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  • 402 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
Cake day: June 6th, 2023
  • usualsuspect191@lemmy.catoA Boring Dystopia@lemmy.world•Benches have been removed for your inconvenience
    1·
    22 days ago

    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.

  • usualsuspect191@lemmy.catoA Boring Dystopia@lemmy.world•Benches have been removed for your inconvenience
    11·
    22 days ago

    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.

  • usualsuspect191@lemmy.catoA Boring Dystopia@lemmy.world•Benches have been removed for your inconvenience
    11·
    23 days ago

    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?

  • usualsuspect191@lemmy.catoA Boring Dystopia@lemmy.world•Benches have been removed for your inconvenience
    415·
    23 days ago

    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.