the problem, they instead focus on keeping the problem away.
It’s all so fucked.
ThanksForAllTheFish@sh.itjust.works 20 hours ago
This feels like a very US-specific way of framing it. In the UK and much of Europe, many of those “societal-level solutions” already exist to varying degrees: healthcare and mental healthcare free at the point of use, unemployment support, benefits towards rent, social and temporary housing, legal homelessness-prevention duties, and Housing First programmes.
They’re nowhere near perfect. We have social-housing shortages, benefit limits, long healthcare waiting lists and plenty of people who still fall through the gaps. But the response doesn’t have to begin and end with moving homeless people somewhere less visible to protect property values.
Your point that individual businesses and property owners cannot solve homelessness is completely fair. That’s precisely why they should sit behind a publicly funded safety net which helps keep people housed and supports them back into stability, instead of leaving everyone involved to deal with the consequences.
HCSOThrowaway@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Because people are more comfortable letting homeless people starve or freeze to death than they are with shooting them.
Same reason people are happy to buy ham from the grocery store but would feel uncomfortable slitting a pig’s throat.
SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org 1 day ago
If you don’t want to see homeless people in your park: HOUSE THEM
kamee@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
Why spend money on housing them when you can instead (i assume) employ someone to keep to anti-homeless benches on schedule and pay consultants extraorbitant fees to help you design anti-homeless parks
yermaw@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
majster@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
Over here entrance to shelters is permitted only to the sober. Its more complicated than that.
bus_factor@lemmy.world 1 day ago
It’s a lot easier to get sober if you have housing and basic needs covered.
Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world 1 day ago
You have to solve your problems before we help you solve your problems. Top notch logic there.
merc@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
And it’s impossible to get a decent night’s sleep outside with all the traffic, pedestrians, noises, cops, etc. unless you self-medicate. If you can’t get a good night’s sleep you go insane.
BCsven@lemmy.ca 1 day ago
In metro Vancouver area theyve bought old hotels and other buildings and set up barrier free housing. But it doesn’t totally fix it because some, due to mental health, still don’t want housing (or rules that go with housing) and some are destructive and start fires.
Its a super tough problem that needs a root cause fix in early childhood years when kids need a good life.
A former addict/homeless person also mentioned that all the comforts, and safe injection sites, free clean drugs, etc just insentivized them to keep using, since there wasn’t hardship to force change.
Its like a no win situation, right now.
Ravenheart@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
Hostile infrastructure, intended to heap misery upon the most miserable among us. We punish people who should be helped, and help people who should be punished. What a backwards world.
thermal_shock@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Somewhere, something changed and money became all, get it all so you can consume. People stopped caring unless money was involved and they were getting it.
osanna@lemmy.vg 20 hours ago
yay. inconveniencing people AND making homeless people’s lives worse. Makes sense. /s
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 20 hours ago
“its putting your head in the sand, kicking the can down the road” policy, no intention of alleviating it. probably gives reason for certain politicians to get elected. our region started doing something to the homeless in an area of our city(sweeping leo prescence, especially when world event/conferences are around) and they immediately move near the WFoods where i frequent, and they are robbing it blind. when before they were more spread out and congregate in an area, that they dont stray far from causing “less” problems.
rockSlayer@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 days ago
It’s a masterlock though, you can pick it by lightly touching the keyhole with a blade of grass
mushroommunk@lemmy.today 2 days ago
Only if you’re the lawyer, everyone else needs to put a little force behind the blade of grass
ShaggySnacks@lemmy.myserv.one 2 days ago
“Hey, this is the Lockpicking Lawyer and today I have a Masterlock…and it’s already open.”
hperrin@lemmy.ca 2 days ago
Picking a lock is something you do when you don’t want to destroy the lock. In this case, fuck that lock. A rock will solve the problem of it being there just fine.
hildegarde@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 days ago
Or you want to open a lock without it being obvious that you did it. Picking the lock would make it look like the staff forgot to lock it, short of a forensic teardown of the lock.
Equinox1289@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
Or just hit it with another master lock.
TheGoldenV@lemmy.world 2 days ago
I was gonna say you can rake it, but your sarcasm is better.
ArmchairAce1944@discuss.online 1 day ago
Mildly infuriating? This is disgusting shit.
lookitsjustin@lemmy.ca 2 days ago
Dystopian as fuck.
Buffalox@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Another example of a society that has lost its mind, and has become psychopathic, because they see sociopathy as a form of freedom. When instead it oppresses the population where it should help.
A Psychopathic solution to a problem that is also caused by psychopathy.
To call it a weapons free zone is disgusting, when we all know it’s to prevent the homeless from sleeping there.HCSOThrowaway@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Ooh, free lock-picking practice!
I don’t think it would be illegal to non-destructively unlock that lock.
- Ex-cop
NeatNit@discuss.tchncs.de 1 day ago
It’s a master lock, it won’t give you as much practice time as you hope.
thermal_shock@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Anything is practice. Repetitive behavior hones skills. Experience is experience, good or bad. Maybe the skill is doing in the open quick enough to not draw attention.
Quexotic@infosec.pub 1 day ago
I think it would be a lot more fun though to non-destructively unlock the lock and replace it with another one that looks identical every single day after you free the bench and put it in its upright state, locking it in place.
They’ll think that they’ve got the wrong key every single day. Just keep buying locks and replacing it.
HCSOThrowaway@lemmy.world 1 day ago
That’s more illegal than I can openly suggest.
gandalf_der_13te@feddit.org 2 days ago
more like “wildly infuriating”
crwth@piefed.zip 2 days ago
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.
Blackmist@feddit.uk 1 day ago
We’ll I hope you at least reminded him of his obligations to the Epstein Island class.
bitjunkie@lemmy.world 1 day ago
It’s easier to lock up a bench than build an affordable home.
merc@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
Cheaper too.
