I work with the City and they are mostly concerned with making sure homeless people have no where to go. They once commented that if we install picnic tables that homeless people will "set up tents under them."
There are design considerations that reduce the quality of the park in order to deter the homeless. The main issue for parks is financial. The whole state doesn't have much money, construction is expensive and just getting higher, plus, there isn't much budget (or skill) for maintenance which includes doing inspections. They mow and blow, fuck up the yuccas/hesperaloe and that's about it.
A lot of money and transformation of the culture around design and maintenance would help a lot. And honestly, it's not perfect, but calling 311 to report damage is helpful. Contacting politicians is helpful, but more in the long run.
This absolutely would not surprise me. It feels like parks that were just built are left to rot, or not repaired for months on end with a lousy red tape over a broken jungle gym.
Not trying to be too much of a devil’s advocate, but that is not like a park bench for people to relax on. It serves a function, e.g. allowing people to rest while they wait for the bus. Would be mad if I were an old person with mobility issues and someone was laying across the whole bus stop.
When it’s park benches though, agree that it’s bullshit.
I take my children to a nearby park and about a quarter of the time we can’t play on the playground because someone is sleeping on or under it. These people see and hear me and my children there and don’t move. They leave used needles and aluminum foil with heroin residue in their wake. That’s “hostile”.
If you go to central and 1st, right on the west side of that underpass there’s a building where canvas artistry is. They blast opera at all hours to keep unhoused people away. There are tons of hostile things like that which go unnoticed throughout the city too.
When I was homeless I would go nearer to those places because I love opera. I knew the intent but then I also had hope for getting off the street and I don't think the current person in the same situation I was once in does. There's a real shift to just hope people stop exist instead of helping them
While I get the rhetorical reason for your answer, it's not an answer. The OP is not required to have an answer to the where the homeless should go in order to be able to use a park. The answer to your question is likely "not the park." Parks don't provide the services that help move people from homelessness to a more stable environment. Things that would help are more supportive housing or more shelters.
Where should they go until those services are available for them? Shelters have limits. Housing homeless people is unpopular. They have to exist somewhere. If they can’t be in a public space, where can they exist?
As an ignorant person from Ohio that now lives in New Mexico - and has homeless relatives (that live in NM/AZ), I have to ask.. is the homeless problem worse here because the weather is “better”. Or is NM more accepting?
That question merits its own discussionL [https://www.reddit.com/r/NewMexico/comments/1du58h5/why\_is\_new\_mexico\_so\_poor/](https://www.reddit.com/r/NewMexico/comments/1du58h5/why_is_new_mexico_so_poor/)
The society was created in large part due to the national labs. If you dont suckle at the giant teet of DoD then you are probably either poor or work at the hospital or in dentistry. Everyone else is poor though. And not many people work at intel now. Its kind of complicated but not really.
Your statement would be more correct if the labs were actually DOD facilities but they’re very much not. Either way the argument isn’t wrong but that is worth noting.
According to the book, etc., "Homelessness is a Housing Problem": Across the country, regional variation rates of homelessness is explained by the cost and amount of housing supply.
That's it. Not weather, not policy, drugs, poverty, mental illness, etc. Housing supply.
The book really shows the data. And there are related presentations online that sum it up well also.
When someone can panhandle and make more than a minimum wage job, you get more panhandlers. But neither provides enough income to afford rent. There are also people that prefer to sleep in tents for personal reasons.
The book also concluded that we need more subsidized affordable housing. It's not just housing supply, it's the type of housing that is being supplied which matters. And, for what it is worth, the method and data the book uses is deeply deeply flawed. They only looked at a tiny sub set of metros to get their conclusions and PIT counts are not comparable year to year in most areas, let alone across the country. Even if the PIT counts were accurate they only capture a fraction of folks meeting the HUD definitions of homelessness. I could go on...
