At the root of this cru­el­ty, which treats the dis­pos­sessed like a pigeon infes­ta­tion – fed crumbs by the kind­ly mis­guid­ed, shooed away by the thought­less­ly indif­fer­ent and spiked by the inhu­man­ly prac­ti­cal – are wil­ful mis­con­cep­tions about home­less­ness: that it is a lifestyle choice, which odd­ly becomes more pop­u­lar dur­ing peri­ods of nation­wide eco­nom­ic ruin; that pover­ty is down to per­son­al fail­ure; that kind­ness per­pet­u­ates it; and, more than any mis­con­cep­tion, that good shel­ter is read­i­ly available.

Pow­er­ful com­men­tary on “defen­sive archi­tec­ture” and home­less­ness. Also pos­si­bly a case where a design­er delib­er­ate­ly chose to pro­duce some­thing dehumanising.

(via Spikes keep the home­less away, push­ing them fur­ther out of sight | Alex Andreou | Com­ment is free | theguardian.com)