The father of the most hostile piece of street furniture in world history explains why he thinks he's right to make life harder for homeless people and socializing kids

[wysinwyg]

@Akimbo_NOT

Yes. A tax paying public. A public whose efforts have paid for those “public” spaces and upkeep. When the tax paying public has to wade thru filth to get to work or hold their noses as they stroller their children thru puddles of urine they are inclined to request measures to keep their parks free of human detritus.

It almost sounds like you really think that having to deal with a bad smell every couple blocks is worse than sleeping on the ground – to say nothing of being ignored, put down, and scorned by your fellow human beings; or to lack the basic conveniences that you might even call “needs” or “essentials” such as a private bathroom with hot running water, or a kitchen in which to prepare your own food, or even just a place to get out of the rain and cold for a few hours without fear of getting robbed of your precious few personal possessions.

If, God forbid, you ever find yourself in that situation, then I promise to show you a lot more respect and kindness than you are apparently willing to extend to others.

May I request that you make at least a little effort to imagine how things are from the other guy’s perspective? It’s unlikely that he wants or intends to offend your nose (or even moreso his own), but given his situation, that may be pretty far down his list of priorities.

@jimp

(What the homeless aren’t doing, in large part, as far as I can tell, is using the library to get an education and maybe fix their problems.)

Have you ever had a bad day? Did the badness of that day inspire you to spend your time in the library improving yourself in the hope of solving your problems that very same day? Or did it make you want to maybe have a few drinks and try to distract yourself from your problems (likely in the comfort of your own heated home reclining on your own comfy furniture and quite possibly watching something engaging on TV)?

Can you try to imagine someone for whom bad days are the norm and good days are the exception? Maybe for some people self improvement is easy, but for most people it’s actually difficult and requires the use of willpower – willpower that gets eaten up pretty quickly when you wake up aching from sleeping on a thin sheet of cardboard on a concrete sidewalk and shivering from the night’s subfreezing temperature.

@jimp

You can be anti-abuse of public spaces/facilities and not be pro-Trump.

You can’t be as callous and thoughtless towards your fellow human beings as your comment suggests and not embody the very things that are bad about Trump.

@namenotreserved

Taxpayer money doesn’t belong to you, it belongs to all of us.

“All of us” presumably includes “me”, and in my opinion also includes those unfortunate enough to not be in a position to have the luxury of being able to pay taxes. Those who have failed to thrive in our society are nonetheless still part of our society.

@namenotreserved

Chasing away the homeless does solve the immediate problem. That’s exactly why it’s so popular a response.

You also – I promise to be more considerate towards you if you ever find yourself in this situation than you are apparently willing to be towards anyone else.

@Akimbo_NOT

My home is not their shelter. I have driven and or directed many to where shelters are so don’t dismiss my humanity so easily.

You make it really easy to dismiss your humanity when you discuss the death of a fellow human being as primarily being an inconvenience to yourself and then following that up with “my home is not their shelter.”

More vulnerable homeless people avoid shelters because shelters are pretty dangerous places and homeless people mostly can’t afford to get robbed.

@namenotreserved

It solves the problem for the people in question.

You can’t prevent homelessness. That’s tilting against windmills. There will always be people who fall between the cracks, and even if you try to house them, simply putting them all together will drive others out onto the street, because we’re talking about people who aren’t capable of living in society.

Maybe homelessness can’t be 100% prevented, but it can certainly be reduced and the living conditions of those who are homeless can be improved. It also goes without saying that the inevitability of homelessness should probably compel us to be more compassionate rather than more callous.

But your stereotypes are also wrong. Almost every day the last few months I’ve passed by a guy who was rendered homeless because he was in his 50’s and laid off and couldn’t afford his substantial health care costs without health insurance – and at his age, couldn’t easily get another job. Never drank and only very rarely explicitly asked for money (but would always accept it as he obviously needed it). Do you really think you’re immune?

[namenotreserved]

@wysinwyg

But your stereotypes are also wrong. Almost every day the last few months I’ve passed by a guy who was rendered homeless because he was in his 50’s and laid off and couldn’t afford his substantial health care costs without health insurance – and at his age, couldn’t easily get another job. Never drank and only very rarely explicitly asked for money (but would always accept it as he obviously needed it). Do you really think you’re immune?

