Stolen from here: https://social.marxist.network/@yogthos/113583918563324620
Let homeless people have benches and public restroom access, it’s the absolute bare minimum we can do.
Can we though? Are you thinking of the shareholders at all?!? Someone’s going to have a tough time having only 4 holiday homes to choose from… 😬
JUST 4? ARE YOU INSANE?
First of all two of those are under a cold front right now, and one of them is having maintenance done in the West courtyard (noisy from 3pm-3:30pm if you are within 6 bedrooms of it, which I assure you, we won’t be) and the fourth one we were just at 2 years ago so it’s a little much to vacation there again that soon.
Please think before you speak.
My apologies and condolences for any tribulations my thoughtfulness may have bestowed upon you. In my haste to protect my interests and that of my colleagues, i spoke before fully considering the gravity of my statements 🫠
Generally the only thing I think about shareholders is feeding them into a grinder feet first.
It’s the NYC Subway. It’s not a company, it’s government mass transit. They had big problems with homeless people harassing people and the cops weren’t doing much. Ridership was dropping. So they did the only thing they could do.
It sucks, but what do you expect from the subway? A solution to homeless people? It’s for getting people to where they want to go, not for being a shelter.
Keep the benches, and pressure the system to help house and treat the underlying issues of homelessness.
Im thinking what happens if the people that are not homeless sue the city for a lack of areas to sit down? Regular people. Tired people. People just waiting. Disabled people. Elderly. Pregnant. Etc
Then that lawsuit will be paid with tax money, and the new benches will be of hostile design with extra spikes below them just to make sure the homeless won’t come. Also they might “feel pressured” to employ a “security” guard that regularly kicks out the homeless in increasingly cruel fashion. For safety reasons, of course.
Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it, only that the current decision makers won’t stop to be ass hats. They need their asses kicked.
Security guards because the cops are busy shooting at people that try to ride without a ticket.
The fact that anyone disagreed with you is a sign of how problematic this country is.
The problem is this only works in areas where the homeless aren’t a majority of drug addicts. In North America this is infeasable they will piss and leave syringes everywhere. This just creates avoidable work for the people cleaning out this stuff.
Then you don’t want to remove benches. You want, at very least, some kind of shelter system, Supervised Injection Sites, and an adequate social security and healthcare system to support those that are ready to quit their addiction.
Removing the benches from public transport stations just spreads out the problem.
Totally fucked up and i hope someone in NY with a mobility issue files an ADA complaint with this easy online form
As someone who has had to confront homeless people with questionable mental health and/or sobriety; it’s fucking hard. You want a safe space for them but then quickly that space becomes unsafe for everyone around. But also… it isn’t hard just fucking talk to them. I have many times Don’t stop being smart but stop being afraid. Fear of the other breeds so much hate and misery
Oh if it isn’t obvious I support benches in public spaces and heavily condemn anti-houseless architecture/city planning
We have the solution and it’s not very hard. Have social workers maintain these areas. It’s really not that expensive, employs people, builds important social vibe and allows you to have your benches.
It’s a solved problem.
Social workers in the area and neighbourhood police would defintly help and do more good than anti-homeless desasters. But I don’t think it solves the drug , alcohol and mental-health neglect problem. There has to be more societal work done for that, you won’t solve that in situ.
Bruh, these people will sleep anywhere. The floor of a place with a roof, walls and heating is a fucking dream, even if the places doesn’t have benches. This is just borderline hostility towards regular people using public transit.
I’m imagining nothing but monkey bars over a bottomless pit between the subway entrance and the yellow strip by the train doors.
Hey so you know, “condone” is to allow or accept a practice otherwise considered bad or unacceptable which I think is not what you meant here. It sounds like you want to say something like “condemn anti-houseless architecture/city planning” unless I’ve misinterpreted your meaning.
In months of being homeless and staying at a shelter I really got into it 3 times. Was almost hit by drivers 30+ times. I can’t even figure out how to be legitimately angry at homeless people when, for example, there are cars on the road. Being hit and pushed into the road by a dumb bitch on her phone is 100x worse than a screaming match.
