Cons
When you think of Seattle, what do you think of? Maybe it’s the Space Needle, or MoPop, maybe even the waterfront, but those are all the tourist attractions. What do you think of the actual city?
Would you believe me if I told you that almost half of King County’s population is homeless? In fact, Seattle has the fourth-highest number of homeless people in the country. Now let’s go to a hypothetical situation: if you were suddenly homeless and had nowhere to stay, where would you go? The homeless shelter? Well, King County passed a policy in 2015 to focus on permanent housing instead of homeless shelters, and where did that get us? A soaring homelessness rate of 88 percent, with a whopping 57 percent of homeless people sleeping outside in the cold according to the 2024 Annual Homeless Assessment. New York City, a city that has more than eight times our population, has an unsheltered homeless rate of 5 percent. If we can’t shelter these people, why would we make the places they can stay more hostile with concrete spikes and less places to sit?
It’s frankly too easy to see homeless people as ‘other’ or just an eyesore, but they are people too, just like you and me. No matter your circumstance, a person is a person that has family and friends and a life! What makes their life worth less than yours? Anti-homeless architecture doesn’t only affect homeless people, it also affects disabled and elderly people as well. Fewer benches mean fewer places for people with joint pain, asthma, or other issues to rest, and anti-homeless spikes mean that people with walkers, canes, wheelchairs, or other assistive devices can’t traverse easily if there are other obstacles like construction or puddles. In fact, almost 40 percent of homeless people nationwide are disabled. So, why are we so indifferent to their suffering? When we see a veteran who is disabled in any other situation, we thank them for their service and respect them, but once they don’t have a place to go and are forced to stay on the streets they’re seen as less than human.
Make it make sense.
What gives us the right to make other’s lives worse just because they don’t have an apartment? Why should we punish people for not having a support system? Everyone deserves a dry place to stay and basic decency, and if we deny that and perpetuate the feeling that homeless people are ‘other’, the world around us will only get worse. Anti-homeless architecture is only the beginning, what else will we let slide in the future in the name of visual appeal?
Additional Sources:
Brookings Homelessness Analysis
National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty
Pros
Speaking from the perspective of a Shoreline, Washington citizen, I believe there are at least some benefits to anti-homeless architecture. To state the obvious, I think that all of us would like to find a way to get homeless people off of the streets and into homes, removing the need to have this discussion in the first place. Unfortunately, I do not think that is going to happen soon. Therefore, I’m not going to reject anti-homeless architecture as it stands in the current predicament.
Before I get into all of this, I would like to start by saying that I am not a rabid supporter of anti-homeless architecture. Rather, I would like our readers to be able to see both sides, and as things stand now, I can see benefits in this initiative. However, we as a people can surely come up with better solutions to the homeless problem, and I encourage everyone to be considerate to each other.
That being said, a simple benefit to anti-homeless architecture is that people spending time in a given city will not have homeless people around them. It’s pretty undeniable that every city wants more people to live and work there. One of the biggest red flags I could imagine when looking for a place to live is seeing homeless people on the streets nearby.
As someone who absolutely adores the great city of Shoreline, Washington, I’m embarrassed when outsiders visit here and tell me about how shady Aurora is looking, and the like. I wrote another article in this very newspaper issue about fun places to visit in and around Shoreline. If one of our readers were to visit one of these places, and they saw a homeless person outside, I’m willing to bet they would be at least slightly unsettled.
For this reason, I do not believe that the installation of anti-homeless architecture is fueled by hatred of homeless people, or much emotion at all, for that matter. Perhaps we should be focusing on why the presence of homeless people puts such a dent in the appeal of a city. Why do they make people uncomfortable? Why do cities feel a need for anti-homeless architecture? I doubt it’s simply because a bunch of stuffy politicians have a childish hatred for the homeless. As Griscom stated above, the homeless are people too, just like you and I. Many are even veterans – American heroes. I completely agree with that. That being said, I must re-state that there are reasons why homeless presence makes people uncomfortable.
According to homelessnomore.com, in 2023, about 70 percent of homeless individuals in Seattle were struggling with some kind of substance abuse. How terrible is it really to say that I’d rather not be in the presence of drug addicts while going about my day? Additionally, homeless people contribute quite a bit to littering. Anyone who has been to a sizeable city should be able to see that.
Another hard truth is that if homeless people are exceptionally comfortable, they may not feel the need to… well, try to not be homeless. Obviously, every person deserves safety and health. However, if we allow these individuals to feel as if their life on the streets is sustainable, they could very well decide that’s how they’ll stay. “Get a job? Why should I?” I fear that, to an extent, comfortable homeless people will remain just that; homeless.
In short, anti-homeless architecture, when placed strategically, will make a given place cleaner, safer, and more appealing for passersby.
All of that being said, I would like to close by saying that I am not a rabid supporter of anti-homeless architecture. Rather, I would like our readers to be able to see both sides, and as things stand now, I can see benefits in this initiative. However, we as people can surely come up with better solutions to the homeless problem, and I encourage everyone to be considerate to each other.
