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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.

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Tiger666@lemmy.ca ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
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.

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- Tedesche@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  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.
  
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  - BeardedBlaze@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I’ve actually been homeless. Have you?
    
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    Tedesche@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    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.
    
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    Shardikprime@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    The time you went to Starbucks and left your keys inside your house doesn’t count, Brian
    
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  - Tiger666@lemmy.ca ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    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.
    
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    Tedesche@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Right, the person throwing insults in all caps says I’m the one who should be embarrassed. 🙄
    
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  - grue@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    Get educated before you spout off, nitwit.
    
    Oh, the irony! 🤣
    
    You do realize you’re just embarrassing yourself all over this thread, right?
    
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    Shardikprime@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Ah yes, sharing they have experience working with homeless, how embarrassed they must be
    
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untorquer@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
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.

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- Tedesche@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  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.
  
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  - untorquer@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    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.
    
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    Tedesche@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    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.
    
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  - zalgotext@sh.itjust.works ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    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
    
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    Tedesche@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    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.
    
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  - Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Imagine trying to spin anti-homeless architecture as pro-homeless.
    
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    sthetic@lemmy.ca ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    “Man, I was fine with just being intentionally homeless, 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’ll just go to a 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 this bench.”
    
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dgmib@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

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.

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- Tedesche@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  You can’t disconnect the problems you are pretending are separate.
  
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NotASharkInAManSuit@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Fuck you.

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- Shardikprime@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Ah yes, petty insults
  
  The leftist huckster’s crutch
  
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  - NotASharkInAManSuit@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Fuck you.
    
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Kickforce@lemmy.wtf ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
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.

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- Tedesche@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  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?
  
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  - Iceman@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Well if it it’s the change of tune.
    
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  - Kickforce@lemmy.wtf ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    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.
    
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    Tedesche@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    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.
    
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    Shardikprime@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Well you do seem Keen to insist in enabling a dangerous and damaging behavior in them
    
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porous_grey_matter@lemmy.ml ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

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?

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- Tedesche@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  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?
  
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  - porous_grey_matter@lemmy.ml ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Those people don’t exist, they are just an excuse for you to be cruel
    
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    Tedesche@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Your refusal to acknowledge their existence is what is cruel.
    
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