I never considered this before, but now I’m glad I carry lock picks with me everywhere. That shitty padlock would take 10 seconds and I’d be on my way with a new beginner practice lock.
Fuck hostile architecture, fuck anywhere that makes an already shitty situation worse by telling the homeless “we don’t view you as people, go die somewhere else”
And it’s not even just the homeless who are affect by shit like this. I can’t tell you how many park benches I slept on in my twenties when I lived in Europe and I’d stay out too late and have to chill out somewhere until morning.
In America you can’t take a nap in your car or even read a book in your car without having the cops hassle you.
I wonder what the cops are going to do when all vehicles are driverless.
“the homeless” are always used as the excuse for stuff like this, but (as you stated are an example of) plenty of people “rough sleep” without being homeless. I’ve never slept on a bench, but I’ve spent a few nights in state parks with a hammock due to not wanting to be around my family for varying reasons. Once because I was supposed to be sleeping at a friend’s house but went to a party and decided fuck this imma leave.
It’s funny you mention reading because I’ve actually been harassed by cops for “loitering” in the park when I was sitting in my car reading.
book in your car without having the cops hassle you.
is this a reference to that video of the guy waiting out the rain in a gas station parking lot by reading a book in his car and getting absolutely harassed by the cops who very obviously wanted to provoke a larger issue?
or is this a more common genre than i realize.
I’m not arguing against the bullshit that is making homelessness an even greater indignity let alone crime. Fuck that all day forever.
But I spent a greater part of three years voluntarily homeless (~15 years ago) to avoid violence at home. I consider myself extremely fortunate that I had a car I personally owned for most (but not all) of it which was a huge boon for me.
When I had a car, I parked in the back of 24h parking lots such as Walmart. Lacking that I parked behind higher end, but not too high, restaurants that kept bars open to call (2am). I was aware that in the latter case people became aware of me, but I never had problems.
When I didn’t have a car I found a ground level HVAC unit (behind grocery/department stores) because they were great at drowning out sound and giving me a relatively constant temperature.
I avoided parks because they often have posted hours and are regularly checked by police.
I’ve never been bothered by a cop. This is my truth, but not a justification.
In some countries they literally make life easier for people to live, and even enjoy living, a travelers life. The US is not such a place
I guess there are some spots with particularly awful cops, but most places, as long as you’re not parked illegally, you can totally take a nap or hang out in your car no problem
All spots have particularly awful cops.
the only difference is some places have better PR/Coverup than others.
Cops by me let the striking union workers park their cars in illegal spots while we picketed at 2am in the middle of winter. It was their act of support for the union.
Don’t make the assumption of thinking all cops are equally evil. Even pieces of shit have a lot of shades. I’ve been horrible, hating people who are nice to everyone, including black people, but are republican voting racist scum
Yeah, it’s ACAB. All Cops Are Bastards (because enforcing the interest of large property holders makes you do bastard things), not All Cops Are Evil.
Don’t make the assumption of thinking all cops are equally evil.
You are right. They are on a spectrum of evil.
ACAB
Based.
ACAB.
Yes, I was referencing that video.
#LandOfTheFree
Avoid their cameras.
Just so you know, if a cop ever catches you with lock picks, depending on the jurisdiction, they may try to arrest you for possession of lock picks with intent to burglarize (in the US, at least). Not saying you shouldn’t - but be mindful of what the potential legal hazards are in the worst case.
I’m well aware, and unfortunately I am in one of those states. If they ever decide to search me and my purse, they’ll find it.
Mere possession is considered proof of criminal intent. But I also always have a clear acrylic lock and easy padlock to show interested people how to pick a lock. It’s fun and cheap as a hobby. So if I ever do get caught, at least I can make the argument of it being a hobby more convincing. I don’t really expect to get off easy because of that, but if I’m ever caught and searched by cops, having a set of lock picks will probably not be my biggest concern.
Locksmith here. I’m also in a state with these laws, and on top of that there is no licensing for locksmiths. I’m an ALOA member now, but when I first started I would carry a card for my friend’s lock shop. I figured I’d I ever was stopped and searched I could at least present the card as part of a broader plausible deniability. Similar to your acrylic lock. If you have a locksmith shop in your area, grab one of their cards and keep it in your purse. Ideally in your lockpick set if it’s large enough.
