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cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/20776810
Stolen from here: https://social.marxist.network/@yogthos/113583918563324620
This happened a few years ago, right after Adams took office.
He launched a plan to increase beds in psychiatric hospitals and increase availability of mental health workers after receiving backlash from the bench removals and subway evacuations/arrests of unhoused individuals.
Back to squatting
It's also to help prevent panhandling, vagrancy, public defecation, harassment, theft, and violence. 23rd St. stank of human reek before the pandemic, so removing enticements for them to sleep in the station was much needed.
And all of those are genuine concerns, but this:
removing enticements for them to sleep in the station was much needed
How about we do better as a society and get these people homed?
Removing them from the station isn't solving the problem, it's kicking the can down the road, making it someone else's problem.
No we can't give them homes, think of the landlords. It's unfair to them if we just give homes away.
P.S. Tip your landlords
Is it the subway's job to house the homeless?
No it's society's.
The subway making the decision to remove the benches is a failure of society. The homeless being homeless isn't the subway's fault or responsibility, but keeping the subway clean and safeis.
The point I'm trying to make is, complaining that the subway is trying to solve their immediate problem instead of solving major societal issues is not going to resolve anything.
.... Yeah it is. The subway is run by the municipalities, the municipalities are responsible for housing as part of their scope of governance and by virtue of being part of society.
The subway should quantify costs to the municipality of inadequate services for the homeless. Then the municipality can justify expenditure for programs that will save them money. Same with libraries, community centers etc
People will sleep when they have to sleep. And if they have a choice between outside or inside on a cold night, they will choose in. These people don’t disappear when you make their lives even harder. They have to adapt to further misery. This isn’t a solution. It isn’t even a solution to the problems you listed. Ride the train early morning or late night? You will see a bunch of homeless people trying warm or get some sleep.
Don’t like it? Spend money fixing it. Not making the lack of adequate current solutions an even bigger problem.
I once read somewhere that people with lodgings don't sleep and/or shit in public places! Can you believe that?! Pure delusional nonsense, I'd say, made Lord of The Rings feel like an account of historical facts.
Yes because people obviously choose to sleep where it stinks of human reek instead of somewhere it doesn't.....
Unfortunately there are some who do. Still absolutely use a shelter/housing first model, and give money to those struggling (most homeless people are couch surfing or living out of their cars and have jobs and just need a little boost to get back on their feet) because it helps the vast majority.
For some reason through, the same people that advocate for the programs I listed above refuse to accept that there are some people they won't work for. The ones who are too mentally ill or violent or otherwise too antisocial.
The homeless aren't a monolith, and often people are talking past each other because they are each picturing people from opposite ends of the spectrum who have essentially nothing in common except their housing situation. The people installing spikes and removing benches are responding to the second group, and then face backlash as if they were responding to the first.
If our models of social aid aren't meeting the needs of the people who need help, maybe we should reevaluate our models instead of making life more miserable for the homeless?
But that response to the second group is not actually helping the second group at all, just displacing. That's what many of the people responding are pointing out.
My point is you can't blame these spaces from using displacement as that's essentially all they can do. There are better places to direct that scorn than the people who essentially "end up" dealing with a very difficult to deal with group.
Yeah you can, because this stuff affects: the disabled, elderly, pregnant women, shift workers
Where am I going to sit waiting for the subway home at 645AM? Am I going to stand and wobble next to the incoming trains? I just worked a 14 hour shift! There aren't any barriers between the tracks and people!
Alright, there's been some decent back and forth so I'll give it one more go as it still seems like my point is being misconstrued:
Yeah you can, because this stuff affects: the disabled, elderly, pregnant women, shift workers
Again, anger directed towards the wrong people. The bench was already not useable due to "misuse", so removing it doesn't change that. What it does though is reduces the other associated issues that accompany the "misuse". Those removing it would prefer the bench or whatever was still there (it was installed for a purpose originally after all), but it becomes unsustainable so they go with the less worse option.
In my area it's pubic washrooms becoming closed, or being for customers only and you need to get the key from staff. It sucks, but you can't get mad at the staff or facility not wanting or being able to deal with the problems they've been having. Telling them they need to tackle the underlying systemic issues and getting angry at them for locking the door is just directing anger towards secondary victims on behalf of the primary ones.
These people, these spaces, are victims too. It's not their fault it's attractive for "misuse", just like it's not the their fault there are people who are desperate enough to need it, or the fault of desperate people behaving desperately. Get angry at the lack of programs or aid or other systems to help people, don't get mad at the people who end up having to deal with the brunt of the consequences of these policies. They're on the front lines but don't want to be, so it's callous to be angry with them for trying to get out of the cross fire.
I'm not angry with anybody. It's their responsibility and I'm pointing that out.
The bench was already not useable due to “misuse”, so removing it doesn’t change that.
Not 100% of the time. If you think it was a permanent encampment spot you will have to cite your sources.
customers only and you need to get the key from staff.
This isn't a business, it's public transport being run by a government.
