Dismantle Hostile Architecture
Local Governments in the Bay Area (e.g. London Breed, Libby Schaaf, Jesse Arreguin)
Hostile architecture is a type of architecture that is designed to restrict people from using public spaces and targets the unhoused population, as well as the youth and the poor. It is often disguised as decoration or art, but its exclusive intentions remain. Ultimately, hostile architecture is a surface-level “solution” that actually ignores the root causes of inequality and promotes hatred and dehumanization of vulnerable populations, especially the unhoused. It only reduces options for protection from the increasingly difficult conditions of climate change, such as worsening weather and air pollution. It also strips the unhoused population of basic human rights like shelter and criminalizes them rather than providing solutions, even though no one chooses to be unhoused.
In the San Francisco Bay Area, hostile architecture is especially harmful due to the large unhoused population residing here as a result of the high cost of living here as well as the effects of economic inequality. That is why we are asking you to sign this petition to remove already existing hostile architecture, come up with guidelines to stop the implementation of new hostile architecture, and to move the Community Action Response Team (CART), a street response and community building team funded by San Francisco Government, to become a part of the San Francisco Department of Public Health. These actions will help treat the unhoused population with more compassion.
Petition by
To:
Local Governments in the Bay Area (e.g. London Breed, Libby Schaaf, Jesse Arreguin)
From:
[Your Name]
To whom this may concern:
I am writing to you since you are the point person in my city who can influence needed changes.
Hostile architecture is a type of architecture that is designed to restrict people from using public spaces and targets the unhoused population, as well as the youth and the poor. It is all over the Bay Area at almost every park, bus stop, and other places where you would expect reliable seating and a place to rest. People have become so accustomed to its sight that they now barely take notice, except when they themselves need a comfortable place to sit for a few minutes. The discomfort is short-lived: after a few minutes, they are free to find more comfortable seating in a cafe or set off toward their homes where a soft couch or bed awaits them. The unhoused population don’t have that option: they can only rely on public spaces to sit, which are now rife with hostile architecture; so finding a comfortable resting spot is nearly impossible.
Anti-homeless sentiment runs deep in the city, but the justifications ring hollow. Hostile architecture needs to be removed as soon as possible. Unhoused people are human and therefore must have a place to rest and to sleep. Setting up this architecture does nothing to actually address the issue of homelessness; it just further divides people, feeds into discrimination, and puts a genteel facade over the cracks in our society. If you continue to promote and support the use of hostile architecture, then your mandate is to provide alternative spaces for the unhoused to go so that they can sit, rest, and lie down in peace, as all human beings require. Trying to shuffle them from one inhospitable public space to another accomplishes nothing but makes their already fraught lives all the more difficult.
The power to make change is in your hands. The unhoused are humans, just like you and me. They don’t deserve to be treated like unwanted inconveniences and that starts by abolishing hostile architecture in the Bay Area.
Our ask is for you to stop the implementation of new hostile architecture, remove currently existing hostile architecture, and move the Community Action Response Team (CART), a street response and community building team funded by the city, to become a part of the San Francisco Department of Public Health. These actions will help treat unhoused people with more compassion.