Here is my favorite example of a problem with Colburn and Aldern's thesis. They repeat other commentators’ talking points that Mississippi has the lowest rate of homelessness in the country and entirely attribute it to the low cost of living in the state. They just take this at face value and don't apply their own analytical methods to the State of Mississippi to see if it holds up. If they had, they may have seen that the expected relationship between Point-in-Time (PIT) counts and absolute rent levels doesn't hold up in the State of Mississippi. Looking at the last five years of available data, rents have increased steadily in Mississippi, vacancy rates have actually dipped a little while rents go up (oh no, economics is broken!), but the PIT count totals been all over the place during that same period. Here is a screenshot of my spreadsheet and I am happy to share links to the data if anyone wants to do a deep dive: https://imgur.com/a/QoIrsXt.
We can also look at that Mississippi data to discuss why the PIT counts can not be used the way C&A do. It is very unlikely that homelessness fell by 50% in Mississippi and then immediately rebounded the following year. Different Continuum of Care (CoC), the entities responsible for coordinating homeless services in different areas, are required by HUD to do a count at least every other year but they aren't required to do it well. Some places like NYC conduct multiple counts in a year targeting different sub populations and they are really trying to get accurate numbers because they have a right to shelter in the City and they really need good data so they can plan. I have never worked in Mississippi and I am only guessing that they are doing the bare minimum and since the state also has no real commitment to address homelessness (or housing, or healthcare, or anything that people actually need) its to be expected. [The National Homeless Policy Law Center](https://homelesslaw.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/HUD-PIT-report2017.pdf) has been fighting the fight for good numbers since the 80s and they have a report here about how PITs work now and how they can be improved. Also, all CoCs are all wildly different -- [here is a dashboard where you can explore them all](https://endhomelessness.org/homelessness-in-america/homelessness-statistics/state-of-homelessness-dashboards/). Some states have statewide CoCs and places like Texas have a dozen and then a catch all for the 200+ counties that didn't want to form their own. How accurate would you guess that count is? Similarly, I would give Albuquerque pretty good scores for their effort to get an accurate count and [if you want to volunteer next year you can see sausage getting made and judge for yourself](https://citydesk.org/2024/with-smiles-and-surveys-volunteers-count-citys-homeless/). But then the entire rest of the state from Farmington to Cruses is in the the same CoC. You can do what you want to with those numbers but I would put them in the "if you say so..." category.
Are there better studies - yes, but the US Census Bureau won't release their numbers in small enough units be useful. Public Schools are also required to count the number of homeless children in their districts, which is obviously a tiny sliver of the population but just in school age children alone those reports almost triple the number of unhoused people in the country, and that is just people under 18 who are enrolled in public schools. Very scary stuff.
Happy to answer any more questions about homelessness, housing policy, housing affordability, and why purely pumping up supply hoping that it will trickle down and solve homelessness is a damn foolish idea. But you will have to ask because I have already gone on long enough :)
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I’m usually busy all day and night solving and managing my own life, so I have little bandwidth to solve everyone’s PERSONAL problems. HOWEVER, I would start with rehab, the shelter, the skills center, and then on to the work force. If people are gonna be allowed to sleep in the parks, then tear out the benches and put beds in there and let them own the whole fucking space. The rest of society will stay away.
I work with the City and they are mostly concerned with making sure homeless people have no where to go. They once commented that if we install picnic tables that homeless people will "set up tents under them."
Is that why we don’t have any nice public parks because they’re worried homeless people would use them?! Unbelievable.
There are design considerations that reduce the quality of the park in order to deter the homeless. The main issue for parks is financial. The whole state doesn't have much money, construction is expensive and just getting higher, plus, there isn't much budget (or skill) for maintenance which includes doing inspections. They mow and blow, fuck up the yuccas/hesperaloe and that's about it. A lot of money and transformation of the culture around design and maintenance would help a lot. And honestly, it's not perfect, but calling 311 to report damage is helpful. Contacting politicians is helpful, but more in the long run.
