"Homeless Studs" Cropping Up To Get Rid Of People Sleeping In Doorways.

This does seem rather harsh.  

Anti-homeless studs in a British doorway.
A public outcry led to their removal.  

As the Guardian newspaper reported, some building owners and property maintenance workers are putting in these things called "homeless studs" to keep people from sleeping in doorways and such.

The studs are very much like those spikes you see on window ledges to keep pigeons away. It is a tasteless thought: The spikes seem, to equate homeless people with annoying pigeons.

Yes, I get it, people are unnerved when homeless people sleep in their doorway, or nearby ATM vestibule.

But the whole thing to me seems too easy. Put in the pigeon/homeless studs, and the homeless magically disappear.

Of course, they don't disappear off the face of the Earth, but never mind.

As if to demonstrate that you can't just magically make the problem of homelessness go away with just a few metal studs embedded in concrete, a big outcry followed some of these anti-homeless stud installations.

An activist group recently poured concrete over the studs over a supermarket entryway in Britain. The supermarket chain, Tesco, said the studs were mostly to keep away cigarette smokers and people with antisocial behavior away.

And in any event, Tesco would rethink the studs and come up with another solution.

A London luxury apartment building where the "homeless studs" were installed also removed them after a public outcry.

So, it's beginning to look like pigeons are still not welcome on or near buildings, but in a small, welcome sign that the public in general has some mercy, we're not going to treat the homeless like annoying pigeons.

Any small sign of humanity is better than nothing.