November 28, 2023 • 17 mins
On today's podcast, Host Ramses Ja offers his thoughts on a growing phenomenon in major urban cities, the use of hostile architecture.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
This is the Black Information Network Daily podcast, and I
am your host Ramse's job, and sometimes the amount of
stories that make their way to us means that we
simply can't cover everything that comes our way. But from
time to time, a story just stays with me and
I feel compelled to share it with you and give
you my thoughts. And now one more thing I don't know.
(00:38):
So earlier today, my producer Chris sent over an article
asking me if I had ever heard about hostile architecture,
and the truth is that I had. I've mentioned on
(00:59):
this show before that I spent many years, along with
my frequent collaborator q Ward, running a nonprofit where we
fed homeless people, and doing that, I realized just how
(01:19):
overlooked that population is. And that's not to say that
people are bad or people don't care. It's just that
everyone is so focused on themselves that it's hard to
imagine what life must be like for someone who has
no place to stay. And you could be forgiven if
this is your reality. I certainly had my eyes open there,
(01:42):
and as a result, I continued with that endeavor for
about ten years. Q and I we fed thousands of people,
we provided hygiene on and on until COVID happened and
the city of Phoenix rethought what a homeless encampment could
(02:03):
be and should be. So hostile architecture, what is it? Well,
I'll share a bit. This comes from the collector dot com.
Hostile architecture is the term used to describe an approach
to urban design that uses the built environment, for example, benches, ledges, hedges, lawns, walls,
et cetera, to purposefully guide or restrict behavior. Hostile architecture
(02:28):
is all around us, especially in cities, and once you've
learned the term is impossible not to notice it. Ever
waited for a bus on a bench you can't sit on,
but only rest against. That's hostile architecture. Ever seen those
spikes on the ground in the city center, That's hostile architecture.
In both cases, the primary goal is to stop homeless
(02:49):
people or people who want to loiter in the street
from getting too comfortable. In other cases, the targets are
other groups. Skateboarders are kept away from tempting obstacles to
jumped over, to jump over or grind down, such as
stone benches, by the insertion of small metal spikes between
the slabs of stone so for our purposes today, we
(03:13):
are going to talk about the specific type of hostile
architecture that affects the unsheltered. And I feel like I'm
a person who could have this conversation relatively easily because
I've worked very closely with this population for a decent
amount of time. Ten years is a good amount of time.
(03:35):
We've heard a lot of stories. We've done our best
to help a lot of people, not just with food
and a hygiene kit. And this is all verifiable. You
can look this up yourself if you so choose. So
there's definitely an argument that says, well, you know, we
can't have people just sleeping around, defecating around owned you know,
(04:02):
leaving trash in these encampments around and still have a
nice urban environment, an urban you know, have it be
an urban planning success. It doesn't work that way. You
can't have it both ways. Add to that that, a
lot of times homeless populations come with certain criminal behaviors
(04:23):
and maybe drug use, this sort of thing. And you know,
these are all valid talking points. You know, I suppose
you know, I can't argue against that. You know, obviously
there's there's a lot you could do, a lot better
than replan the urban environment if you wanted to really
(04:45):
address the root cause of homelessness in this country. But
you know, for the purposes of this conversation, the people
that are in a position to affect the way things
flow in an urban environment are taking this form of
direct action against that type of behavior in the environments
that they have this degree of influence. And for the
(05:06):
rest of us who aren't homeless, or have not experienced
homeless or likely will never experience homelessness, this seems like, Okay, well,
you know, these are people that probably need this type
of motivation if they can't find a comfortable place to sleep,
maybe it will motivate them to get out of their situation.
(05:29):
Or this will prevent other people from becoming homeless in
the future because they will have grown up in an
environment with hostile architecture and they will know exactly how
quote unquote hard the streets really are. And you could
(05:51):
be forgiven for assuming both of these things, because again,
in your mind, homelessness is very far away from your reality.
But what I want to do today is leave you
with a thought experiment just so that you can understand
(06:12):
exactly how close homelessness is. For a lot of people.
You know. Granted, there are some people who severely dealing
with severe mental challenges. There's some people who have challenges
with abuse, some people who have a whole plethora of
challenges that they have to deal with. And it's understandable that,
(06:35):
you know, most people might want professionals to deal with that.
