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.

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.

House the homeless but NOT IN MY BACKYARD am I right

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 WBNA Christmas Caroling is at risk here! And yard sale day!

/s

"Like it used to be" doesnt mean it wasnt terrible then too.

Oh the neighborhood is clean and safe! How awful!

I knew it was a risk posting this because I'm as liberal as they come but to deny the reality of situation isn't being woke...it's being accepting of a broken system and then pointing the finger at me for calling it out as if I'm the problem.

NIMBY? How about not in anyone's backyard?

You probably live in a gentrified section of Providence and guess what? When you were house/apartment hunting, lets be real, you weren't looking west of cranston st. Why is that? Do tell.

I couldn't care less about either of those things. I do like the Dexter Farmers Market though. I also like parks that aren't full of trash. Do you not?

"Litter that area has always been like that."

That makes it ok?

It's worse right now btw but unless you live right next to the armory like I do, you probably havent noticed..

Speaking on years of living here it sure look ok then, I think it adds character to the area.

That's easy to type for woke cred from other people that don't do anything except flap their jaws. What are you doing to help these people besides pretending you don't mind litter, screaming at 3am and dirty needles on your sidewalk.

You can be empathetic to the problem/people and also acknowledge the effects/repercussions of the influx... those two things are not mutually exclusive

Don’t try and straw man me. I’m an anonymous stranger on the internet. You know nothing about me. Don’t project your gentrifier’s guilt on other people. Look inside and face what you are.

You are clearly not “as liberal as they come”. Just another NIMBY that wants the problem pushed to a place where they don’t have to see it everyday.

vIrTuE sIgNaLiNg

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!

You got some wild Connecticut invasion fantasies lmao

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.

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Oh I’m personally not doing a whole lot to help the homeless, that’s what the government and non-profits are for and I have a life to live. I agree that the two things are not exclusive. I’m just tickled by how everyone wants to solve the crisis and house the homeless but nobody wants it in their neighborhood. We see it over and over, most recently I’m thinking of the hotel in Warwick. As you say, it’s VERY easy for folks here to type up their thoughts on the solution to the homelessness crisis for their own woke cred…. Then they turn around and complain. What are you doing to help?

Soooo not in anyone’s backyard means we banish these folks to their own commune somewhere in the sticks? Like everywhere that is part of society is “in someone’s backyard”. That’s such a disingenuous thing to say.

What's the solution? You clearly don't want them in your backyard either.

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.

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.

Genuine question: what’s your source for claiming that a lot of the people at the Armory have somewhere else to live? If that’s the case, why are they not living there?

I’m new to RI. I was trying to figure out if it was CT or MA

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.”

You’re the one commenting on the “barely legal teens” subreddit. You shouldn’t be around anyone

First hand experience with the population. I don’t know if I would say “a lot”, but certainly more than a few. The reason? They never really say, but whatever it is it’s the same reason they hang out in parks, playgrounds and sidewalks all day and night, in all different weather, despite having places to stay.

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.

Idk, I don’t pretend to have the solutions to all of society’s ailments. We’ve elected people whose whole job is to lead an organized society. I’ll let them figure it out!

Who are RI’s enemies? We’re too small to bug anyone, I think a pebble in my shoe would be more irritating

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.

Then join CozyRhody like I have on more than 1 occasion.

In fact I think they're on Reddit /u/CozyRhody ?

I'm a hiker/camper and always have a trash bag with me on the trail so enjoy your upvotes for telling me to do something I already do but you by your own admission do not.

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.

This does seem to be a common problem- when we offer shelter to homeless people, we don't put in sufficient supports, supervision, and services to make sure there are no issues for the neighbors- or provide better conditions for the residents. Then when neighbors complain about predictable issues, we blame THEM for complaining instead of addressing the issues headon. Ask the shelter residents if they would prefer a clean, safe place and I promise that most would be all for it.

Yes. My two co workers from MA have convinced my smooth brain that I had to avoid human feces twice jogging around DP twice in the past 6 months.

Glad we can start being honest with each other.

We’re not talking about picking up trash on the trail. You’re moaning about the trash in your neighborhood. I am not. I also didn’t say anywhere that I don’t pick up trash in my neighborhood already, I only offered to also do it in yours. I pick up trash on my street every day, because I want my neighborhood to look nice, and I know that I can’t make other people give a shit and take action or change their ways, but I can give a shit and do it myself. And you’ll be hard pressed to find anywhere I bitched about it on Reddit before just I went and did it.

