Current Affairs Anti-Homeless Architecture

[mill]

I've got no problem with making public spaces less open for homeless people settling, if there are alternative safe spaces offered to them. Unfortunately, the government doesn't do much to help them find somewhere to stay.

It's a balancing act. On the one hand, the general public want to go to spaces that are safe and clean. On the other hand, most homeless people don't want to be homeless and are just trying to survive. They deserve the access to the basic needs we all take for granted.

I know (or knew, I’ve not seen him in ages because of the pandemic) called Andrew. He did the rounds of the pubs in the city. By that I mean the pubs in both my old and new place which are 2 miles apart.

I got to know him quite well over the years and so he told me about his life had the experience. Basically homeless people are incentivised to be ‘visual’. That includes being found and moved on in public spaces and petty crime. He explained that you needed to be ‘in the system’ as much as possible to have any kind of chance of getting support or help to find a job or a hostel or something even more permanent.

Aside from how grotesque an idea it is for people to be removed from public eye so that the general public are ‘safe’ and areas are ‘clean’, homeless people like Andrew *need* to be visual to have any chance at all.

To be clear, this isn’t directed at you in anyway. I just hate how homeless people like Andrew are treated. As an inconvenience and a problem like rodents (the same kind of ‘architecture’ protects from pigeons etc). And not a problem with society itself. It’s horrible. They are people.

 

[LEONARD]

In more civilised times, we called them , 'Gentlemen of the Road'.

 

[Zezti]

 

[tsubaki]

That people would rather invest in designing and making things like this than affordable homes speaks volumes as to where we are as a society.

TBF affordable housing often gets the same sort of segregation as this; “poor doors”, lack of access to facilities etc.