They themselves do not feel equipped to deal with that
in their neighborhoods or in their environments where they work,
and they might feel afraid or uncomfortable having to confront
that type of behavior that's beyond their frame of reference
(06:57):
and their capacity to influence. But a good number of
people who are experiencing homelessness have fallen through these gaping
cracks in society. And while these gaping cracks affect a
(07:20):
lot of people, the vast majority of us may never
experience it. So again, it's very easy for us to
just look at this type of behavior and say, Okay,
maybe this will be a good thing. It'll prevent homelessness,
or it will prevent loitering, it will prevent people from
sleeping here. But again, for this thought experiment, I just
(07:42):
want you to follow me and put yourself in a
different space and then see if you still feel the
same way. So let's start here. What if you're a
single woman with a child. Okay, single women with children exist.
(08:09):
Let's say you work full time and you make fourteen
dollars an hour. It's not a lot of money, but
you have a job, you're taking care of business. That's
just how it goes. Make fourteen dollars an hour. You
bring home roughly eight hundred dollars every couple of weeks.
So let's talk about your bills. Bills are thousand dollars
a month for rent, one hundred and fifty dollars for electrical,
two hundred and fifty dollars for a car payment, maybe
(08:32):
another one hundred and fifty for car insurance, and we'll
stop there. So let's do the math. Bring home about
sixteen hundred dollars a month, and your bills average about
fifteen fifty give or take. Now, this doesn't include groceries, internet, cable,
cell phone, and to be fair, it doesn't include you know,
a child tax credit. It doesn't include any set sort
of child support anything like that. But this is about
(08:56):
where we are. There are people live in these circumstances,
not bad people didn't do anything wrong. They're not criminals,
they're not coming to get you, they're not drug addicts,
they're not whatever the stereotypical homeless person would be. In fact,
you might look at this person and applaud them. They
(09:17):
are pulling themselves up by their bootstraps, as it were.
They're making do they're getting by, and a lot of
people are getting by. So this is you. Okay, nothing
wrong yet, but let's get dig a little deeper here. Okay,
so let's say it's a really cold winter where you live,
(09:41):
and you get a power bill for six hundred dollars.
How do you pay that? You and I know that
you can't pay that, right, it's just not in the budget.
So your power gets shut off, right and as your
lease says that you can get evicted if your utilities
(10:03):
are terminated. Uh oh, So now you're in court with
a judge who doesn't care because technically speaking, you're in
violation of a contract and you have ten days to
get out. So let's say there's a little bit of
(10:23):
luck here. You find a place that's now only six
hundred and fifty dollars a month. Okay, it's a cheaper place.
You're downgrading, but at least you'll be able to afford
keeping the heat on. The problem is to get in,
you have to pass a background check and a credit check,
which you now can't because you just got evicted. It's
(10:44):
never been a criminal. But even if you could pass it,
you're looking at thirteen hundred dollars to move in after
paying the deposit in first month's rent, and that ten
days is coming fast. So well, now time's up. Landlord
shows up. It's seven in the morning with the police
(11:04):
and they change the locks. So what does this mean
for you? Well, now you are living in your car
with your seven year old and your clothes and whatever
else you could fit in the back of your car.
You lose everything else. Forget about getting a storage unit
because you don't have a billing address anymore, so they're
(11:26):
not going to rent to you. And on top of that,
you probably couldn't afford it anyway. So let's say you
paid a shower at truck stops and you eat gas
station food. Right, someone sees you and your son living
like that, and so they call child protective Services. So
you know what comes next. They take your child away
(11:47):
from you. Now, if you're a person that loves your
child like I do. It would be devastating. And if
that wasn't devastating enough, you're going to lose your job too,
because an employee losing a child living out a car
reflects poorly on the company, or there's some other factors.
(12:11):
I've been missing work because I've been trying to put
out these fires in my life because it was there
was an unexpected heating bill. So now you apply for
an apartment where you can qualify. There's like a special
apartment complex that will allow for the sort of circumstances
(12:36):
that you're dealing with, but there's a long waiting list,
so it's not like you can get in there right now.
So what do you do. Well, let me get a job,
let me make the best of this, let me figure
something else out. I lost my job. I need to
get another job. So you go to on a Walmart,
put in an application, and just for the sake of the story,
(12:57):
let's say you get back to your car and you
see that your back windows been smashed and someone took
everything that you had in the back of the car.
Remember it's cold outside, so now you have damage to
your only shelter. But remember you paid car insurance one
(13:17):
hundred and fifty dollars a month, I think it was.
So let's call the insurance company so I can get
this window fixed, you know, soldier on stiff upper lip.
Let's go. And then the insurance company reminds you that
you're deductible as one thousand dollars and on top of that,
they're going to increase your monthly rate since you're now
high risk. So what do you do. You call the
(13:44):
shelter and as a last resort, say can I come
and stay somewhere where it's warm until I figured this out?
