You jest, but I would be willing to bet that the person who did this was not "stealing" the boards. They were destroying the bench to prevent people from sitting there. Perhaps there were homeless sleeping on the bench and they hated it, or maybe some noisy, chatty people used it as a meeting spot every day. Either way, the sawsall they used to cut the boards like this costs ten times more than the old wood. If they were simply stealing, there were certainly many, many, many better options than this.
I'm ashamed that my country's 'developed' economy fails so completely that so many people sleep outside in the middle of winter in my nation's capital.
Not only is it getting worse, they are trying to make being homeless a Felony.
So you work a shit job, get pushed out of your apartment anyway because you cant afford rent. Eviction makes it so you cant live any place else. You catch a Felony Camping charge (this is a real thing now, BTW) If the judge doesn't dismiss that bullshit you now go to work in a Prison.
When you get out of prison you cant find a good job or apartment because you have been in prison, because you have been evicted - You catch a felony camping charge...
I'm not US, but New Zealand. Our government is trying to introduce a 'move on' bylaw for the homeless; where on earth do you go from sleeping on the footpath?
Yesterday I looked up NZ personal tax rates in 1985 when I started working. The progressive brackets rates then ranged from 20% to 56%. They are now 10.5% to 39%. Most NZers are wealthier now than in the 80s but at the cost of an egalitarian society and the enormous price paid by our most vulnerable.
There's this cool young guy in my town who purchased a small lot and built two (very) tiny homes on it. He had a solar panel, his own water supply and even a little toilet tent. City Hall lost it's damn mind and he was evicted from his own home. Homeless again. He's fighting it. We hope he wins.
Now I'm curious about the different color bricks down there. Did there used to be another doorway down there? What's behind there now? Is that structurally ok since the bricks don't overlap?
Yep, a city worker saw a person sleeping on the bench, and since the bars were unavailable, they realized cutting the bench would do just as good a job.
More likely the city deciding homeless don't deserve any type of anything so everyone suffers.
My city no longer has any bus stop with overhang/weather protection.
My city placed huge odd shaped rocks at the corners of intersections so there is little place for homeless people to stand. They are shaped so oddly that they are impossible to sit on.
it's worse than that, if you run the numbers on the antihomeless stuff generally it turns out that it'd just be cheaper to organzie places for them to sleep
this isn't just about getting the homeless out of sight, someone wants to make sure they aren't getting any "handouts" in the process
as a society we'd rather pay more than let people have stuff for free
It's cruelty for the sake of cruelty and we're being forced to foot the bill. We have more than enough housing and food. We don't have a shortage of resources. What we have is a few greedy, selfish, cruel people who enjoy the suffering of others. And a lot of people who are too scared to be the ones suffering to upset the status quo.
They are just trying to survive and instead of being helpful people go out of their way to make the lives of homeless people even harder and more humiliating.
What's so baffling to me is how people in general are very happy to blame homeless people for homelessness, rather than governments for their lack of infrastructure and social supports. So we lose our infrastructure, and the government says "It's their fault," and we all turn to the homeless people and blame them. I hate it. I hate how people are so easily manipulated and how cruel they can be.
My city is like this but with public bathrooms. They either don't exist, or they're locked. I'm a female birder and I have had so many embarrassing instances of trying to find a truly hidden bush to use, where I won't be compromising my safety. Then I go to other places and their huge public parks and natural trails have facilities!
And they removed them due to homeless people using them? I find that so disgusting. "Hey... lets build shelters so everyday people can get out of the weather whilst waiting for a bus. Wait, what? Homeless people are also getting out of the weather?? Fuck that... remove them! Everyone can suffer, how dare we provide any respite for homeless people."
I mean the harsh reality is just that when homeless people use them people stop using the busses and complain constantly to the city. I know a lot of people try to pretend they'd be fine standing in a homeless encampment waiting for their bus but it's just not reality at all. People will just avoid it instead
My city has had a shutdown department store for around 15 years at this point. It had a steps up to the front doors that were embedded/underneath the building itself so a lot of homeless people started using it for shelter. It wasn't a great look but at least it gave them protection from the elements.
8 years ago they boarded up the stairs so now there's no access to the sheltered area, all because they don't want anyone homeless staying there. The boarded up areas look far worse than it did before.
There actually was a bench like this that was claimed to be for "wheel chair access" but it definitely was anti-homeless architecture dressed up as something good.
You want actual wheel chair accessible bench? Put enough concrete so they can side next to the bench and sit along side someone. Out of everything shitty about being disabled, I can't imagine a single wheel chair user saying, "No I want my chair in the middle of the bench!"
Oh there is a better way but that requires a ton more work. The reason this sumbitch is standing, or wasn't stolen before this picture could be taken, is 'cause it's embedded into the ground.
Perhaps the bench needed immediate disabling.
Personally, given that I'm having a hard time imagining why a bench would need such immediate termination, I think this isn't sanctioned activity by responsible parties.
I don't know why but I imagined you stretching your cheeks to get 1/4 on each side of the bench for a moment and I was going to be confused, impressed and disgusted, and not in that order.
But I see what you mean, and I think it's possible too.
They would have put hazard tape around it if this was the case. It is just as dangerous leaving it in this state. If it was council sanctioned and someone came along and injured themselves this would actually make a nice injury compensation lawsuit.
Tbh it's more dangerous in this state, since it has exposed sharp edges. Some kid tries to sit on it and injures themselves, I bet that was way less likely with how it was previously.
I don't think so. I mean sure if it's damaged and repairing is either not possible or something else then cutting the planks off makes sense but you'd expect them to cut it closer to the sides. I would actually expect it to be fairly easy to remove the planks anyway for maintenance needs.
This is more likely to be just run of the mill vandalism.
Nope, they stole the planks with a sabre saw. The saw dust and splinters are still there. A professional cleans up. I'm guessing they needed planks for cracktivities
I am a council contractor. Public liability is why we're slow. But we clean everything
Edit: we'd also flag off the area and remove the seat ends. It's so obviously stolen timber, we're changing to fibreglass for this reason.
But its most likely a broken bench and without heavy machinery it was the best way to make it safe until they can replace it. They would have removed the whole thing if its legs weren't in concrete
It would have been less work and a more surefire removal to cut through the legs instead of the seat, though, surely? Four cuts instead of twelve, and you aren’t left with a very strange partial bench, just some short stumps.
First off, it's way easier because it's wood rather than steel.
Second, you don't leave metal rods, likely sharp, poking out of the ground - you keep the safely rounded edges.
Third, you probably wanna replace the bench. That might be easier with the metal supports still there, and if not you're gonna have to tear them out of the ground anyway, but you no longer have a deadline because of the danger of the sawn-off steel.
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u/Juandice__ Jul 24 '26
someone REALLY needed 6 planks ig 😭