I am, and no, I don’t. Shocking, the idea that I engage with strangers online in a casual capacity differently than I do with my patients in a professional capacity.

I made a neutral comment, stating my opinion without any insults, and have been getting insulting comments like yours ever since. You want to throw barbs, but object to them being thrown back.

Grow the fuck up. I’m done with you in particular.

Literally anyone using the bench potentially prevents someone else from also using the bench. Why is it a bigger deal when it’s a homeless person doing the using?

If the homeless person was just sitting on the bench, it wouldn’t be an issue. The bench features we’re talking about aren’t designed to prevent people from sitting on them; they’re designed to prevent people from lying down on them comfortably, thereby taking up more space and using the bench for a purpose it was not intended.

You chided me for calling someone else stupid, so I’m trying to be nicer, but I honestly don’t feel like I should have to explain this to you.

Why is your focus on prevention and not education/outreach anyways?

As I’ve said in other comments, I support outreach attempts as well. My focus is on this prevention technique because it’s the topic of the thread.

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.

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.

Right, the person throwing insults in all caps says I’m the one who should be embarrassed. 🙄

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.

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.

Your refusal to acknowledge their existence is what is cruel.

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.

You can’t disconnect the problems you are pretending are separate.

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?

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?

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.

What an idiotic take.

I think RFK and a bunch of other people are anti-science because they’re hyper-Christian, and science is inconvenient for their stupid beliefs.

Religion is almost always the problem.

Depends: do you want rules that apply equally to everyone or rules that apply selectively based on your demographic status?

Personally, I choose the former.

If I ran a business, I wouldn’t engage in any political events whatsoever. I don’t think businesses should, quite frankly. Be politically neutral. I don’t believe doing so “supports the status quo,” and thereby oppresses people “de facto,” that’s just pressure from activists to support them. You support gay people on your service by letting them play and putting down any instances of anti-gay rhetoric on your platform. Simple as that.

What you’re citing in Australia isn’t comparable to what you’re suggesting happen in America. Employing a few foreign cops who happen to be living in your country is completely different than replacing entire police departments with foreign police that you bring over from another country.

And please, don’t lecture me about taking the long view of history. I’m opposed to your idea because I don’t think it will work for a variety of reasons. The fact that there’s no historical precedent for it is just one argument.

It’s a good idea, but I’m skeptical of its efficiency in the sense that the people who approve of these cuts aren’t likely to read those op-eds. I kinda suspect a lot of those people don’t read at all.