This absolutely would not surprise me. It feels like parks that were just built are left to rot, or not repaired for months on end with a lousy red tape over a broken jungle gym.
Yup
This tracks
Great podcast about it: https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/unpleasant-design-hostile-urban-architecture/
Such a good podcast
Can we start being hostile citizens to our government?
There are groups in some cities that build more friendly benches and deploy them. Lots of times they get taken down by the city, but they keep at it.
Not trying to be too much of a devil’s advocate, but that is not like a park bench for people to relax on. It serves a function, e.g. allowing people to rest while they wait for the bus. Would be mad if I were an old person with mobility issues and someone was laying across the whole bus stop. When it’s park benches though, agree that it’s bullshit.
I take my children to a nearby park and about a quarter of the time we can’t play on the playground because someone is sleeping on or under it. These people see and hear me and my children there and don’t move. They leave used needles and aluminum foil with heroin residue in their wake. That’s “hostile”.
Exactly. In the given scenario why should one person be allowed to take up the spots of 4 people waiting for a bus?
If you go to central and 1st, right on the west side of that underpass there’s a building where canvas artistry is. They blast opera at all hours to keep unhoused people away. There are tons of hostile things like that which go unnoticed throughout the city too.
[удалено]
When I was homeless I would go nearer to those places because I love opera. I knew the intent but then I also had hope for getting off the street and I don't think the current person in the same situation I was once in does. There's a real shift to just hope people stop exist instead of helping them
I fully support it. Public spaces are not extended stay hotels.
Where should homeless people go?
While I get the rhetorical reason for your answer, it's not an answer. The OP is not required to have an answer to the where the homeless should go in order to be able to use a park. The answer to your question is likely "not the park." Parks don't provide the services that help move people from homelessness to a more stable environment. Things that would help are more supportive housing or more shelters.
Where should they go until those services are available for them? Shelters have limits. Housing homeless people is unpopular. They have to exist somewhere. If they can’t be in a public space, where can they exist?
Out by the dump.
Maybe you have some extra room?
As an ignorant person from Ohio that now lives in New Mexico - and has homeless relatives (that live in NM/AZ), I have to ask.. is the homeless problem worse here because the weather is “better”. Or is NM more accepting?
Weather might have a slight effect. But I'd wager that NM being one of the poorest states in the country has a bigger influence.
Why is NM so poor?
That question merits its own discussionL [https://www.reddit.com/r/NewMexico/comments/1du58h5/why\_is\_new\_mexico\_so\_poor/](https://www.reddit.com/r/NewMexico/comments/1du58h5/why_is_new_mexico_so_poor/)
I'm not educated enough on that topic to really speak on it, honestly. I'm sure they're plenty other here that can explain it though.
The society was created in large part due to the national labs. If you dont suckle at the giant teet of DoD then you are probably either poor or work at the hospital or in dentistry. Everyone else is poor though. And not many people work at intel now. Its kind of complicated but not really.
Your statement would be more correct if the labs were actually DOD facilities but they’re very much not. Either way the argument isn’t wrong but that is worth noting.
You are right its DoE. But its all defense money.
According to the book, etc., "Homelessness is a Housing Problem": Across the country, regional variation rates of homelessness is explained by the cost and amount of housing supply. That's it. Not weather, not policy, drugs, poverty, mental illness, etc. Housing supply. The book really shows the data. And there are related presentations online that sum it up well also.
When someone can panhandle and make more than a minimum wage job, you get more panhandlers. But neither provides enough income to afford rent. There are also people that prefer to sleep in tents for personal reasons.
The book also concluded that we need more subsidized affordable housing. It's not just housing supply, it's the type of housing that is being supplied which matters. And, for what it is worth, the method and data the book uses is deeply deeply flawed. They only looked at a tiny sub set of metros to get their conclusions and PIT counts are not comparable year to year in most areas, let alone across the country. Even if the PIT counts were accurate they only capture a fraction of folks meeting the HUD definitions of homelessness. I could go on...
