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The problem is that people immediately think that socializing is consuming. It’s always an option to chat with people sitting on a park bench. Or at one’s home

by mantas 1y ago

The problem is that people immediately think that socializing is consuming. It’s always an option to chat with people sitting on a park bench. Or at one’s home in a kitchen. Coffee can be home-made in both cases.

mystraline 1y ago
In my smaller city, parks and benches are populated with homeless people of various types. At minimum, the benches are used. Worse off, a significant minority are actively violent with a good dose of various untreated mental illnesses. Crossing them is not good for your health. And it also makes kind of a terrible environment to talk with friends, while avoiding drug needles. Even the public library has similar problems, but at least they have security guards (yes, plural, sigh). That basically leaves our respective homes/apartments and pay-money-to-consume-and-sit places. And even bars are mostly off limits due to highly acoustic reflective surfaces and overly loud music, to dissuade talking and encourage more drinking. There's very little places to meet in public that is encouraging and free. Then again, I think that really is by design.
- mantas 1y ago
  Looks like you guys have bigger issues than socializing and expensive coffee. Here it’s not uncommon to meet some rowdy people out and about. Not necessarily homeless. But it’s not hard to find some silent corner to enjoy some coffee from a thermos. Other option… Maybe head out to nature trails? Chat while walking at enjoy some coffee at a rest stop? Even few kilometers from the city homeless are unlikely even whereever you are…?
  - giantrobot 1y ago
    > Even few kilometers from the city homeless are unlikely even whereever you are…? Where I am all the nature and bike trails lined with homeless encampments. It's actually been quite a problem. Unless you go out on serious hike type trails you're surrounded by homeless.
    - polotics 1y ago
      may I ask where is it that bad, whereabouts are you?
      - mystraline 1y ago
        Look on a US 2024 county voting map ( https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a8/2024_United_States_presidential_election_results_map_by_county.svg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a8/2024_Uni...), and look for democratic counties in republican dominant states. Obviously the big cities are easy to spot, but look for smaller areas. These democrat counties usually try to offer better homeless support either at the local government or NGO level. In doing so, all the red/republican counties ship their homeless using Greyhound Therapy. Helping to make homelessness not suffer as much gets more homeless, thus flooding the system. We've increased our homeless population by 4x in the last 5 years. It popped up hard after the ban on evictions disappeared. Turns out kicking people out of housing makes them (drumroll)... Homeless.
      - giantrobot 1y ago
        I'm in California. We have a large "native" population of homeless and have been a popular destination for "Greyhound Therapy" for decades. It's the same where I live in every part of the state I've been through in the past several years. Police tend to clear homeless off main drags and parks so they end up moving to less policed areas like outdoor preserves and trails. I try not to judge homeless people as it happens for a thousand reasons, many outside peoples' control. That being said having open spaces filled with homeless doesn't make anyone want or even able to use those spaces. It's not just the people but tents, trash, and literal shit.
    - mystraline 1y ago
      Seconded. And our community routinely clears out encampments every 4-6 months. Makes a big production about it as well. Sometimes they're on private property, and sometimes they're on public property. Either way, their belongings are confiscated and hailed away to the city garage miles away, with the full intent to destroy. Not like homeless can get transportation there. The craziest part? 60% of the homeless have actual jobs. These aren't 'lazy' people. In fact, society has slowly priced people out of even living, and criminalized homelessness. Its bad enough that on sidewalks, they're pitching nylon tents. Its starting to look like LA in some aspects. There's also state laws felonizing having needles on you. Naturally, they get disposed by being dropped wherever. Bad drug laws created this hazard. Its just one thing after another. And any community that tries to help gets flooded. Greyhound Therapy is a real thing. Its bad enough, that sometimes I just want to shut down and just shield myself from the suffering, since I'm damn near powerless in fixing it. Its an abject system failure, and needs systematic changes. And realistically, we're not going to see anything get better for the next 3.5 years at absolute minimum.
whimsicalism 1y ago
the homeless issue has caused cities to underprovision amenities like benches
trinsic2 1y ago
I kinda see both points. Yes there are things we can do without spending money and at the same time more and more of are social spaces are being commercialized along with the perception that anything that is worth anything to do costs money.

