Landscape architects use the term ‘hostile design’ to describe elements that stop anti-social behaviour. They could be armrests along a lengthy bench aren’t for the comfort of the people who choose to sit there, but to break up the space and make it impossible for someone to lie down and sleep rough. Little studs running along the edge of the bench stop skateboards. Cruder examples include spikes around air vents: not only do these stop rough sleepers from lying down in the warmer space, they also send a very loud message about who is welcome and who isn’t.
Subtle or not, armrests and spikes don’t stop rough sleeping. They just move it on elsewhere: the landscape architect isn’t generally moonlighting as a policymaker in homelessness, so it’s not a problem they created, or one they want on their client’s doorstep.
Presumably arms of the state would have a case to answer
But this weekend, Suella Braverman adopted the political equivalent of hostile design when she took aim at ‘rows of tents, occupied by people, many of them from abroad, living on the streets as a lifestyle choice’. The Home Secretary was tweeting after it was reported that the King’s Speech may include legislation updating the 1824 Vagrancy Act. New legislation could create a civil offence and fine charities who hand out tents if they were then used by rough sleepers who caused a nuisance. Presumably arms of the state would have a case to answer, too, given councils and prisons have on occasion handed tents out to vulnerable people who have no accommodation to go to.
At least hostile design is practised by people without the levers to solve the anti-social problems that affect the areas they are working on. Hostile legislation is quite a different matter. It is an attention-grabbing attempt to suggest a government is doing something, even when legislation isn’t necessary and the more powerful levers – such as funding and cross-government working – are left alone. Hostile legislation often replicates what is already on the statute books. Unlike hostile design, it can have little material impact.
The Centre for Social Justice has been pushing the many different iterations of Conservative government that we’ve had since it released its Housing First report in 2017. In that report, the think tank argued that ‘the problem is not insurmountable. It is just a question of political will’. The report did propose some updates to legislation, but of the sort that would be inconvenient to local and central government because they would require even more resources to support a greater number of people at risk of homelessness. Mostly, it called for a Housing First programme involving a ‘stable independent home, combined with the personalised support they need to gain access to mental health services, drug and alcohol support, in addition to training for employment when and if they are ready’.
Since then, there have been some encouraging moments, including the way agencies were suddenly able to mobilise very quickly to bring rough sleepers into temporary accommodation during the pandemic, and a bit more money from government here and there. Rough sleeping had been falling each year from 2017, but rose by 26 per cent last year to 3,069 on the streets on one night in autumn 2022.
Hostile legislation is particularly useful if you are a government that has had a fair bit of time to address an issue but hasn’t got round to it and is heading into an election. Braverman is someone with an eye for political design: her mode of intervention is the equivalent of a large metal spike that grabs the attention. She and Lee Anderson have adopted a similar strategy when it comes to ‘stop the boats’: if this government doesn’t succeed in creating an empty sea between France and Britain come the election, at least voters know its ministers are annoyed about it too. And now on rough sleeping, the hostile design isn’t subtle but designed to get the attention. It doesn’t tackle the problem, but then again it was never intended to do that. As the CSJ said in 2017, ‘it is just a question of political will’. Currently, that doesn’t seem to be there.
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