When you’re on the internet, you should probably assume you’re talking to people in the developed world where we have things like health care systems and social safety nets. Yeah, a lot of functional people would fall through the cracks if we didn’t have those things, but we still have just as many people who can’t function in society.

[alahmnat]

@namenotreserved

You can’t prevent homelessness. That’s tilting against windmills. There will always be people who fall between the cracks, and even if you try to house them, simply putting them all together will drive others out onto the street, because we’re talking about people who aren’t capable of living in society.

Actually, it turns out giving homeless people an actual place to live works wonders to prevent homelessness. Who knew that when people don’t have to stress over the most fundamental basics of human life, they do better at integrating into society?

[wysinwyg]

@namenotreserved

When you’re on the internet, you should probably assume you’re talking to people in the developed world where we have things like health care systems and social safety nets. Yeah, a lot of functional people would fall through the cracks if we didn’t have those things, but we still have just as many people who can’t function in society.

What my last comment said was:

1. A lot of functional people do “fall through the cracks” despite health care systems and social safety nets, and you seem to be pretending those people don’t exist.

To which I’ll add:

2. “can’t function in society” is doing a lot of work in your arguments without you even bothering to define it. Presumably there are specific reasons these people can’t function in society, and those specific reasons could be causes that could and almost certainly should be prevented or mitigated (e.g. mental health issues caused by experiences during military service) or problems that could and almost certainly should be solved or at least mitigated (e.g. drug use or alcoholism; or the fact that a criminal record is a near complete bar on finding gainful employment, making it impossible for people with criminal records to reform).

and

3. Even – or rather, especially – non-functional people deserve help and compassion rather than dismissal and scorn.

[phart]

That’s a dreadful justification for anything.

The SS officer raised his hands helplessly. “If I didn’t gas those jews, someone else would have!”

Just to be clear, we’re talking about an uncomfortable bench. Let’s not ratchet things up to Godwin levels. Jesus Christ.

the best way to end the game is for everybody to refuse to play it.

Yeah right, good luck with that. You can’t get a roomful of people to agree where to get a sandwich, you’re not going to get every potential designer to turn down actual money and refuse to make benches a certain way by way of a vague, abstract threat of internet outrage if the subsequent bench is not sufficiently woke.

Don’t you think it would be more productive to direct your outrage to the people installing anti-homeless measures? At the governments and organizations that don’t do enough to help those less fortunate?

Are we mad at everyone in the chain? Is the $15/hour peon that installed the bench bad, too? What about the guy that loaded the bench on the truck and delivered it to be installed? The masons that cast the concrete? The little old lady in accounts payable the cut the check? All of us, who saw the bench and looked the other way and said nothing? After all, we could make lazy, facile analogies that each of these are, in some superficial way, similar to low level Nazi collaborators of yore.

[namenotreserved]

That’s wrong to the point of tautology. If you can’t function in the system, then you are ipso facto not functional.

We should certainly try to help those with addiction issues, but only in a way that reduces harm. Not everyone can be helped, and throwing away resources on them only harms those that could’ve.

[Wanderfound]

@wysinwyg

Do you really think you’re immune?

The Be Good Tanyas - Junkie Song

Took a walk in my neighborhood
Two in the morning
By the Skytrain Station

The streets were full of junkies and homeless
And they all wanted something
They all wanted something

And what am I supposed to do?
There are too many of you
Too many of you

Yeah, sometimes look you in the eye
Say that, “I too am human, I could easily be you”

Although we all hover between apathy and compassion
We fill up all our days with so much distraction
What makes it easier not to see what we don’t want to

But we all live here
We all live here
We all live, don’t we?

Took a walk in my neighborhood
Two in the morning
By the Skytrain Station

The streets were full of junkies and homeless
And they all wanted something
They all wanted something

And what am I supposed to do?
There are too many of you
Too many of you

Yeah, sometimes look you in the eye
Say that, "I too am human, I could easily be you”
”I could easily be you, I could easily be you”

[Wanderfound]

On a related theme:

✊🏿Black Aziz aNANsi✊🏿 (Freeyourmindkid)

[alahmnat]

@namenotreserved

If you can’t function in the system, then you are ipso facto not functional.

How very Calvinian of you, Scrooge. I’m glad to hear that people who end up homeless and dysfunctional due to unexpected misfortune are destined to remain there once their support networks run out and they’re unable to dig themselves out of whatever hole fate has deigned to throw them in because they’re “ipso facto” no longer functional.

