Everyone wants to help, but “NIMBY”? Also, those of us that have been here a while know it wasn’t that long ago that the whole Armory neighborhood was like that. Now the gentrifiers are upset that it’s slightly like it used to be.

I’ll accept your assertions and say—sure, stepping over human feces sucks. The litter problem sucks. But when it comes down to it, I think we’d all agree that stepping in shit or seeing some garbage is WAY better than even one person freezing to death this winter.

I go to the park almost everyday I’m not sure I’ve seen this massive uptick in trash and human feces. Maybe this is confirmation bias at work.

I walk/run in the park nearly every day and I was actually thinking to myself last week that I haven't noticed a big increase in any of the things that you mentioned. Idk. The unhoused population is definitely more visible but I haven't been bothered by anyone and I haven't noticed the litter problem get much worse than usual.

The state senator and rep for the area recently got state funding for professional trash clean-ups around the Armory. https://twitter.com/SamuelWBell/status/1616486479538028546

I feel like turning the Armory into a warming center to address the unhoused crisis is an issue the state rushed into (albeit necessarily because, um, it's really cold in the winter) , didn't realize the scale of the issue and unintended consequences, and are doing what they can (although frustratingly slow or incompetent sometimes). It's never going to be perfect and you can't please everyone.

Not everyone that uses the Armory for shelter is "one of those drug using, drunk poopers" we may get frustrated by. There are people who genuinely need this so they don't freeze to death overnight. They are minding their own business and trying to just get by in this harsh capitalism-f*cked economy we live in. Yes, the Armory doesn't address the mental health or drug use aspect, and so much more, but this is what we/the state can do at this time and it does address a need.

As Dr. Jim O' Connell from Boston Healthcare for the Homeless says when people criticize that his health care focused work doesn't do enough to address the root causes of homelessness : “This is what we do while we’re waiting for the world to change.”

So I'd like to point fingers at the state leadership for a minute.

Last year, the state made some sort of financial agreement with the Nylo Hotel in Warwick to provide temporary shelter for some of the state's homeless. Between the time that agreement was made and the start of this year's winter, what did the state do? What did the housing secretary do? What did the governor do? What did anybody do?

Nothing.

We knew this was a problem a year ago, and it's been a problem for years before that. But anybody in a position of power who could do anything about it did nothing. And then we're all supposed to be fucking shocked when a half-assed plan to house the homeless in the Armory backfires and pisses off the local residents.

I found it absolutely hilarious when I heard this story. Remember when the homeless and homeless advocates were camping out on the state house lawn? Not that long ago. There was a church group that had offered to provide port-a-potties to the protestors, but the state did not allow them to bring them in. And guess what? (surprised Pikachu face meme) State workers got all huffy that someone took a dump on the state house lawn? BIG FUCKING SURPRISE THERE.

The level of ineptitude in our own government never ceases to amaze me.

House the homeless but NOT IN MY BACKYARD am I right

The Armory is an abject disaster. Cramming hundreds of vulnerable and/or dangerous individuals into one space, with virtually no support or structure is going exactly how anyone with a modicum of common sense think it would go. Whoever was responsible for this awful, half baked solution to a difficult and complex issue should be both ashamed and held responsible. And that’s not even beginning to take into account the issues it has caused for the surrounding neighborhood

Edit: And you are absolutely correct, a fair number of them do have places to live.

The level of hate and insults thrown at the most vulnerable people in our society is incredible. Get mad at the existence of homelessness and work to fix it, don't just hate people who don't have homes. This is not the same kind of problem in other wealthy countries, we choose not to deal with it. (and btw the solution which is most effective AND the cheapest is to just give people homes to live in).

What if you quit crying about the state of the park, and go out and pick up some trash? Or organize your neighbors to do it on a larger scale? I’m over in Federal Hill; I might just come help.

Reality is this, society doesn’t give a shit about people that do not have a means of making someone profit. It’s not the armory district it’s the whole country. A giant race to the bottom. Want to know the solution? Simple. The system of enslavement that we live under needs to be destroyed. All the resources for humanity to thrive and progress forward are already in place. We can feed, clothe, care for, and put to meaningful work everyone. We don’t so we can keep the whole “you too can become rich” illusion alive. One of the richest countries in the world and we have people relegated to living on streets and abject poverty. How we treat the most vulnerable says a lot about us as a society. Elderly people cutting pills bc they can’t afford it, working families whose parents each work 60+ hrs a week and never get ahead, people not seeing doctors bc it’s too expensive, police killing people unarmed in traffic stops, grocery shopping costing you more and more each week while wages seem to go nowhere (profits at all time highs and corporate welfare to tune of trillions), retirements fading, home ownership becoming unachievable for most…..all while the economy gets better and better, the rich get richer and richer, and the solution to every problem is give the rich more and more.

