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Well, briefly, it was the war over tired bums, wasn’t it, and who is worthy to occupy a seat in the public realm?
Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson put to rest a bubbling controversy Tuesday when he announced that Ogilvy Square, now being constructed at the Nicholas Street end of the Rideau Centre, would indeed get bench seating.
The pleasant-looking pedestrian plaza, an outdoor oasis on the south side of Rideau, was originally designed without permanent seating, for fear the homeless and street people would congregate — my God, Martha, they’re sitting down! — and create a nuisance.
Credit to His Worship for not letting this fester. If you can afford $300 shoes at Nordstrom, being asked for a quarter by a straggly street kid will probably not result in lasting trauma.
The matter does speak, however, to the ongoing stigma attached to the homeless who, by the way, pretty much sit in all kinds of public spaces, bench or no bench, at all hours of the day and night, no invitation needed.
We just can’t figure out “what to do” with the homeless, can we?
Recall the flap in Kingston when the governing board proposed a new code of conduct for users of the public library. Instead of “everyone welcome”, it asked loiterers and smelly people to stay away. Gee, wonder who that was aimed at?
The message in the Ogilvy Square issue to me is this: we still live at a time when some don’t want to provide benches for the homeless, some don’t want to sit with the homeless — anywhere — and yet others don’t want to even look at the homeless.
Mike Bulthuis, executive director of Alliance to End Homelessness Ottawa, said he was surprised to hear about the “bench ban” in the original plan.
“I thought we had moved beyond that, to be honest. I thought that creating public spaces, driven by a fear of who might use them, is the opposite of what we’re trying to do in creating great public squares and enticing a mix and a diversity of people to use them.”
Look, he said, at Times Square in New York City. So we did. In June 2009, it was closed to traffic and, within a couple of days, brightly coloured plastic lawn chairs began cropping up all over the square. Within a week, the New York Times reported, you couldn’t find a seat. Tourists sat with their coffee; office workers sat with their lunch; some business dudes pulled chairs in a circle to have a meeting.
It is one of the great gathering places in the world — of course people wanted to sit.
Honestly, do you know who would suffer most if benches did not exist at Ogilvy Square? Senior citizens and those with mobility problems.
A couple of years ago, my buddy Joe, who keeps an eye on all-things Rideau, called to complain about the new bus shelters that had gone up along the street. Problem? No seating in the glass enclosures. (This has since been corrected.)
In his early 70s, he reminded us all of the importance of seating to transit-going seniors: they may be carrying heavy bags; the bus may be late; the legs may be wonky; the breath might be short; the weather might be terrible. They need regular pause-stops.
So, it clearly makes no sense to minimize the nuisance problem associated with street people by denying seating to everybody else.
The labels aren’t helpful either. I know first-hand, for instance, that some panhandlers in this city are not homeless at all. They’re just poor. Half the so-called “street kids” look as though they’ve just bused in from Kanata. Rideau Street is a bubbling cauldron of people, the mall a hive of humanity: it is hardly the state’s place to say who can and can’t sit in a public place.
“That’s good news,” said Deirdre Freiheit, chief executive at Shepherds of Good Hope, upon hearing of Watson’s intervention.
She recalled an insight passed along by Shepherds founder Sheila Burnett. “There’s lots of food in this city. But the ‘poverty of loneliness’ is a bigger issue. And that’s why you put benches in public places.”
Imagine. Helping marginal people, “your tired, your hungry, your huddled masses,” feel a part of something bigger, be part of a crowd.
Y’all know this. It was never really about a bench. It was about the same seat for everyone.
To contact Kelly Egan, please call 613-726-5896 or email kegan@postmedia.com
Twitter.com/kellyegancolumn
查看原文...
Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson put to rest a bubbling controversy Tuesday when he announced that Ogilvy Square, now being constructed at the Nicholas Street end of the Rideau Centre, would indeed get bench seating.
The pleasant-looking pedestrian plaza, an outdoor oasis on the south side of Rideau, was originally designed without permanent seating, for fear the homeless and street people would congregate — my God, Martha, they’re sitting down! — and create a nuisance.
Credit to His Worship for not letting this fester. If you can afford $300 shoes at Nordstrom, being asked for a quarter by a straggly street kid will probably not result in lasting trauma.
The matter does speak, however, to the ongoing stigma attached to the homeless who, by the way, pretty much sit in all kinds of public spaces, bench or no bench, at all hours of the day and night, no invitation needed.
We just can’t figure out “what to do” with the homeless, can we?
Recall the flap in Kingston when the governing board proposed a new code of conduct for users of the public library. Instead of “everyone welcome”, it asked loiterers and smelly people to stay away. Gee, wonder who that was aimed at?
The message in the Ogilvy Square issue to me is this: we still live at a time when some don’t want to provide benches for the homeless, some don’t want to sit with the homeless — anywhere — and yet others don’t want to even look at the homeless.
Mike Bulthuis, executive director of Alliance to End Homelessness Ottawa, said he was surprised to hear about the “bench ban” in the original plan.
“I thought we had moved beyond that, to be honest. I thought that creating public spaces, driven by a fear of who might use them, is the opposite of what we’re trying to do in creating great public squares and enticing a mix and a diversity of people to use them.”
Look, he said, at Times Square in New York City. So we did. In June 2009, it was closed to traffic and, within a couple of days, brightly coloured plastic lawn chairs began cropping up all over the square. Within a week, the New York Times reported, you couldn’t find a seat. Tourists sat with their coffee; office workers sat with their lunch; some business dudes pulled chairs in a circle to have a meeting.
It is one of the great gathering places in the world — of course people wanted to sit.
Honestly, do you know who would suffer most if benches did not exist at Ogilvy Square? Senior citizens and those with mobility problems.
A couple of years ago, my buddy Joe, who keeps an eye on all-things Rideau, called to complain about the new bus shelters that had gone up along the street. Problem? No seating in the glass enclosures. (This has since been corrected.)
In his early 70s, he reminded us all of the importance of seating to transit-going seniors: they may be carrying heavy bags; the bus may be late; the legs may be wonky; the breath might be short; the weather might be terrible. They need regular pause-stops.
So, it clearly makes no sense to minimize the nuisance problem associated with street people by denying seating to everybody else.
The labels aren’t helpful either. I know first-hand, for instance, that some panhandlers in this city are not homeless at all. They’re just poor. Half the so-called “street kids” look as though they’ve just bused in from Kanata. Rideau Street is a bubbling cauldron of people, the mall a hive of humanity: it is hardly the state’s place to say who can and can’t sit in a public place.
“That’s good news,” said Deirdre Freiheit, chief executive at Shepherds of Good Hope, upon hearing of Watson’s intervention.
She recalled an insight passed along by Shepherds founder Sheila Burnett. “There’s lots of food in this city. But the ‘poverty of loneliness’ is a bigger issue. And that’s why you put benches in public places.”
Imagine. Helping marginal people, “your tired, your hungry, your huddled masses,” feel a part of something bigger, be part of a crowd.
Y’all know this. It was never really about a bench. It was about the same seat for everyone.
To contact Kelly Egan, please call 613-726-5896 or email kegan@postmedia.com
Twitter.com/kellyegancolumn
查看原文...