Also, a PSA. “Officer safety” does not trump the fourth amendment. If an officer orders you to let them search your purse for “officer safety”, anything found that isn’t related to the safety of the officer is out of bounds legally. That’s an argument for court tho. Make sure that they clearly state they are ordering you to have over your purse/bag/backpack/whatever. If they say “I’m asking you to”, that’s not an order. Saying something like, “With all due respect, I’m not surrendering my fourth amendment rights. If you order me to do something I will comply, and we can argue in court later. I want us both to get home safe tonight.” This shows you’re not volunteering to hand over your stuff, but you’re not resisting, hampering, or obstructing either. It’s a lot to remember, but “is that an order?” Is a great question to ask anytime a cop tells you something
I want us both to get home safe tonight.
Do not say that to a cop. If it’s taken as threatening, they can use that justification to escalate. And if it can be taken as threatening, it will be.
“I don’t consent to any searches, but you have my full cooperation with any action you feel you have probable cause to do.” “Why?” “I’d prefer not to elaborate without a lawer present. Am I free to go?”
Lots of ‘sir, ma’am, please, thank you’ etc; if they ask for your ID and it’s in your purse, say something like “It’s in a wallet in my purse, I’m reaching in to get it” (and do so slowly) but otherwise say as little as possible.
The fact that you have to explain them that you are reaching for you wallet like if they have a mental illness, seems crazy that it’s necessary to not be shot to death
There’s no seems about it - this is crazy as fuck. How you engage with a cop is a survival strategy first, and legal strategy second.
Fair point, yeah
do you have a nice starter lock you like? i’ve got one of LPL’s genesis sets (intent has to be proven in my jurisdiction and i dress too ridiculously for them to prove intent) and a bunch of shitty locks. I don’t really have a favorite yet
Its a masterlock you don’t even need a pick.
A stiff breeze could do it, but you can also just hit it with a rock if it doesn’t pop open from a stern glance.
I had a shitty 40mm masterlock on my locker in middle school and I wouldn’t even bother with a key, if just yank hard on it once or twice and the jostling was enough to pop it free.
Just get another masterlock and smash them together.
Is that a brand or a type of lock?
It’s a brand.
it’s a brand. they open by looking at them. or a mallet.
“This is the lock picking Courtney and what we have here is a shitty padlock.”
Why are they so obsessed with making sure the homeless don’t get a basic, involuntary need? Like just shoot them if you are going to be this cruel, and you are going to kill them anyway.
The cruelty is the point. They’ll say a homeless person doesn’t deserve a fee hundred bucks a month to get back on their feet, but they’ll spend 100 grand a year per person to make them more miserable. It’s just good job security (and satisfaction) for the police unions.
They spend YOUR money too, possibly making you homeless in the process.
Yeah, they’re just fucking plain sociopaths, psychopaths, narcissistic, egolatrical and evil.
Cruelty is definitely a big part of it but also NIMBYism. If we don’t see the homeless people, we don’t have to think about them and try to find solutions.
Yes, I really can’t wrap my way around their way of thinking.
There are people who have such big issues in life, and such bad options, that a bench in a park is their best option for a place to sleep. That is horrible, and something must be done. And politicians think removing their best option is a solution?
If people can show enough compassion to invest in getting these people back on their feet, if you are really just going to ignore them - at least to that. Let them be.
If we’re talking drunk people causing issues, and they need to learn to go home instead - then I’d get it. Not my preferred solution, but I’d get it.
I think everyone CAN get together to make a difference, everyone who cares.
drunk and disorderly is arrestable. This is only for stopping sleeping 100%
And politicians think removing their best option is a solution?
Because it gets them votes. The politicians aren’t the problem, they merely reflect public attitudes.
I think some of the politicians really are part of the problem.
They cause public attitudes in most cases, so…
What makes you think that the average politician is actually a leader, rather than just a follower who pays attention to polls? That would imply they have a spine, which seems unlikely.
You have a good point, actually 🤣
But people prefer to follow the one who “knows everything” and that never shows any kind of doubt or insecurity.
C’mon, precisely because they’re in the “Dunning-Kruger” sector of the bell curve is why they can have a big influence in a lot of people.
they’re still sticking to the trope that the homeless are lazy, uneducated bums; at best they’re what happens to good citizens after falling into addiction.
they all WANT to be there, but we definitely don’t want them!!!
but that narrative should be falling apart as conditions deteriorate…
but you know, american education lol.
“BrO, bUt ThE mErItOcRaCy, ThE uNiVeRsE gIvEs YoU wHaT yOu AcTuAlLy DeSiRe WiThIn ThE dEpThS oF yOuR iNnEr SoUl”
made me think of the square girl video lol
Capitalism requires there to be a threat of what happens if you “don’t work hard enough” or don’t play ball with those in power. Nevermind that most homeless people aren’t that way due to laziness or anything they did wrong, just unlucky situations or medical debt or being laid off at an inconvenient time or something.