Well if you're not completely full of shit, kudos to you

The post is about an INCREASE in litter that correlates directly with the influx of homeless people after the Armory opened its door to them.

You can call it bitching but the post was asking for a conversation about it 🤷‍♂️

I'll keep an eye out for you with your trash bag though!

Also, OP says it’s happened twice in six months. The warming station hasn’t been open for six months, so perhaps OP wants to rethink his cause—->effect relationship.

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).

I hope that wasn't directed at me.

I can’t link to a source but I have spoken to a city official in the previous administration who told me that in interviews they conducted in Kennedy plaza and Crossroads a surprisingly large number of people who by and large were deemed “homeless” had permanent housing but there were other issues, especially addiction that led to them being on the streets. Just makes the problem more complex to address.

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.

I get the awful feeling a lot of people don’t agree

Liberal as they come, aka moderate in the eyes of the rest of the world

Absolutely. And I know these kinds of people have to exist but NIMBY (see how easily we can turn that around, OP?).

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

>Maybe this is confirmation bias at work.

Or, far more likely, denial on your part.

> go out and pick up some trash?

and all the trash will be back in the next day or two.

Is the WBNA a bunch of snooty whites? I really don't know anything about it. I just wanna walk my dog in the neighborhood and park not have to avoid actual shit, broken glass, garbage and crazy/drunk people ... these people need more than a cot thats only available to them from sundown to sunup, they need HELP GETTING OUT OF THIER SITUATION... a warm place to sleep with out offering any other services or resources to them only makes their lifestyle a little more comfortable... please don't misinterpret this as me saying I want them to freeze to death which I'm sure you're all about to jump down my throat about

The streets should be getting cleaner... I actually thought they were for a while until this Amory disaster started and its gotten worse... how long do we sit and watch it get worse and worse but say nothing for fear of our little liberal bubble bursting and being ostracized by our fellow anti-gentrification gentrifiers for pointing out simple facts?

you say you are sarcastic but we all know deep down the WBNA is probably very concerned about this.

get up off your ass and do something then instead of just being a keyboard commando

K.

Right. And then you do it again. Sorry for not being clear.

I wonder how many Reddit posts it’ll take before the situation is magically fixed

Comments like this are also helpful

>Also, OP says it’s happened twice in six months. The warming station hasn’t been open for six months, so perhaps OP wants to rethink his cause—->effect relationship.

Where are you seeing six months? Unless the OP has edited, the OP's exact words:

"I've had to step over human feces on more than one occasion recently"

See the comment directly below this one

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OK so not me lol 😅

I had a hacking scare a while back with this account and was was like oh fuck

> 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.

It doesn't need to be one or the other.

This is assuming I believe OP: it •shouldn’t• be one or the other. But right now, it might be. While state and federal government and NGOs work on bigger solutions, all of us have to set our priorities. Mine is human life over the inconvenience of litter (I’m not saying anything about the shit because I spend plenty of time around the park and haven’t seen any).

Ding ding ding!

You point out an issue while also expressing empathy and concern for said issue but immediately branded as a bad guy for the former.

Fine, my post may not be worded perfectly, but if people read into it that I was saying "fuck homeless people, let them freeze and die because I don't like litter litter that they produce" that's on you, not me.

It's a discussion looking for a solution that everyone benefits from

We make some important stuff here, like nuclear submarines.

Homeless people shitting outdoors isn't a new thing. Armory housing them or not, homeless people have always trashed that park. What can be done about it?

If I've seen human shit there twice in six months in a rainy ass state like Rhode Island how many do you think I didn't see / rain washed away over the period or did I magically see the only 2 ever?

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I mean, when I see someone maliciously litter I do wish them harm. Sometimes you have to poop but you can always throw a wrapper away.

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 did the same thing on the sidewalk in front of my apartment not even a week ago. I DO have narcan in my truck at all times and since it was right in front of my house, my truck was right there. Someone else stopped to help me and administered the narcan for me because I never had before and I wanted to see it done. Guy came to and went away in an ambulance.

And yeah I don't walk my dog in the area anymore. Constantly have to direct him around broken glass and stop him from eating garbage.

Everyone in this post turning a blind eye to a legitimate issue:

** (Dog at table while kitchen is on fire meme) **

"THIS IS FINE"

And human feces.

Only since 2005

Edit: no my first apartment here was 2002! De Pasquale ave!

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.