I just don’t care about “soft” people who have it tough because they need to deal with homeless people occasionally.
Examples: Using crosswalk by bus station when a young woman drives nearly into me, looks up from her phone, no indication of humanity - just staring blankly.
I flipped off / called cops stupid motherfuckers for stopping in the crosswalk forcing me into the main road (I’ve been nearly hit multiple times walking behind a car in the blind spot.)
I’ve kicked cars that have cut me off. I’ll be using a crosswalk and people who drive seem to be too stupid to make a left and look for people walking. Luckily I never spun myself.
I’ve dented multiple hoods by slamming my fist into cars / trucks as they fly up the inside and skid into the crosswalk.
I’ve knocked people’s mirrors, although sadly it’s hard to break them as they just fold, so you have to really slam them.
This is just traffic. One of the worst things when you’re homeless, but it’s not the only thing.
It’s just so much worse dealing with “normal” people. The system turns us into fucking heartless monsters. A homeless person is much less of a negative force on the world. It’s you, it’s me who are trash. We’re hurting them way more.
Edit: one time I was out early and stepped into the street with a thud. A man across the street gets pissed for stepping on his shoe. Screaming, possibility of a fight… that’s what I got from homeless / drug addicts. Much less depressing, degrading, etc. than when you’re forced to interact with the homeful.
Just for transparency’s sake before I go into this, my wife is second from the top at the library.
The library here really did have to remove benches outside in a couple of places (in part) because of homeless people. Not because they were sleeping on them, there are other places outside the library where the homeless can sleep and the library does what it can to help the local homeless community.
Unfortunately, some (far, far from most) of the local homeless around the library were either very publicly using drugs or getting so fucked up on those drugs (or possibly just having a really bad mental illness episode) that they were harassing people and scaring kids. So when it came time to replace all of the benches since they got too old, they decided that they would not replace some of them.
There was definitely a big outcry about how the library was being anti-homeless, but it was nuts because there were people on the other side still complaining about how the library always stinks because they let the homeless people in there. I may be biased because of my wife, but I’m also a regular patron and I’m pretty much on their side on this one. It was becoming a huge issue and they really didn’t want to keep getting the cops involved because they rightfully don’t trust what the cops might do with the homeless and only end up calling them as a last resort.
Society has absolutely failed those people though. There is no question about that. But at some point, the library had to draw a line at how accommodating they could be.
the local homeless around the library were either very publicly using drugs
Biggest drug dealers in America - the Sackler family - weren’t worth our time to punish. So some guy who washed out on Percocets and can only afford Fentanyl shouldn’t have a place to sit.
There was definitely a big outcry about how the library was being anti-homeless, but it was nuts because there were people on the other side still complaining about how the library always stinks because they let the homeless people in there.
In America you have two options -
- pretend homelessness and addiction aren’t happening
- destroy public property in a scorched earth campaign against drug use
The very idea of housing, treatment, and rehabilitation is too socialist to consider.
Biggest drug dealers in America - the Sackler family - weren’t worth our time to punish. So some guy who washed out on Percocets and can only afford Fentanyl shouldn’t have a place to sit.
I didn’t say being publicly intoxicated, I said publicly using drugs. As in they were shooting up while kids were being taken to storytime past them on the way to the library.
The library allows homeless people to be inside it from open to close. They give them free internet. They give them free help filling out necessary government forms. They hang around just to chat. They allow homeless people to sleep outside all around the building. They are literally building a shower and a washer/dryer facility in the new auxiliary library free for anyone to use.
In America, your local public library does more to help homeless people than anything you have probably done yourself, but I guess since they haven’t personally solved the problem, they’re the worst of the oppressors.
I didn’t say being publicly intoxicated, I said publicly using drugs. As in they were shooting up while kids were being taken to storytime past them on the way to the library.
We have a solution for this as well.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supervised_injection_site
Proven highly effective for reducing crime, mitigating the need for emergency response, curtailing disease spread, and channeling addicts to rehabilitation clinics
But because it comes off as permissive and benevolent, rather than punitive and prohibitionary it remains Haram in much of the US.