It would be far cheaper to our country to have free housing, UBI, universal healthcare and social programs everywhere than what we are doing now, but what we are doing now makes about 1,000 people INSANELY wealthy at the expense of the other 342,000,000 people in the country, so that’s what we keep doing for some stupid reason.
Maybe one day everyone will wake up and stop enabling systems that create this shithole.
There’s about 40 other capitalist countries where losing your job doesn’t end in homelessness and medical debt is not even a thing. And we have universal Healthcare, paid annual leave, paid parental leave, unlimited paid sick leave, unions,…
Basically there’s only one country where all of that doesn’t exist…
where are these countries? The only one I know of uses 3 methods to prevent Homelessness.
Method 1: USA tax dollars pay for all of their healthcare.
Method 2: great unemployment benefits.
Method 3: (their most preferred method of Homelessness prevention) Step 1- Find an intact house with Palestinians in it. Step 2- shoot all of them in the heads including the children. Step 3- clean up. Step 4- give house to a filthy Israeli genocide supporter.
Apparently there’s no English articlr for the new version, but here’s the old one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bürgergeld
Medical debt might not be a thing but losing your home because you lost your job definitely happens in Europe.
Yes, losing your home after losing your job definitely happens in Europe. The difference is that many European countries have stronger safety nets: they may help with rent, provide temporary or social housing, or use Housing First, so unemployment is less likely to end in rough sleeping. They generally won’t simply pay off your mortgage, and the help isn’t guaranteed, but keeping people stably housed can be cheaper in the long run than repeatedly dealing with homelessness. It also makes finding and keeping work much easier. In the UK, for example, eligible people may receive Jobseeker’s Allowance and help with their rent through Universal Credit, or Housing Benefit in certain circumstances.
And yet losing your job can still quiet easily lead to homelessness. “There are capitalist countries where that doesn’t happen” isn’t an argument if it does in fact happen in those capitalist countries. We might have better safety nets, but they are band-aids that only slow the function of capitalism, they don’t solve it’s inherent problems.
In Germany they will pay your rent indefinitely - as long as you’re trying to find a job. Some people abuse the system, of course, but in general works well and you see very little people sleepng on the street.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_Germany
I’m sure the ~300,000 rough sleepers are happy to know you don’t notice them.
The bourgeois don’t want to look at the plebians.
Sure, commuters with jobs are the bourgeoisie.
Lemmy lol. Answer is simple. Everyday folks don’t like seein’ them, as they consider them lowlifes. City is doing “something” about it, so city is doing good. There are shelters, so it’s not like these people have no options.
Everyday folk don’t think about shelters being overcrowded, homeless being alcoholics/druggies just to cope with their situation and thus not being able to use shelters, or the fact that I’ve seen software devs, here on lemmy, mention being homeless or being in the past.
Most people are reactive, not proactive. They see dirty homeless person, they feel yucky, they tell said person to gtfo without thinking about the fact that it’s a person in the first place.
Yeah but being proactive is illegal unless you’re part of some organization and making profit somewhere along the way.
By that I mean it’s fucked up in the US, how I cant by a few boxes of frozen burgers, cook them make a bunch of burgers and start handing food out; unless I was part of some organization that somewhere along the way is making money or hype to make sure their other businesses get business.
…wait, making field kitchens is illegal in USA? I am not living there so I wouldn’t know. Can’t ya like throw barbeque in your backyard or smth?
Yeah, you can do the BBQ thing. You, just can’t for instance buy a used RV and climb on top of it and start handing out cooked food to everyone.
Because people are more comfortable letting homeless people starve or freeze to death than they are with shooting them.
Same reason people are happy to buy ham from the grocery store but would feel uncomfortable slitting a pig’s throat.
We need societal-level solutions to homelessness. We need housing, free healthcare, free mental healthcare, criminal justice reform, and more. But until we can do that, the reality is, concentrations of the homeless are associated with higher crime, reduced patronage of businesses, and decreased property values.
It super duper sucks, but homelessness is a really difficult problem for cities and property owners they aren’t equipped to address. Since they can’t fix the problem, they instead focus on keeping the problem away.
It’s all so fucked.
This feels like a very US-specific way of framing it. In the UK and much of Europe, many of those “societal-level solutions” already exist to varying degrees: healthcare and mental healthcare free at the point of use, unemployment support, benefits towards rent, social and temporary housing, legal homelessness-prevention duties, and Housing First programmes.
They’re nowhere near perfect. We have social-housing shortages, benefit limits, long healthcare waiting lists and plenty of people who still fall through the gaps. But the response doesn’t have to begin and end with moving homeless people somewhere less visible to protect property values.