You want people to give you the benefit of the doubt—to believe that you’re looking for an even-handed discussion of the issue. But then you talk about people who use the warming station like they’re animals. It’s clear you’re not coming to this discussion in good faith, so I see no point to engaging further.

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.

lollol

Pointing out the issues at play is not putting personal responsibility on OP, and no one is telling them to learn to appreciate piles of excrement. It’s a matter of either accepting the situation, or encouraging political leaders to make more meaningful and sustainable changes to assist local unhoused and vulnerable populations.

People have encouraged organizing a trash clean up, but your spin on this is silly.

It’s almost as if this is a community platform where people could brainstorm and organize…

Wrong. People are telling OP directly to go pick up the trash and then when the trash returns to go back out and pick it up again. Example:

"What if you quit crying about the state of the park and go and pick up some trash?...and then do it again."-Unlucky-Sir322

People are also calling OP a NYMBY, a liar, and dismissing him potentially stepping in human shit (aka a biohazard) as not that big a deal. Let me know if you want me to pull further quotes from the thread. Your lack of reading comprehension is "silly."

Fucked up to say it but if they’re popping in the park and you’re on Reddit I’d guess they need that space more than you do

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

You're making the argument that you saw shit 6 months ago because the warming station opened 2 months ago? I'm confused.

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

I guess I’m confused about how you can simultaneously have permanent housing and be unable to stay in that housing. Realistically, no one has a comfortable safe indoor place to stay and decides “spending the night in sub-thirty temperatures in the Armory sounds better.” Maybe “permanent housing” means family that they are no longer welcome to stay w because of their addiction? If that’s the case, then they don’t have permanent housing

Appreciate your insight and I don't disagree. 🙏

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

I tasted it

Oh well in that case, could describe their last meal for authenticity please?

I think what was being referred to is people identifying folks as homeless who aren’t. Might not apply to the armory situation but more in KP or other parts of town where people might be hanging out but not necessarily unhoused.

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.

Good observations. I think what makes that area so unusual is that it used to be priced accordingly-- so it was a bit of a mixed bag, but affordable so you were used to dealing with some of the homelessness and poverty. Now, it's like it's become Williamsburg and priced accordingly with extremely high rent and 600k starter homes. So I think some of the people have no idea what to expect when they're moving in (if they're new) and maybe the abject poverty that is adjacent to the area is jarring at those obscene prices. I will admit that I am unfamiliar with what sounds like a rushed implementation of this program at the armory and how that has changed things recently, but it sounds like maybe stuff has gotten fairly challenging.

I think a lot of the homeowners in the area who have been there for a few decades have seen the area change over the years from what was "hard to have a mortgage approved" to bordering on upper middle class and might be able to shrug it off more, but maybe not. It's a weird place.

People are so excited to see their real estate values go up,up,up here, but we are in for a rough ride as inequality and need ramps up.

I wanted to disagree with this take so badly but god damnit I think you’re right

And stuffies

To be clear to those reading who don't live near Dexter Park: I don't think we should just accept their assertions.

There's a lot of people wading into the debate here, but very few of them appear to actually use the park on a daily basis. Most of us who do are saying that we have not observed this. And OP seems to be using things that happened 6 months ago to support his argument, lol.

I don't think brainstorming or organizing are the intent of the OP. Even if I pretend to not see a bunch of red flags in the original post and comments (i.e. "Lets not virtue signal"), it's pretty clear this is just someone who wants to bitch about the situation and to have that bitching validated.

You don't appear to be looking for helpful. I'm not seeing any ideas or suggestions or even asking for that. Even basic shit like reaching out to relevant elected officials, flooding 311 with requests, going to the media are being glossed over.

It's ok that you wanted to vent about something bothering you, but let's not pretend this is anything more involved than venting.

right after you tasted it you deleted yourself from the original post hoping no one would see that you’re the human shit here?

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

I just deleted the post I thought? I was bored with you fake woke types. you dont enjoy living next to it either but you wont say it out loud. thats not my problem.

No, they explicitly state they have apartments. Not sure why I got downvoted like that when I have a substantial amount of first hand experience with the situation and the population in general, but that’s Reddit for you, speculation confirming the bias of the average user of a given sub will always receive more positive reaction than first hand knowledge which doesn’t jive with a preconceived idea

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.

Agreed. I like within sight of the Armory, go to Dexter park every day, have never had a problem with what OP is talking about. The only problem I’ve ever had is light harassment from men who almost certainly had homes. So men—NIMBY? Obviously not.