Architecture designed to prevent homeless individuals from resting does nothing to solve the homelessness crisis. 

By Fiona Hagan

Slanted heating grate at the intersection of M Street and Wisconsin Avenue prevents unhoused individuals from resting on it for warmth. Photo Credit: Paige Kupas/The Hoya.

Have you ever noticed guarded storm grates, spikes on street corners, or slanted benches? These constructions are known as anti-homeless architecture, intended to prevent unhoused people from resting in public spaces. The phenomenon has plagued our communities as an attempt to conceal the homelessness epidemic, as opposed to solving the problem through combating skyrocketing rents, addiction, and mental illness. The architecture makes it clear that not all are welcome.

Carefully crafted exclusionary design choices are often overlooked by the average urban explorer. But for those that take a moment to observe, it becomes clear that something much more nefarious is bubbling under the surface of public park benches and grates. Also known as hostile architecture, anti-homeless public spaces include street dividers, boulders and spikes under bridges and rocky pavements that make rest so uncomfortable it is almost impossible.

These structures are not intended to keep communities safe– they actually do quite the opposite. By preventing homeless people from existing in public spaces these constructions often drive unhoused people into vastly more dangerous environments. Unhoused people are pushed away from health care and systems of support, and further into the grasp of poverty without any proximity to aid.

Treating the homelessness epidemic as an eyesore to be hidden rather than an ongoing disaster that requires time, money, and empathy to be solved only worsens the circumstances of unhoused individuals. Anti-homeless architecture further upholds the systems of inequality that have exacerbated this crisis for decades.

Christopher Rutledge, the Vice President of External Affairs at DC based organization Friendship Place, helps to provide housing services and vital resources for those experiencing homelessness. In his years as a leader in fighting homelessness he has witnessed hostile architecture in DC rise exponentially. “You see it on the subway benches and the park benches, particularly in Georgetown. They are not making it easy for people to just take a minute.” He sees this trend growing nation-wide: “It’s not just DC, it’s every city. It does have an impact and it sends a message to folks that are unhoused that you are not welcome here, and that’s truly dehumanizing.”

Hostile architecture is not only adverse to unhoused people, it has an acute impact on anyone attempting to exist in a public place. The usage of exclusionary design choices in public spaces often makes an area feel unwelcoming to all users, on top of the inequity that is upheld when design is used to intentionally make one group feel unsafe or uncomfortable. Gathering places are only valuable when elements of comfort and safety are prioritized for all. Through the usage of anti-homeless architecture, designers push a public area down to the lowest common denominator, rather than up the usability hierarchy to a position where both preferred and nonpreferred users feel both comfortable and safe.

While the elimination of hostile architecture can only be accomplished through local government, fostering empathy and awareness in ordinary citizens has a large place in the fight against homelessness. During his time as a leader at Friendship Place, Rutledge has grown to understand the importance of kindness and respect when interacting with unhoused individuals– something simple that is too often forgotten in the bustle of the city. “I had a colleague that spent six years homeless, and I asked him what do you do when you run into someone that’s unhoused on the street? And he said, look at them in the eye and say ‘hi.’ Because a thousand people have walked by that person today and ignored them. Just recognize that these are fellow human beings. Just recognize everyone’s common humanity.”