We have cancer. The tumors you are seeing in our society point to the larger disease. The poverty that you complain of being exposed to and veil with rationalizations like “we all care/I feel bad” is just a symptom of a much larger disease we are all facing. The system is built to reward the scum behaviors. It rewards naked greed and provides those benefiting from it an endless script of rationalizations to pour on us plebs. Problem is the greedy money zombie segment of our society that wants everything at any cost. Until that is dealt with we will remain complaining about people in 2023 being sidelined and forced to live and shit on the streets. Great thing we are opening a new corporate welfare residential high rise soon tho…..sure the homeless can afford the hundreds of new $2500-3000 studio/1 br apartments they will build.

I do dog walking and about a month ago there was a man unconscious on the ground, drooling. He’d clearly overdosed and I didn’t have narcan on me so I had to call the police. It was terrifying, they had me wait there to point out his body when they arrived. I don’t feel comfortable walking the dogs in that area anymore because a few of them will quickly eat things off the ground and I don’t want to know what they might grab before I can do anything about it. As a young woman I feel very unsafe in that area especially when it’s dark outside.

I've read through the comments. The posters here have some wonderful and extremely realistic suggests for you:

1. Pick up the trash created by the homeless people in your neighborhood. (I noticed nobody has been bold enough to suggest that you pick up the actual shit.)
2. Personally take care of the homeless somehow. (Unless you are a medical or psychological professional I don't really see how that's possible.)
3. Reimagine your preconceived notions regarding human feces. It's not so bad, in fact, it adds character to the city! Try to appreciate the excrement. And most importantly NEVER complain about it.
4. Overthrow capitalism and install a new economic and political system.

Having volunteered at the armory, they don’t have access to any real bathrooms which is RIDICULOUS. They do have multiple porta potties outside which isnt ideal or sustainable.

Instead of blaming those who are unhoused or taking the NIMBY (Yes to the cause, but Not In My Back Yard) perspective we need to incorporate this population and support them. Now is the time to PUSH the government to do what they should have done so long ago. Get people subsided housing. Give then rapidly deployable shelters. Give them warming centers with plumbing???

They also forced people off the statehouse lawn a few weeks ago and SLASHED THEIR TENTS??? Thats like somebody taking a wrecking ball to your house. Thats all they have. Disgusting.

I completely understand that having people who may be under the influence around your house may not be ideal but having that warming shelter is saving lives. Its also helping to clean up the rest of the city so much. People complain about unhoused people throughout the city then don’t like it when the shelters are built near them.

My main point I suppose is that your concerns are SO understandable. But take it to the govt. we need to use our voices to advocate for the unhoused population and it will benefit you in the long run. Advocate for them by asking for better plumbing and facilities to clean up the area, and more mental health support to help people suffering from substance use disorders. LEAN ON THE GOVERNMENT HARD

Pin me to whatever side you wanna pin me on, I’m with you. This not in my back yard nonsense has nothing to do with solving the problem. It’s a cute little thing you say like posting a black box on you social media pages. Thoughts and prayers sayers. What does being homeless have to do with it being okay to shit on the street?This is a mental health/drug issue that isn’t resolved by just giving them a place to stay.

Respectfully, the only suddenly influx I’ve noticed has been of culture-less rich young adults driving up the cost of rent for the lower class families and hipsters that made the neighborhood cool in the first place.

I’m really surprised it took this long for someone to have this complaint. With the WBNA’s track record, the over/under was set at like 2 weeks

Didn’t they move a bunch of the folks who had been camping in front of the state house to the armory as a winter shelter several weeks ago? Wouldn’t that explain part of it?

Many shelters have weird rules and curfews— like they don’t want folks hanging around inside the building during the day if the weather isn’t cold, but they have to be in a shelter by a certain time if they want to sleep there. So you have a bunch of unhoused folks who get tied to an area they can’t stray too far from, or they’ll lose their chance at a secure location to sleep at night.

The solution to the trash is any easy one. Assign a team of people who are staying at the armory to go out and clean up the park and surrounding neighborhood each day, there are plenty of able bodied individuals staying there who have plenty of time to pitch in and help keep the neighborhood clean.

[deleted]

So rude! Every time I go number 2 outside I always bring my doggie bags with me - and not discard it in a neighbor’s trash can

Human feces you say? How do you know that it is human? Could you please describe the feces?

in case anyone was wondering who it was that deleted themselves from the original post here, it was u/OctoberRust13

vIrTuE sIgNaLiNg

Christ you must be BRAND new here. I can’t think of a time in the last 30 years where that area wasn’t where the homeless hung out. Now suddenly, you gentrify it and want them to…. Vanish? LOL. Gotta love when out of town people show up and want to turn the ghettos into their communes.

Human feces ,whats the difference from the dog feces around there. Litter that area has always been like that. Did you just move here.

The Armory should be full of weapons and ammo for RI citizens incase of attack from our enemies not full of drug addicts and insane people. What happened to the stock pile of ammo and arms? The united states government did a 75 year study that concluded that there is always about 10% of the population that cannot take care of themselves and will be perpetually homeless. So to be harsh, fuck these people. The longer we keep supporting them with fresh needles and "help" that never works the longer we perpetuate their bullshit. Not sorry. The best thing to do is ship them to a warm state and give them loads of fetynel and let nature take its course. Because when it comes down to it no one wants homeless drug addicts fighting, shitting, leaving needles in their neighborhood. No one wants that shit!