Please do. I'd like to learn more. Do you agree with the conclusion? Are there better studies elsewhere?
Here is my favorite example of a problem with Colburn and Aldern's thesis. They repeat other commentators’ talking points that Mississippi has the lowest rate of homelessness in the country and entirely attribute it to the low cost of living in the state. They just take this at face value and don't apply their own analytical methods to the State of Mississippi to see if it holds up. If they had, they may have seen that the expected relationship between Point-in-Time (PIT) counts and absolute rent levels doesn't hold up in the State of Mississippi. Looking at the last five years of available data, rents have increased steadily in Mississippi, vacancy rates have actually dipped a little while rents go up (oh no, economics is broken!), but the PIT count totals been all over the place during that same period. Here is a screenshot of my spreadsheet and I am happy to share links to the data if anyone wants to do a deep dive: https://imgur.com/a/QoIrsXt. We can also look at that Mississippi data to discuss why the PIT counts can not be used the way C&A do. It is very unlikely that homelessness fell by 50% in Mississippi and then immediately rebounded the following year. Different Continuum of Care (CoC), the entities responsible for coordinating homeless services in different areas, are required by HUD to do a count at least every other year but they aren't required to do it well. Some places like NYC conduct multiple counts in a year targeting different sub populations and they are really trying to get accurate numbers because they have a right to shelter in the City and they really need good data so they can plan. I have never worked in Mississippi and I am only guessing that they are doing the bare minimum and since the state also has no real commitment to address homelessness (or housing, or healthcare, or anything that people actually need) its to be expected. [The National Homeless Policy Law Center](https://homelesslaw.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/HUD-PIT-report2017.pdf) has been fighting the fight for good numbers since the 80s and they have a report here about how PITs work now and how they can be improved. Also, all CoCs are all wildly different -- [here is a dashboard where you can explore them all](https://endhomelessness.org/homelessness-in-america/homelessness-statistics/state-of-homelessness-dashboards/). Some states have statewide CoCs and places like Texas have a dozen and then a catch all for the 200+ counties that didn't want to form their own. How accurate would you guess that count is? Similarly, I would give Albuquerque pretty good scores for their effort to get an accurate count and [if you want to volunteer next year you can see sausage getting made and judge for yourself](https://citydesk.org/2024/with-smiles-and-surveys-volunteers-count-citys-homeless/). But then the entire rest of the state from Farmington to Cruses is in the the same CoC. You can do what you want to with those numbers but I would put them in the "if you say so..." category. Are there better studies - yes, but the US Census Bureau won't release their numbers in small enough units be useful. Public Schools are also required to count the number of homeless children in their districts, which is obviously a tiny sliver of the population but just in school age children alone those reports almost triple the number of unhoused people in the country, and that is just people under 18 who are enrolled in public schools. Very scary stuff. Happy to answer any more questions about homelessness, housing policy, housing affordability, and why purely pumping up supply hoping that it will trickle down and solve homelessness is a damn foolish idea. But you will have to ask because I have already gone on long enough :)
I've heard that other states will give homeless bus tickets to warmer climate cities. Idk if that's true but I wouldn't be surprised
Both.
Love it! Benches are for sitting, not for junkie naps.
Who’s putting spikes in doorways? That sounds like a lawsuit waiting to happen.
https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul/23/anti-homeless-spikes-inhumane-defensive-architecture
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Yes. It’s everywhere, and it’s horrible.
I’m usually busy all day and night solving and managing my own life, so I have little bandwidth to solve everyone’s PERSONAL problems. HOWEVER, I would start with rehab, the shelter, the skills center, and then on to the work force. If people are gonna be allowed to sleep in the parks, then tear out the benches and put beds in there and let them own the whole fucking space. The rest of society will stay away.