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Comment by tiahura | Hacker News Reader

Shouldn’t the strategy be to disincentivize bums congregating in your neighborhood?

These are people with a life and feelings and needs just as much as you. If you were in a rough situation and needed some help, how would it feel to have people dehumanise you with comments like this as if you’re some sort of pest and just want you to go away somewhere else instead of helping?

All of this is easy to say when you're personally not affected by them.

But is that really a good enough reason to dehumanise people? Because them existing annoys you?

How do "they" affect you, poor soul?

They shit and piss on the sidewalk. They yell profanities at people walking by. The (occasionally at least) assault people.

How do they not affect you?

Hours of blood-curdling screaming in the middle of the night, waking up people who are trying to get sleep before going to work. But I can tell from your tone that you've already decided you don't care about anything the homeless might do to other people.

Average rent in London is over $2,000 per month. You don’t have to be a bum to be homeless.

and median income in London appears to be ~41K GBP, so that rent would be about 80% of the income. No wonder there's lots of homelessness.

If you can’t buy boots, you can just buy the laces, so there’s no excuse to avoid pulling yourself up by your bootstraps #sarcasm

Yes, the solution must be to redirect homeless elsewhere so they're no longer your problem, instead of actually helping people.

Maybe the strategy should be more to incentivize people to live more safely and comfortably in nature and less in their boxes of inordinate consumption.

Homelessness could become a good thing, if we get our tech right.

(Disclaimer: Tree-hugging hippy who believes we should be dropping Kelly Kettles, not bombs..)

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