Your point that individual businesses and property owners cannot solve homelessness is completely fair. That’s precisely why they should sit behind a publicly funded safety net which helps keep people housed and supports them back into stability, instead of leaving everyone involved to deal with the consequences.
It’s a masterlock though, you can pick it by lightly touching the keyhole with a blade of grass
Only if you’re the lawyer, everyone else needs to put a little force behind the blade of grass
“Hey, this is the Lockpicking Lawyer and today I have a Masterlock…and it’s already open.”
Picking a lock is something you do when you don’t want to destroy the lock. In this case, fuck that lock. A rock will solve the problem of it being there just fine.
Or you want to open a lock without it being obvious that you did it. Picking the lock would make it look like the staff forgot to lock it, short of a forensic teardown of the lock.
Or just hit it with another master lock.
I was gonna say you can rake it, but your sarcasm is better.
Another example of a society that has lost its mind, and has become psychopathic, because they see sociopathy as a form of freedom. When instead it oppresses the population where it should help.
A Psychopathic solution to a problem that is also caused by psychopathy.
To call it a weapons free zone is disgusting, when we all know it’s to prevent the homeless from sleeping there.Dystopian as fuck.
Hostile infrastructure, intended to heap misery upon the most miserable among us. We punish people who should be helped, and help people who should be punished. What a backwards world.
Somewhere, something changed and money became all, get it all so you can consume. People stopped caring unless money was involved and they were getting it.
Capitalism only cares about money.
Correction. The money must be obtained without morality or ethics… And laws are written to be both be worked around or punished with fines, hence making them an operating expense.
The only crime that is punished is those done by people with limited or no political or economic leverage. This is why burglary and shoplifting is heavily punished but a company bankrupting entire communities is not.
But it wasn’t like this 25 years ago
It may have felt differently to you 25 years ago - maybe you were in a better neighborhood or something, but capitalism has always been about heartless extraction of money from the poor. Check out The Condition of the Working Class in England for a 180-year-old account of this.
Capitalism has always been like this to one degree or another. Maybe its inherent cruelty is affecting more people than it ever has, but it has always been cruel to poor and marginalized groups.
25 years ago, kinda depending on where you were, cops just rousted and beat the shit out of peaple as incentive to “move on.”
Sometimes I walk around town late at night. Last week I saw a guy with a sleeping bag napping in the park gazebo. He wasn’t bothering me or anyone, so I just let him be.
We’ll I hope you at least reminded him of his obligations to the Epstein Island class.
I hate the practice of Hostile Architecture/Anti-Homeless Architecture, just let someone sleep till the sun comes up. As long as they ain’t hurting anyone or the area then, it’s whatever.
I kinda get it to an extent. I’ve had friends that lived in a bar district that couldn’t get out of their door because the same guy set up shop on their stoop every morning. They tried to convince him to just move to the side leaving them enough room to get in and out without trying to step over him. They tried to get him to work with services to help but he had no f’s left to give. He peed there, never crapped there, though. I do wonder where he went to do that.
The right answer is to properly support, help, and house the homeless, and a city with the wherewithall to maintain a park could definitely make a dent on that.
I agree that support is needed, but I can’t take this argument seriously.
Your anecdote is an annoying case, sure. But one personal experience isn’t representative of the broader homeless population, and it’s certainly not a good argument for hostile architecture.
Using a single cherry-picked encounter to draw sweeping conclusions is exactly how you get policy that “solves” a stereotype instead of a real problem. Broad statistics don’t care about your one story, and neither should public policy.
Mental illness and homelessness go together like sex and cigarettes. You can have 1000 days of harmless hobos sleeping on benches, and all it takes is 1 or 2 stark-raving madmen attacking or harassing people to shift attention and spark concern about safety (falling property values because that neighborhood has a “bum problem”)
I’m not saying it’s right, it just how things work.
Edit: I’ve paid high rent to live somewhere and had to deal with panhandlers, hobos, and thieves. Kindness wasn’t a valuable tool. Needless to say it hits different when you are the one being affected.
I agree that support is needed, but I can’t take this argument seriously.
The way I see it, someone at city hall went out of pocket several hundred dollars to customize those benches. And then they’re paying someone to come out every morning and unlock them (or not and just leaving benches locked indefinitely). All so life is now harder for people already sleeping rough.
Does anyone really believe the city councilor or mayor or whomever who went through that trouble is going to be releasing money to improve municipal services for homeless residents? I certainly don’t.