by mantas 1y ago

mystraline 1y ago

In my smaller city, parks and benches are populated with homeless people of various types. At minimum, the benches are used. Worse off, a significant minority are actively violent with a good dose of various untreated mental illnesses. Crossing them is not good for your health. And it also makes kind of a terrible environment to talk with friends, while avoiding drug needles. Even the public library has similar problems, but at least they have security guards (yes, plural, sigh). That basically leaves our respective homes/apartments and pay-money-to-consume-and-sit places. And even bars are mostly off limits due to highly acoustic reflective surfaces and overly loud music, to dissuade talking and encourage more drinking. There's very little places to meet in public that is encouraging and free. Then again, I think that really is by design.

mantas 1y ago
Looks like you guys have bigger issues than socializing and expensive coffee. Here it’s not uncommon to meet some rowdy people out and about. Not necessarily homeless. But it’s not hard to find some silent corner to enjoy some coffee from a thermos. Other option… Maybe head out to nature trails? Chat while walking at enjoy some coffee at a rest stop? Even few kilometers from the city homeless are unlikely even whereever you are…?
- giantrobot 1y ago
  > Even few kilometers from the city homeless are unlikely even whereever you are…? Where I am all the nature and bike trails lined with homeless encampments. It's actually been quite a problem. Unless you go out on serious hike type trails you're surrounded by homeless.
  - polotics 1y ago
    may I ask where is it that bad, whereabouts are you?
    - mystraline 1y ago
      Look on a US 2024 county voting map ( https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a8/2024_United_States_presidential_election_results_map_by_county.svg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a8/2024_Uni...), and look for democratic counties in republican dominant states. Obviously the big cities are easy to spot, but look for smaller areas. These democrat counties usually try to offer better homeless support either at the local government or NGO level. In doing so, all the red/republican counties ship their homeless using Greyhound Therapy. Helping to make homelessness not suffer as much gets more homeless, thus flooding the system. We've increased our homeless population by 4x in the last 5 years. It popped up hard after the ban on evictions disappeared. Turns out kicking people out of housing makes them (drumroll)... Homeless.
    - giantrobot 1y ago
      I'm in California. We have a large "native" population of homeless and have been a popular destination for "Greyhound Therapy" for decades. It's the same where I live in every part of the state I've been through in the past several years. Police tend to clear homeless off main drags and parks so they end up moving to less policed areas like outdoor preserves and trails. I try not to judge homeless people as it happens for a thousand reasons, many outside peoples' control. That being said having open spaces filled with homeless doesn't make anyone want or even able to use those spaces. It's not just the people but tents, trash, and literal shit.
  - mystraline 1y ago
    Seconded. And our community routinely clears out encampments every 4-6 months. Makes a big production about it as well. Sometimes they're on private property, and sometimes they're on public property. Either way, their belongings are confiscated and hailed away to the city garage miles away, with the full intent to destroy. Not like homeless can get transportation there. The craziest part? 60% of the homeless have actual jobs. These aren't 'lazy' people. In fact, society has slowly priced people out of even living, and criminalized homelessness. Its bad enough that on sidewalks, they're pitching nylon tents. Its starting to look like LA in some aspects. There's also state laws felonizing having needles on you. Naturally, they get disposed by being dropped wherever. Bad drug laws created this hazard. Its just one thing after another. And any community that tries to help gets flooded. Greyhound Therapy is a real thing. Its bad enough, that sometimes I just want to shut down and just shield myself from the suffering, since I'm damn near powerless in fixing it. Its an abject system failure, and needs systematic changes. And realistically, we're not going to see anything get better for the next 3.5 years at absolute minimum.

whimsicalism 1y ago

the homeless issue has caused cities to underprovision amenities like benches

trinsic2 1y ago

I kinda see both points. Yes there are things we can do without spending money and at the same time more and more of are social spaces are being commercialized along with the perception that anything that is worth anything to do costs money.