[Mindysan33]

[namenotreserved]

@alahmnat

How very Calvinian of you, Scrooge. I’m glad to hear that people who end up homeless and dysfunctional due to unexpected misfortune are destined to remain there once their support networks run out and they’re unable to dig themselves out of whatever hole fate has deigned to throw them in because they’re “ipso facto” no longer functional.

There’s a lot of steps between “unexpected misfortune” and homelessness, and there are a lot of support systems available for people who hit a rough patch but aren’t junkies and can perform basic tasks like showing up for an appointment and filling out a form.

[alahmnat]

I almost lost my apartment last winter after I rolled my truck on an icy interstate and had to face an unexpected $1400 tow bill. If my insurance company hadn’t been so willing to cut red tape for me to expedite the tow payment, I likely never would have gotten my truck out of impound because of a daily $150 storage charge (I rolled into snow so the damage was thankfully only cosmetic, and I’m lucky enough to have a mechanic friend who was able to come with me and get the engine going because it hydrolocked while on its side). When my truck died entirely this summer, I was only able to keep my job - and thus my apartment - because my parents are fortunate enough in their financial situation to help me buy a new vehicle that I would otherwise have been unable to afford the payments on.

There are fewer steps between misfortune and homelessness than you think down here. I’m extremely fortunate through luck and heredity to have a small handful of things buffering me from complete collapse, but not everyone is.

[wysinwyg]

@namenotreserved

There’s a lot of steps between “unexpected misfortune” and homelessness, and there are a lot of support systems available for people who hit a rough patch but aren’t junkies and can perform basic tasks like showing up for an appointment and filling out a form.

The guy I mentioned showed up for appointments and filled out the forms. And even showed up at the mayor’s office without an appointment. He’s nonetheless been on the streets for…8 months I think he said?

Resources to help the homeless aren’t unlimited – due in no small part to attitudes like yours that the homeless should be marginalized, ignored, and shunted away from public places rather than helped.

Regardless, your argument at this point seems to be “people who need help don’t deserve help.” I’m not really sure there’s much I can do to argue against that.

But I still promise to be kinder and more compassionate to you should you end up there than you would apparently be to anyone else in such a position.

[Mindysan33]

[LDoBe]

@namenotreserved

We should certainly try to help those with addiction issues, but only in a way that reduces harm. Not everyone can be helped, and throwing away resources on them only harms those that could’ve.

Okay Ronnie Reagan. Let’s see how that’s worked out in the last 30-odd years.

[LDoBe]

@namenotreserved

There’s a lot of steps between “unexpected misfortune” and homelessness

Bullshit. Over half of americans are living paycheck-to-paycheck. They’re one or two missed paydays or one horrific injury or one cancer diagnosis short of living on the street all the time. Just because you don’t see it happening to you doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.

[Snowlark]

I think you’ll enjoy these two articles. They’re not dry at all but instead very intimate and, while quick reads, will leave you with plenty to think about. I share them not to berate you but to sustain your engagement. You’re a part of this conversation and to me that says that this issue, on some level, concerns you.

7 Things No One Tells You About Being Homeless

I’ve been homeless 3 times. The problem isn’t drugs or mental illness — it’s...

[j9c]

[Mindysan33]

@LDoBe

Over half of americans are living paycheck-to-paycheck.

[alahmnat]

@LDoBe

Over half of americans are living paycheck-to-paycheck. They’re one or two missed paydays or one horrific injury or one cancer diagnosis short of living on the street all the time.

Yes. This. To reiterate in case it wasn’t clear from my other post: the $1400 tow fee for my truck after it rolled in the snow would have constituted somewhere between 1/2 and 2/3 of my total monthly income. That sort of thing is simply not absorbable by the majority of Americans these days. I had no way to pay it up-front, meaning it would have sat in impound until I got a reimbursement check from my insurance company in 3 - 7 business days. If that had happened, I would never have been able to afford to get my truck back without further outside help; the insurance wouldn’t pay the storage fees for the impound lot, which would by then have compounded to between $500 and $1,500 on their own.

It is devastatingly easy to lose everything you have to a single accident or stroke of misfortune. And even when you’re not already homeless, the stress and strain of knowing exactly how easy it is wears you down really fucking fast.