And they say all of our beds are full. Now
imagine that happening to someone black, because, as you know,
(14:07):
as you may know, that might be even tougher and
you end up homeless, end up on the street. The
bathroom is the closest place that you can find to
go to the bathroom. You know, you park your car
in the wrong place, it gets towed. You know, it's
(14:30):
very very easy for well intentioned, well meaning individuals to
fall through these gaping cracks in society. And this is
just a thought experiment. This had anything to do with
someone getting sick, having an unexpected hospital bill, a change
in a family dynamic, someone escaping abuse, and none of
these things, then there's a hundred other reasons that people
(14:50):
might find themselves in a tough spot. So we're talking
about hostile architecture, and I think now you start to
understand the intersection of people who want to have nice,
pretty neighborhoods and flowing urban environments and the reality of
(15:14):
the human experience for a lot of people. And you
got to bear in mind that once you become homeless,
a lot of stuff changes in terms of people's opinions
and attitudes towards you. If someone's having a tough time,
(15:34):
they're having a tough time. If some homeless person is
having a tough time, as soon as you find out
that they're homeless, you know, you may be one of
those people that kind of winces at that. And even
if you aren't, you do understand that there are people
who do, and that's how they can get things like
(15:54):
hostile architecture off the ground. We don't even want you
to sleep here. It doesn't matter how close your job is,
it doesn't matter what you're trying to do. We assume
that you talk to yourself and that you're always high
on drugs and drinking and that you are menace to society.
And most people that I found who are homeless are
(16:17):
not like that. I'll be fair. There are definitely some,
but we have a lot of problems to fix before
we rethink architecture. And the truth of the matter is
that maybe this architecture money could be put toward maybe
(16:37):
fixing some of these problems, patching some of these cracks
in society. Now, these are my thoughts. As always, you're
welcome to share yours, and you can do so using
the red microphone talkback feature on the iHeartRadio app, or
of course, you can reach out at Ramse's Job on
all social media platforms and we can have this discussion
(16:58):
there we do. This has been a production of the
Black Information Network. Today's show is produced by Chris Thompson.
Have some thoughts you'd like to share, use the red
microphone talkback feature on the iHeartRadio app. While you're there,
be sure to hit subscribe and download all of our episodes.
I'm your host Ramsey's Jah on all social media. Join
(17:20):
us tomorrow as we share our news with our voice
from our perspective right here on the Black Information Network
Daily Podcast
This is the Black Information Network Daily podcast, and I
am your host Ramse's job, and sometimes the amount of
stories that make their way to us means that we
simply can't cover everything that comes our way. But from
time to time, a story just stays with me and
I feel compelled to share it with you and give
you my thoughts. And now one more thing I don't know.
(00:38):
So earlier today, my producer Chris sent over an article
asking me if I had ever heard about hostile architecture,
and the truth is that I had. I've mentioned on
(00:59):
this show before that I spent many years, along with
my frequent collaborator q Ward, running a nonprofit where we
fed homeless people, and doing that, I realized just how
(01:19):
overlooked that population is. And that's not to say that
people are bad or people don't care. It's just that
everyone is so focused on themselves that it's hard to
imagine what life must be like for someone who has
no place to stay. And you could be forgiven if
this is your reality. I certainly had my eyes open there,
(01:42):
and as a result, I continued with that endeavor for
about ten years. Q and I we fed thousands of people,
we provided hygiene on and on until COVID happened and
the city of Phoenix rethought what a homeless encampment could
(02:03):
be and should be. So hostile architecture, what is it? Well,
I'll share a bit. This comes from the collector dot com.
Hostile architecture is the term used to describe an approach
to urban design that uses the built environment, for example, benches, ledges, hedges, lawns, walls,
et cetera, to purposefully guide or restrict behavior. Hostile architecture
(02:28):
is all around us, especially in cities, and once you've
learned the term is impossible not to notice it. Ever
waited for a bus on a bench you can't sit on,
but only rest against. That's hostile architecture. Ever seen those
spikes on the ground in the city center, That's hostile architecture.
In both cases, the primary goal is to stop homeless
(02:49):
people or people who want to loiter in the street
from getting too comfortable. In other cases, the targets are
other groups. Skateboarders are kept away from tempting obstacles to
jumped over, to jump over or grind down, such as
stone benches, by the insertion of small metal spikes between
the slabs of stone so for our purposes today, we
(03:13):
are going to talk about the specific type of hostile
architecture that affects the unsheltered. And I feel like I'm
a person who could have this conversation relatively easily because
I've worked very closely with this population for a decent
amount of time. Ten years is a good amount of time.
