I doubt any portable shelter for the homeless could truly be considered “safe,” this one just didn’t seem markedly worse than the alternatives. If you already have to lug your stuff around on a bike or a shopping cart it seems like you might as well be able to sleep in it.
Is “tormenting sleeping homeless people for fun” really that popular with kids these days? Maybe I just haven’t been keeping up to speed on YouTube.
I think it’s markedly worse because the damn front heavy contraption is a road hazard and the peculiar design only makes it hard to blend in. throw some camping gear on a decent bike and make your sleeping arrangement out of sight and you’re less likely to be bothered.
Again, it’s an interesting object to get people talking but as a portable living space highly impractical. Even putting the sleeping box on a trailer like people pull their kids around in would be better than this.
I couldn’t get any sleep knowing my ability to get out for a pee is dependent on another bum not deciding the lid is a good place for a pee.
Why not simply reuse the birthday suit?
Probably not these days, but always. A subset of teenagers will probably always gather to cause mischief and, especially if given alcohol, turn to violence against helpless victims.
The difference is that in prior times beggars and homeless had nearly no protection in society - it wouldn’t even register when the local thugs would torment people like this.
I would think more along the lines of drunk college-aged and twenty-somethings would be the main culprits. And I think that if you’re in a box you’ve made it more difficult to identify that you are an actual human with actual feelings that may be actually suffering. Plus, being inside the box, they wouldn’t have to actually touch a dirty homeless person, so that would also make it easier for them to target you.
Also: Albuquerque police: 3 teens held in attacks on homeless, 2 deaths
@all you peeps speculating how it’d go, here’s one dude’s story: Brian Campbell’s Housebike
Also, this is pretty neat.
For those who think this bike is impossible to steer or a road hazard: bikes like these are quite common in the Netherlands: try Google for images of : bakfiets
If used in the Southern US, I think this box would turn into an oven during summer months. A weather-proof bivvy sack would probably be a better option in most scenarios. It allows the occupant to be more opportunistic about where to sleep. Something as big and bulky as this bike thing rule out many out-of-the-way options that require climbing, crawling, or bushwhacking.
I think shelters like this are neat, but maybe they’re a better solution for cross-country bike trips than the urban homeless.
I spotted one of these in the wild a few months ago. Again, it was in Oregon. (Not a coffin, but a bicycle sleeping trailer)
There’s a fellow in my neighborhood who has had a mega-deluxe gear-reduction house-bike for several years now. The sleeping cabin is 3-4 times the size of the one in the original post. He fabricated the whole thing, from the frame up and has lived in it for at least a few years (I’ve seen him around my neighborhood 2-3 years, he parks on the street often and nobody bothers him). He pedals sitting upright covered by a light-weight canopy, the cabin is insulated with 1-2" special styrofoam and covered in a reflective silver mylar coating to deflect heat, and has windows that slide open. Come to think of it, it never actually occurred to me how amazing it is until describing it just now. This is in Eugene Oregon (Whiteaker neighborhood) by the way, and we have a huge skate-park in the neighborhood that attracts a lot of teenagers and shelters a lot of vagrant addicts, and as far as I’ve seen and heard, there has been little to no harassment of the houseless from the kids. This isn’t a particularly large city, but the area is about as true outskirts-metro as it gets.
Edit:
Oh, haha. It’s this guy:
http://pardo.net/bike/housebike/000.html
Just saw the link in a prior post.
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