But, it’s probably not the optimal solution. I suppose it’s a step in the right direction. As bad as hostile architecture is, the old way of dealing with the problem was to have cops beat the shit out of homeless or drunk people if they tried to sleep in a place where other people might be offended or annoyed.
bitjunkie@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Oh, they still do that.
kestrel7_7@lemmy.world 1 day ago
To me it doesn’t feel like a step in the right direction, since we could have always had the optimal solution, at any time: no beatings and no hostile architecture.
arc99@lemmy.world 19 hours ago
A symptom of homelessness being a thing although it’s a quite understandable mitigation too.
Quexotic@infosec.pub 1 day ago
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.
TR3@lemmy.world 1 day ago
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.
BigPotato@lemmy.world 1 day ago
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.
peacepath@lemmy.world 19 hours ago
using “something free” to say that thing is prohibited sounds so 1984…
solidheron@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
That’s got to be annoying just to lock and unlock a bench probably every day. Also the bench can still be used as a backboard while you sit on the ground.
It doesn’t stop being a chair it’s just hostile architecture
NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world 1 day ago
There’s a lot of homeless people here and they like to sleep in entranceways and similar things, so you’ll often see gates etc that get closed in front. One business had a open area beside it that homeless people were sleeping in, so they installed rounded spikes on the ground to make the area unusable. Caused a quite a bit of drama with the city.
Duamerthrax@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Fun fact. Bolt cutters are cheap and you can do quick and dirty stick welding with 2 car batteries and some jumper cables.
myyass@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
The funny part is it looks like a rusty master lock, so just a thick screwdriver and a kick is enough to break it open.
cinoreus@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Mfs be living in pharloom
huppakee@lemmy.world 2 days ago
At least there are enough houses for everyone /s
snausagesinablanket@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Murse@slrpnk.net 1 day ago
ITGuyLevi@programming.dev 1 day ago
Not with that lock they don’t lol.
desiccated_event@piefed.blahaj.zone 2 days ago
Not a single person in the whole of the world ‘sits’ before 10 hundred hours ante-merididan o’clock….
hperrin@lemmy.ca 2 days ago
I wouldn’t normally vandalize a bench, but…
krusieagenda@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
You can open a Master Lock with a Master Lock.
NathanRanch@lemmy.zip 2 days ago
Probably put this in a place with 0 homeless, or maybe a campsite where people would be camping anyway. People don’t talk about how deadly it can be to sleep on the ground sometimes too. There’s a percentage of “this design can indirectly contribute to a death”, in every bench like this. It shouldn’t even be a thing
Aarrodri@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Where is this?
toxicbubble@lemmy.world 1 day ago
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
EggInDisguise@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 days ago
I never considered this before, but now I’m glad I carry lock picks with me everywhere. That shitty padlock would take 10 seconds and I’d be on my way with a new beginner practice lock.
Fuck hostile architecture, fuck anywhere that makes an already shitty situation worse by telling the homeless “we don’t view you as people, go die somewhere else”
Freeposity@lemmy.world 2 days ago
And it’s not even just the homeless who are affect by shit like this. I can’t tell you how many park benches I slept on in my twenties when I lived in Europe and I’d stay out too late and have to chill out somewhere until morning.
In America you can’t take a nap in your car or even read a book in your car without having the cops hassle you.
I wonder what the cops are going to do when all vehicles are driverless.
EggInDisguise@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 days ago
“the homeless” are always used as the excuse for stuff like this, but (as you are an example of) plenty of people “rough sleep” without being homeless. I’ve never slept on a bench, but I’ve spent a few nights in state parks with a hammock due to not wanting to be around my family for varying reasons. Once because I was supposed to be sleeping at a friend’s house but went to a party and decided fuck this imma leave.
It’s funny you mention reading because I’ve actually been harassed by cops for “loitering” in the park when I was sitting in my car reading.
A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world 2 days ago
is this a reference to that video of the guy waiting out the rain in a gas station parking lot by reading a book in his car?
or is this a more common genre than i realize.
zergtoshi@lemmy.world 1 day ago
#LandOfTheFree
hanrahan@slrpnk.net 1 day ago
hop in the back, tell the cops you’re waiting for your driver to return?
OrteilGenou@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Avoid their cameras.
gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
Just so you know, if a cop ever catches you with lock picks, depending on the jurisdiction, they may try to arrest you for possession of lock picks with intent to burglarize (in the US, at least). Not saying you shouldn’t - but be mindful of what the potential legal hazards are in the worst case.
EggInDisguise@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 days ago
I’m well aware, and unfortunately I am in one of those states. If they ever decide to search me and my purse, they’ll find it.
Mere possession is considered proof of criminal intent. But I also always have a clear acrylic lock and easy padlock to show interested people how to pick a lock. It’s fun and cheap as a hobby. So if I ever do get caught, at least I can make the argument of it being a hobby more convincing. I don’t really expect to get off easy because of that, but if I’m ever caught and searched by cops, having a set of lock picks will probably not be my biggest concern.
hildegarde@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 days ago
Its a masterlock you don’t even need a pick.
EggInDisguise@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 day ago
A stiff breeze could do it, but you can also just hit it with a rock if it doesn’t pop open from a stern glance.
I had a shitty 40mm masterlock on my locker in middle school and I wouldn’t even bother with a key, if just yank hard on it once or twice and the jostling was enough to pop it free.
GeirGrusom@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Just get another masterlock and smash them together.
creamfresh@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Is that a brand or a type of lock?
SeductiveTortoise@piefed.social 1 day ago
“This is the lock picking Courtney and what we have here is a shitty padlock.”