(03:35):
We've heard a lot of stories. We've done our best
to help a lot of people, not just with food
and a hygiene kit. And this is all verifiable. You
can look this up yourself if you so choose. So
there's definitely an argument that says, well, you know, we
can't have people just sleeping around, defecating around owned you know,
(04:02):
leaving trash in these encampments around and still have a
nice urban environment, an urban you know, have it be
an urban planning success. It doesn't work that way. You
can't have it both ways. Add to that that, a
lot of times homeless populations come with certain criminal behaviors
(04:23):
and maybe drug use, this sort of thing. And you know,
these are all valid talking points. You know, I suppose
you know, I can't argue against that. You know, obviously
there's there's a lot you could do, a lot better
than replan the urban environment if you wanted to really
(04:45):
address the root cause of homelessness in this country. But
you know, for the purposes of this conversation, the people
that are in a position to affect the way things
flow in an urban environment are taking this form of
direct action against that type of behavior in the environments
that they have this degree of influence. And for the
(05:06):
rest of us who aren't homeless, or have not experienced
homeless or likely will never experience homelessness, this seems like, Okay, well,
you know, these are people that probably need this type
of motivation if they can't find a comfortable place to sleep,
maybe it will motivate them to get out of their situation.
(05:29):
Or this will prevent other people from becoming homeless in
the future because they will have grown up in an
environment with hostile architecture and they will know exactly how
quote unquote hard the streets really are. And you could
(05:51):
be forgiven for assuming both of these things, because again,
in your mind, homelessness is very far away from your reality.
But what I want to do today is leave you
with a thought experiment just so that you can understand
(06:12):
exactly how close homelessness is. For a lot of people.
You know. Granted, there are some people who severely dealing
with severe mental challenges. There's some people who have challenges
with abuse, some people who have a whole plethora of
challenges that they have to deal with. And it's understandable that,
(06:35):
you know, most people might want professionals to deal with that.
They themselves do not feel equipped to deal with that
in their neighborhoods or in their environments where they work,
and they might feel afraid or uncomfortable having to confront
that type of behavior that's beyond their frame of reference
(06:57):
and their capacity to influence. But a good number of
people who are experiencing homelessness have fallen through these gaping
cracks in society. And while these gaping cracks affect a
(07:20):
lot of people, the vast majority of us may never
experience it. So again, it's very easy for us to
just look at this type of behavior and say, Okay,
maybe this will be a good thing. It'll prevent homelessness,
or it will prevent loitering, it will prevent people from
sleeping here. But again, for this thought experiment, I just
(07:42):
want you to follow me and put yourself in a
different space and then see if you still feel the
same way. So let's start here. What if you're a
single woman with a child. Okay, single women with children exist.
(08:09):
Let's say you work full time and you make fourteen
dollars an hour. It's not a lot of money, but
you have a job, you're taking care of business. That's
just how it goes. Make fourteen dollars an hour. You
bring home roughly eight hundred dollars every couple of weeks.
So let's talk about your bills. Bills are thousand dollars
a month for rent, one hundred and fifty dollars for electrical,
two hundred and fifty dollars for a car payment, maybe
(08:32):
another one hundred and fifty for car insurance, and we'll
stop there. So let's do the math. Bring home about
sixteen hundred dollars a month, and your bills average about
fifteen fifty give or take. Now, this doesn't include groceries, internet, cable,
cell phone, and to be fair, it doesn't include you know,
a child tax credit. It doesn't include any set sort
of child support anything like that. But this is about
(08:56):
where we are. There are people live in these circumstances,
not bad people didn't do anything wrong. They're not criminals,
they're not coming to get you, they're not drug addicts,
they're not whatever the stereotypical homeless person would be. In fact,
you might look at this person and applaud them. They
(09:17):
are pulling themselves up by their bootstraps, as it were.
They're making do they're getting by, and a lot of
people are getting by. So this is you. Okay, nothing
wrong yet, but let's get dig a little deeper here. Okay,
so let's say it's a really cold winter where you live,
(09:41):
and you get a power bill for six hundred dollars.
How do you pay that? You and I know that
you can't pay that, right, it's just not in the budget.
So your power gets shut off, right and as your
lease says that you can get evicted if your utilities
(10:03):
are terminated. Uh oh, So now you're in court with
a judge who doesn't care because technically speaking, you're in
violation of a contract and you have ten days to
get out. So let's say there's a little bit of
(10:23):
luck here. You find a place that's now only six
hundred and fifty dollars a month. Okay, it's a cheaper place.
