When I moved to New York City in 2012, Penn Station contained actual benches where people could sit, or – gasp! – actually lie down. Sometime between then and 2019, the station was “renovated,” and anything you could lie down on was replaced with intentionally uncomfortable chairs and benches, all of which had armrests that purposely prevented reclining.
This was but the most recent manifestation of New York City’s love affair with hostile architecture. From the time I moved there until the time I left, I never got over how staunchly liberal New Yorkers nevertheless did their best to make life impossible for the disadvantaged and disabled.
In their quest to deter the visibly homeless, cities are happy to accept the needs of those with sitting disabilities (and other physical limitations) as collateral damage. In this velvet-gloved war, cities employ both design and the law to reserve public spaces for able-bodied, and preferably wealthy, citizens.
Designed to Send a Message: Go Away
New York City isn’t the only offender, just the one I’m most familiar with. Cities across the country have done their best to make sure the homeless can’t get too comfortable. But anti-homeless measures are, by definition, anti-human.
One of the most common, and most vexing, hostile design practices is to divide up every bench using armrests, dividers, or sloped seat angles, to prevent people from doing anything but sitting. If you have a sitting disability, you see the problem.
Ironically, some cities position these changes as ways to improve accessibility and inclusivity.
In other cases, cities remove benches altogether, and sometimes place rocks, spikes, or planters on any ledges or bits of sidewalk that allow people to lie down. This is less hypocritical than the divided benches, although no less vexing.
But even assuming you’ve found an appropriate place to lie down, or you were smart enough to bring a portable reclining chair with you, you may still find yourself answering to a police officer.
Lying Down is Now a Crime
In December of 2019, The National Homelessness Law Center published a report entitled Housing Not Handcuffs 2019: Ending the Criminalization of Homelessness in American Cities. They looked at 187 cities, and analyzed the laws intended to publish homelessness.
If you start poking into laws criminalizing homelessness, your faith in humanity is bound to slip a few notches. And sure enough, the report is a depressing catalogue of short-sighted anti-homeless measures.
Bans on life-sustaining activities such as sleeping and sharing food are shockingly common. People who cover themselves with a blanket in public, or park overnight in a vehicle, may find themselves targeted by the police.
Regardless of your opinions on anti-homeless policies, it’s clear that enacting laws that make essential life functions difficult for one group of people end up making life difficult for everyone. Particularly those with physical limitations, who – God forbid – might need to rest in public.
Some choice statistics, which are relevant to those with sitting disabilities, include:
- 55% of cities included in the analysis had laws that prevented sitting and/or lying down in public.
- The number of such laws has increased by 78% since 2006.
- 7% of cities prohibited sitting or lying down anywhere in public.
- 51% of included cities had laws against sleeping in public.
- 1 in 85 people with disabilities lived in homeless shelters, compared to 1 in 344 adults without disabilities.
If I may return to picking on New York City (one of my favorite pastimes), the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) in particular has gone out of its way to make itself unusable to anyone with sitting disabilities.
Riders on the New York City subway are subject to a fine if they take up more than one seat, and are not allowed to lie down anywhere. Not on the train, not on the platform, and not in the station.
Even putting one’s foot on a seat is prohibited, which makes me wonder: Does the MTA not want people to tie their shoes?
Thanks, MTA. Your rules are super practical and disability-friendly.
Laws against lying down are particularly detrimental to those with sitting disabilities, who have no other options for rest. As I’ve written, prolonged standing causes its own health problems.
If a person can’t sit, can’t stand, and is legally prohibited from lying down, they are effectively banned from appearing in public at all.
Homelessness and Disability
And then, there is the sad place where disability and homelessness intersect. There are no stats specifically about homelessness and sitting disabilities, and I’m not aware of any anecdotal examples, so it’s impossible for me to estimate the scope of the problem.
Personally, I find it incomprehensible that a person could survive homelessness, let alone climb out of it, when they aren’t able to sit down.
Despite the lack of data on sitting disabilities, there is a solid association between homelessness and physical disabilities in general. The problem can be summed up as: Disabled people can’t afford rent.
An August 2018 report from the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness, entitled Homelessness in America: Focus on Chronic Homelessness Among People with Disabilities, says that a full quarter of the homeless population is made up of disabled, chronically homeless people.
Data from Los Angeles, which hosts the largest unsheltered homeless population in the U.S., shows that people with physical disabilities (a category which excludes mental illness and substance use) make up 19% of the unsheltered homeless, and a staggering 43% of those experiencing chronic homelessness.
In San Francisco, 23% of the chronically homeless report having a physical disability.
Another report in the series, Homelessness in America: Focus on Individual Adults, neatly summed up the obstacles faced by those with disabilities:
People with disabilities who rely on income from SSI benefits face significant challenges getting and keeping housing because fair market rents for modest apartments are higher than the total amount of SSI benefits in many parts of the country. The national average rent for a modest one-bedroom apartment is equal to 113% of the average SSI benefit for a single individual.
Homelessness is not exactly conducive to taking care of one’s health, and local governments can make things worse. When city police forces take action against the homeless, those with disabilities can lose access to medications, medical records, identification documents, and assistive devices.
In one particularly galling case, members of the Boston Police Department, who were conducting a sweep on a homeless camp, seized three wheelchairs and crushed them in the back of a garbage truck, then ordered their users to move away from a nearby medical center.
While those with sitting disabilities are unlikely to worry about their wheelchairs, this incident underscores the basic point that cities regard medical equipment as disposable if it belongs to the homeless.
I Support This Hostile Architecture Element, Because It Supports Me
However, I do want to defend one much-maligned hostile architecture element: leaning bars. I’ve spent a good portion of my excessive standing time ruminating about the vast difference between leaning against something and standing unsupported. I wish these leaning bars were available in waiting rooms, trains, and restaurants the world over.
Some detractors say that these bars offer no advantage over leaning against the wall. To them I say: Have you ever seen NYC’s subway walls? If so, how could you possibly suggest touching them?
Another, more reasonable criticism is that these bars are a poor substitute for more benches, and are not friendly to the elderly and disabled.
Even when I was able to sit, I was never brave enough to sit on the NYC subway benches. Any courage I had left me after a friend told me the story of how a homeless man stared right into her eyes as he took a dump on one of these benches. It was an experience my friend described as, “Somehow more violating than rape.”
This is a perfect segue into another complaint I have about NYC: Where are all the public bathrooms? No one has ever argued that a subway bench is the ideal place to do one’s business.
But city planners seem to operate under the assumption that, if they remove toilets, they will also eliminate people’s need to eliminate waste. Maybe if there was a working toilet available, people would poop there, instead of on a subway bench.
Anyway, I digress. My main point here is that the elderly and mobility-impaired have a hard enough time getting around in New York City as it is. Is it so unreasonable to have benches, so that those who need to sit can do so? And those who need to lie down can do so?
For the record, I am 100% in support of benches made from easy-to-clean materials.
My Benevolent Decrees as World Leader
Once I’ve taken over the world, Pinky-and-the-Brain-style, I’ll issue the following decrees:
- All people have the right to lie down in public places, so long as they’re not putting anyone’s health at risk. (Lying down in traffic intersections is still a stupid idea.)
- Benches – sans armrests – should be widely and freely available in public spaces.
- A mixture of seating options – including leaning bars – should be available in public spaces.
- Sleeping is not a criminal activity.
- Sanitary bathrooms should be free, widely available, and open to the public.
- No one can take medical equipment from homeless people.
- MTA, you’re done. We’re redoing Penn Station again.