In America, your local public library does more to help homeless people than anything you have probably done yourself
It’s a public service staffed with dozens of people. Of course a single person isn’t going to do more in spare time than a team of people doing the work professionally.
But that doesn’t excuse the rest of the state for tearing out local infrastructure as a means of tormenting the homeless.
“I did two good things so I have permission to do one bad thing” isn’t sounds public policy.
Read. They literally still sleep outside the library. The library has not driven them away. They took away benches so that they weren’t shooting up in front of toddlers going into the library.
As I told someone else- homeless people can be in the library from open to close. They can sleep on library property. They have free access to all library services including free internet, help accessing all kinds of government aid, and just having someone to talk to them if they’re lonely. In another branch, the library is putting in a shower and a washer/dryer for anyone to use for free.
But yes, they took away a few benches because of problem people rather than calling the cops.
What have you done to help the homeless?
As I said, if they had somewhere else to go to safely use, they wouldn’t be doing it on library benches. That’s who the NIMBY comment was directed toward, the councilmen or whoever that vote to remove those benches, but are almost certainly against having the actual solution because NIMBY.
Instead, just complain about how they smell or whatever, and shuffle them around somewhere else.
One homeless person decides to do drugs in front of the library. I guess we have to remove all the benches and make everything very inconvenient for everyone.
The one person does a thing so we have to take it away rule doesn’t apply to people with houses.
“Oh look somebody stabbed somebody to death with a knife. We better take all the knives away from everyone.” This would never happen.
What if a homemed person did drugs in the library (which probably happened statistically)? Would you close up the library?
I guess I’m just saying this because you feel like the act was some how moral, I’m telling you it’s not. That’s okay, real life can be tricky, but don’t kid yourself, removing those benches is anti-homeless behavior.
You don’t have to take the blame personally for it, just own it. But if you don’t admit that you’re part of the problem, then that’s pretty bad.
One homeless person decides to do drugs in front of the library. I guess we have to remove all the benches and make everything very inconvenient for everyone.
That is not even close to what happened. Why are you just making shit up? Also, see my replies to others about how the library you hate is doing much more than you personally could ever possibly do to help the homeless.
What do you mean, “See my replies”? Do you think people get paid to post on here? If you had something you wanted to add, add it to your initial comment. I don’t have all day.
Sorry my dude, doing a bunch of other stuff for homeless, doesn’t absolve you of anything. You do good stuff for homeless, great! Plus 20 points to Gryffindor. You take away benches, not great. - one point to Gryffindor.
I’m sorry my dude you got to deal with the negative one and why you got it.
Again, this doesn’t make you a bad person to remove benches, what makes you a bad person is doing s*** like pretending you’re not part of the problem. It’s fine. I’m part of the problem too. The problem is systemic.
Won’t homeless people just sleep on the ground now?
Hi Jeremy, we’re aware your feet are bleeding while trying to catch a train, but homeless people were sleeping on the ground.
Jeremy’s at fault for not wearing proper shoes, of course.
Realistically, it would be little rebar studs sticking a few millimeters out of the concrete. Refer to them as traction devices and suddenly you are a hero.
The bare ground is way colder than a bench, since air is a good thermal insulator.
Is that how that works? I’m not trying to be antagonistic or anything, I just heard the opposite is true when it comes to why bridges develop ice sooner than typical roadways do; because the ground holds more heat than the cold air does
The reason bridges form ice before roads is that they are exposed to cold air on all sides and have lower total thermal mass, so conduction from the bridge to the air allows the temperature of the bridge surface to drop faster. The ground has nearly infinite thermal mass, and it takes a long(er) time for ambient air temperature to affect the surface temperature.
When you say “the ground holds more heat” you’re talking about that thermal mass. The temperature of the air is colder than the temperature of the ground, so yes from that perspective it “holds more heat.” But the temperature of a human is much much higher than the ground, and conduction is an extremely effective way to pull heat out of a human.