THE CITY runs the subway. The city needs to do things, I've said as much in another comment. Public spaces serving the public less, doesn't make any sense.
"I can't do anything to help people, so I'll actively hurt the ones who are worst off already instead" is not a very good theory.
More like "no matter how much I do to help those I can, there will be some outliers that my only recourse is to make them unwelcome because it's actually a really complex problem that I don't I have the resources and time to solve, unfortunately also making things worse for other people but that's the lesser of two evils".
My whole point is that many of these measures are done by the people who aren't equipped or otherwise able to deal with the problem beyond just protecting themselves. It's a shitty situation but don't get mad at the people who deal with it the best they can with what options they have available. It's like getting mad at someone because they locked up their bike instead of tackling the societal problems that lead to bike theft in the first place. How many bikes do you expect them to have stolen before they'll just start locking it up?
Get mad at the ones cutting programs or refusing to create them. Get mad at a system that refuses to help people because it pretends when something bad happens that person deserved it somehow. Don't get mad at the park maintenance staff that removes a bench because they can't have their staff be assaulted or children finding needles anymore; they can't stop it from happening at all, so the best they can do is try and stop it from happening there.
We haven't done that much to help the ones we can, forget about the outliers.
You think I'm mad at the staff, for their manglement deciding to remove benches? No I'm mad at the out of touch managers and higher decision makers. Who, while being in a position to make these decisions, are ALSO more likey to be in positions to make the decisions on cutting other support programs.
Do you think those that are too mentally ill, violent, or antisocial deserve to keep being displaced because they can't function in current society?
Giving more cash aid to those in need will solve a lot of problems (mostly for the first group), but as you say some of them (usually from the second group) are not able to use it properly. Those folks need support in the form of more services. Most of these services needed are mental health services.
These folks are in dire need of those mental health services; which can be very hard to get, even for those with money. It gets even more difficult if you need more than just a recurring therapy appointment, like being in a group home.
Some folks will even still hurt others with these supports, which I believe you referred to with violent/antisocial people. Those folks need to be rehabilitated. Unfortunately most of them will end up in jail or prison, which in its current form will not help them unless they put in a LOT of work to break the cycle. (There are still people that I believe will never be rehabilitated and should be in jail, but not in an environment like an American jail.)
Do these people deserve to be pushed out?
I do understand the desire to keep folks from sleeping on benches, making things smelly. Truly. But displacing this population so you don't have to see or acknowledge their existence does not solve the issue. We need to look at the issue and work together to demand better for our more vulnerable populations.
Do you think those that are too mentally ill, violent, or antisocial deserve to keep being displaced because they can't function in current society?
Most of them, no. Probably one percent of one percent though can not be rehabilitated so displacement is about as good as you can do unless we bring forced asylums back.
I do understand the desire to keep folks from sleeping on benches, making things smelly.
You're doing the thing I was referring to by using one end of the spectrum to judge the actions of people dealing with the other end. The ones who are just "smelly aren't the reason benches get removed. It's the ones who verbally/physically/sexually assault people, leave used needles/human waste/blood, that sort of thing. The very tiny minority of homeless people who give all the others a bad rep and ruin things for everyone. It's not the business or train station or park's or wider public's responsibility to deal with that 0.1% as it essentially takes professionals, so displacement can't be looked down on as what else are they supposed to do?
forced asylum
The current system will have these folks cycle through the justice system. A justice system that will still hold them against their will and treat them poorly anyway. For those people that need to be held (a very small amount, like you said), it will be better to hold them in a jail/prison that promotes rehabilitation and will treat them compassionately of they continue to fail to be rehabilitated. Very unlike the current jails/prisons in the United States.
what are they supposed to do?
What should they do? Don't make it the disadvantaged people's problem. Make it the problem of the people that failed these disadvantaged folks.
Put pressure on the government to fix the lack of services. (Or if they're already part of the government, the correct people in government, like the governor for state care.)
We can't keep passing the buck.
Again, I understand it is uncomfortable to fight against an unjust system. It's not pretty. But the alternative is letting down people that need support in favor of people that would as soon grind us up next.
These are economic and mental health problems, not seating problems.
The stick hits everyone.
"My dog kept shitting on the couch, so I threw out all my furniture. Problem solved, dog won't shit on the couch anymore".
People don't get it. They expect everybody else to accept the burden of this because they don't have to do shit about it. I wish everyone could experience what it's like to have a small business that would be devastated by the homeless if you didn't work hard to get them the fuck out of where they don't belong. It's not my fault, my responsibility nor should it be on my limited wallet that the government can't fix homelessness. I have to kick out homeless every day and anyone else that actually lives in a position where their presence affects their ability to live and stay afloat would do it too. Let them sleep in your house or in your front yard and see how much you all like it and stand for it when they start doing drugs, having sex in the open, shitting everywhere, leaving trash everywhere. See if your friends and family want to come over ever again. Oh poor homeless guy, let me buy him some McDonalds.. I'm the dude who has to clean up all the trash he left.