You're downgrading, but at least you'll be able to afford
keeping the heat on. The problem is to get in,
you have to pass a background check and a credit check,
which you now can't because you just got evicted. It's
(10:44):
never been a criminal. But even if you could pass it,
you're looking at thirteen hundred dollars to move in after
paying the deposit in first month's rent, and that ten
days is coming fast. So well, now time's up. Landlord
shows up. It's seven in the morning with the police
(11:04):
and they change the locks. So what does this mean
for you? Well, now you are living in your car
with your seven year old and your clothes and whatever
else you could fit in the back of your car.
You lose everything else. Forget about getting a storage unit
because you don't have a billing address anymore, so they're
(11:26):
not going to rent to you. And on top of that,
you probably couldn't afford it anyway. So let's say you
paid a shower at truck stops and you eat gas
station food. Right, someone sees you and your son living
like that, and so they call child protective Services. So
you know what comes next. They take your child away
(11:47):
from you. Now, if you're a person that loves your
child like I do. It would be devastating. And if
that wasn't devastating enough, you're going to lose your job too,
because an employee losing a child living out a car
reflects poorly on the company, or there's some other factors.
(12:11):
I've been missing work because I've been trying to put
out these fires in my life because it was there
was an unexpected heating bill. So now you apply for
an apartment where you can qualify. There's like a special
apartment complex that will allow for the sort of circumstances
(12:36):
that you're dealing with, but there's a long waiting list,
so it's not like you can get in there right now.
So what do you do. Well, let me get a job,
let me make the best of this, let me figure
something else out. I lost my job. I need to
get another job. So you go to on a Walmart,
put in an application, and just for the sake of the story,
(12:57):
let's say you get back to your car and you
see that your back windows been smashed and someone took
everything that you had in the back of the car.
Remember it's cold outside, so now you have damage to
your only shelter. But remember you paid car insurance one
(13:17):
hundred and fifty dollars a month, I think it was.
So let's call the insurance company so I can get
this window fixed, you know, soldier on stiff upper lip.
Let's go. And then the insurance company reminds you that
you're deductible as one thousand dollars and on top of that,
they're going to increase your monthly rate since you're now
high risk. So what do you do. You call the
(13:44):
shelter and as a last resort, say can I come
and stay somewhere where it's warm until I figured this out?
And they say all of our beds are full. Now
imagine that happening to someone black, because, as you know,
(14:07):
as you may know, that might be even tougher and
you end up homeless, end up on the street. The
bathroom is the closest place that you can find to
go to the bathroom. You know, you park your car
in the wrong place, it gets towed. You know, it's
(14:30):
very very easy for well intentioned, well meaning individuals to
fall through these gaping cracks in society. And this is
just a thought experiment. This had anything to do with
someone getting sick, having an unexpected hospital bill, a change
in a family dynamic, someone escaping abuse, and none of
these things, then there's a hundred other reasons that people
(14:50):
might find themselves in a tough spot. So we're talking
about hostile architecture, and I think now you start to
understand the intersection of people who want to have nice,
pretty neighborhoods and flowing urban environments and the reality of
(15:14):
the human experience for a lot of people. And you
got to bear in mind that once you become homeless,
a lot of stuff changes in terms of people's opinions
and attitudes towards you. If someone's having a tough time,
(15:34):
they're having a tough time. If some homeless person is
having a tough time, as soon as you find out
that they're homeless, you know, you may be one of
those people that kind of winces at that. And even
if you aren't, you do understand that there are people
who do, and that's how they can get things like
(15:54):
hostile architecture off the ground. We don't even want you
to sleep here. It doesn't matter how close your job is,
it doesn't matter what you're trying to do. We assume
that you talk to yourself and that you're always high
on drugs and drinking and that you are menace to society.
And most people that I found who are homeless are
(16:17):
not like that. I'll be fair. There are definitely some,
but we have a lot of problems to fix before
we rethink architecture. And the truth of the matter is
that maybe this architecture money could be put toward maybe
(16:37):
fixing some of these problems, patching some of these cracks
in society. Now, these are my thoughts. As always, you're
welcome to share yours, and you can do so using
the red microphone talkback feature on the iHeartRadio app, or
of course, you can reach out at Ramse's Job on
all social media platforms and we can have this discussion
(16:58):
there we do. This has been a production of the
Black Information Network. Today's show is produced by Chris Thompson.
Have some thoughts you'd like to share, use the red
microphone talkback feature on the iHeartRadio app. While you're there,
be sure to hit subscribe and download all of our episodes.
I'm your host Ramsey's Jah on all social media. Join
(17:20):
us tomorrow as we share our news with our voice
from our perspective right here on the Black Information Network
Daily Podcast
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.