Ok, let’s turn that argument on it’s head. In what world is not blocking benches and seats in a public a better solution than state funded programs to get the homeless sheltered and fed. I can tell you right now that the numbers of shelters available are shit everywhere I’ve been and most have little to no support for mental health, addiction or anything, just draconian rules about in/out times and in most cases fees.
edit addon:
They don’t need the benches, they shouldn’t have to be on the benches. they shouldn’t feel the need to be on the grate in the winter or camping under an underpass.
Ooh, free lock-picking practice!
I don’t think it would be illegal to non-destructively unlock that lock.
- Ex-cop
It’s a master lock, it won’t give you as much practice time as you hope.
I’m aware. If you really want a pedantry fight:
Nothing about my comment implies it would be a long practice session.
I was not looking for any kind of fight and I actually did suspect you knew. I was just hopping on the opportunity to mock Master Lock, since I know they make some of the worst locks on the market.
Full disclosure: I have zero lock picking skills. I probably couldn’t pick this lock if I tried.
not just the worst, but they somehow manage to release new locks that are worse than their old ones, as well as new locks with positively ancient design flaws that every lock manufacturer absolutely knows about, like not including a rear shield in the core, meaning you can just… stick something in there and open it trivially. i’m talking design flaws from the 1800s and early 1900s. their most secure core is used in a PLASTIC LOTO LOCK and none of their metal locks, for no fucking reason. the incompetence is unbelievable.
Fair enough. My hackles are usually up thanks to how people treat me.
You probably could. They’re really not very hard.
Very curious about a hypothetical: You pick the lock and secure it elsewhere on the bench so that it’s not lost and accidentally affix a proper lock keeping the bench in the bench position.
Anything is practice. Repetitive behavior hones skills. Experience is experience, good or bad. Maybe the skill is doing in the open quick enough to not draw attention.
I think it would be a lot more fun though to non-destructively unlock the lock and replace it with another one that looks identical every single day after you free the bench and put it in its upright state, locking it in place.
They’ll think that they’ve got the wrong key every single day. Just keep buying locks and replacing it.
That’s more illegal than I can openly suggest.
Oh, I don’t advise it. It would be fun though.
deleted by creator
“its putting your head in the sand, kicking the can down the road” policy, no intention of alleviating it. probably gives reason for certain politicians to get elected. our region started doing something to the homeless in an area of our city(sweeping leo prescence, especially when world event/conferences are around) and they immediately move near the WFoods where i frequent, and they are robbing it blind(because store policy is not even to approach or give them customer service). when before they were more spread out and congregate in an area, that they dont stray far from causing “less” problems.
My takeaway from this is FREE FOOD AT YOUR WHOLE FOODS? Sweet! DM me the address! 🤣 (jk haha)
Whole foods asparagus water: $8
Whole foods aspargus water shoved into your asscrack while mumbling incoherently: priceless
At least there are enough houses for everyone /s
So they pay someone to lock / unlock it, that’s an externalized cost of not solving the issues elsewhere. A little too much on the individualistic side of things.
If we think the logic through, it is very insidious. The city has decided that the public perception of locking up benches is far more preferably then allowing a place for people to sit/sleep.
In essence, it is better for a bunch of people to be collateral in punishing the homeless then it is to be seen making homeless people’s lives marginally better.
These little things add up and make you realize that that ol statistic of “California spends 100k/year per homeless person combating homelessness” hold weight. They’d rather spend on services and police to do this stuff than address the underlying issue.
It sounds like there is too much diffuse of responsibility
It’s easier to lock up a bench than build an affordable home.
Cheaper too.
But, it’s probably not the optimal solution. I suppose it’s a step in the right direction. As bad as hostile architecture is, the old way of dealing with the problem was to have cops beat the shit out of homeless or drunk people if they tried to sleep in a place where other people might be offended or annoyed.
Oh, they still do that.
To me it doesn’t feel like a step in the right direction, since we could have always had the optimal solution, at any time: no beatings and no hostile architecture.
Pocket size and 2 batteries. Get busy.$25
You can also just shim a Masterlock with a bit of soda can. A stiff piece of plastic will also usually work.
Loud. Looks like there are similar-sized battery powered bolt butters that’ll do the job much quieter. Bonus points if you cut the tab the lock is attached to vs the lock itself. Make it require an actual repair and not just a lock replacement.
Edit - Oh jfc, the one pictured is over $3k …Ryobi has one for $200, which is still a good chunk more expensive than the grinder, but well worth the stealth imo.
If you think makita is expensive you should check out the hilti!
That one is red though so its totally worth it
It looks to be a basic af Masterlock. You could use bolt cutters on those and save some money.
Based on The Lockpicking Lawyer’s videos, you could practically sneeze at the thing and it would pop right open
Mildly infuriating? This is disgusting shit.
