“Yo, Is This…” advice podcast/column – Logan Howe

One invisible form of discrimination that most people might not have ever consciously noticed  is what is known as hostile architecture. Hostile architecture is a form of urban design which is built in such a way to deter some type of behavior. The most well known form of hostile architecture is anti-homeless spikes, spikes or bumps that are embedded in flat surfaces to make them uncomfortable to lay on. Other types of hostile architecture designed to prevent use by the homeless include sloped benches and use of large rocks. Hostile architecture also exists to prevent skating or loitering, but I will be focusing on it as it relates to the homeless. While it isn’t preferable for anyone to have to sleep on benches at all, the unfortunate reality is that this is necessary for some people, and hostile architecture only serves as an attempt to cover up the problem, by pushing the homeless elsewhere, instead of treating the causes of homelessness. It is often pushed for by business owners, who may feel that homeless people being near their establishment drives away customers, or it may be a result of city planners feeling that the homeless take away from the surrounding environment. It is, unfortunately, a rather clever way of going about things. Most hostile architecture, despite the intimidating name, is rather unassuming if you don’t know exactly what you’re looking at. Most people would see bumps or spikes on a railing as nothing more than a slightly unusual design choice. It isn’t as in your face as, say, a restaurant refusing to serve a homeless patron. This makes it all the more dangerous, as people are far less likely to do anything about it if they don’t even know what the problem is.

This is a very clear cut case of systemic injustice, because these measures are often put in place by a city government directly, as much of the “system” as you can get. While much of the discrimination that the homeless face is not necessarily systemic in nature, but instead a result of preconceived notions about the homeless, hostile architecture a higher power exerting its will onto a group that is unable to do anything about it. Many laws beyond just hostile architecture unfairly target the homeless. Examples of such laws include prohibiting the homeless from existing in certain areas or prohibiting begging. Often, these laws are not explicitly discriminatory towards the homeless, but instead made in a way that they would naturally only apply to the homeless (for example, a law preventing all people from sleeping in a certain area technically affects everyone equally, but naturally only applies to the homeless).

Homeless people are undeniably treated as an “Other” in society. They are often seen as being lesser than other people, and many people fear the homeless because of stigmas of alcoholism and mental illness. Business owners often see them as being dirty and consider them a threat to their customer base, who may be driven away. Often the homeless are also the targets of violence or abuse, and find it difficult to access services such as education, banks, healthcare, or employment. Interestingly, the treatment of the homeless is a fairly unusual case of Othering. While homeless people are undeniably treated as an Other by society, the idea that the One in this situation (that is, those who have a place to live) are the default is arguably correct. In a perfect society, homelessness wouldn’t exist, meaning that having a home is indeed the default. That does not mean, however, that people are homeless through some fault of their own, as many people seem to assume. They often have little control over their situation, just as someone has no control over which race they are or where they are born, and therefore very much still fit into the “Other” category.

While we have defined that the homeless are indeed an “Other”, I would argue that they also fit into a more specific category as well, that being the subaltern. The definition of a subaltern is a group of people that are excluded completely from the hierarchy of power, and therefore do not have a say in society. This term is used largely to apply to people living under colonial powers, but I think that in a more border sense it applies here as well. The homeless are often referred to as “invisible”, because they are largely ignored by society and are not given a say into how they are treated. One of the most literal interpretations of this is voting. Now, in the United States, you do not technically need a permanent address to vote. However, most states require at least a mailing address, all states require some form of ID, and even transportation to polling places or knowledge of the elections can be difficult for someone who is homeless. This results in very low voter turnout amongst the homeless population. This in turn results in little ability for someone who is homeless to try to vote in policies that would help them. And to add on to that, few politicians directly tackle the homeless problem because they have little incentive to, given little societal pressure to do as well as the aforementioned low turnout among homeless voters. This all results in the homeless being unable to have any say in the position that they are in. Connecting back to the idea of hostile architecture, this means that there is not much reason for a city government to remove instances without a pushback from the non-homeless population, who tend to be apathetic at best towards the problems of the homeless.

The overall solution to this problem is to, of course, remove the examples of hostile architecture seen in cities. That’s not to say that these spaces should completely and totally accommodate the homeless; homelessness is, of course, not something that we should want at all in society. But instead we should redirect efforts to solving the root cause of homelessness, or even just putting money into homeless shelters so that somebody who is homeless doesn’t have to resort to sleeping in the streets. But on a smaller level, the general public should be made aware of these problems as I believe that if they knew what exactly they were looking at, that they would find it inhumane and needlessly cruel; they just need to know about its existence. There have been some campaigns to put stickers or other signage on examples of hostile architecture, decrying it for its cruelty and more clearly exposing it to the public for what it is. Probably the largest example of this is the artist Stuart Stemple’s campaign, which can be found at hostiledesign.org. Not only does this site provide stickers to place on instances, it also provides a gallery of the various examples of hostile design as posted by the supporters of the campaign. This could be a very good first step towards exposing the issue of hostile architecture to people, and could help them to identify instances of it in their own life.

However, solutions don’t even need to be on a large scale. To get to the roots of the discrimination against the homeless, you must look at why exactly people tend to feel the way they do about them. As mentioned, people tend to fear the homeless to some degree, but it has been shown that exposure of people to the homeless causes this fear to become lessened or go away entirely. There are many ways that people can spend time with the homeless, such as volunteering at soup kitchens or homeless shelters. However, this provides a bit of a Catch-22: the people willing to spend time with the homeless likely already have less prejudice towards them, and somebody who does have bias or prejudice is unlikely to seek out such an opportunity. So I believe that the way to stop some of this discrimination is changing how homeless people are portrayed in the media. They are often shown as being lazy, drug-addicted, and crazy, and this can make it hard to empathize with them because they are portrayed almost as if they deserve what has happened to them. There are also very few portrayals of someone becoming homeless, furthering the divide between those with a home and those without, and making it seem that homelessness is just some inherent state of being. I believe that showing a more realistic portrayal of homelessness, showing that it is through no fault of someone that they become homeless, but often little more than a stroke of bad luck, and that somebody who is homeless is really not inherently different than someone who is.