Our Opinion/New benches miss the mark

Downtown Fargo should be open to everyone

Why have benches downtown if they are uncomfortable to sit on? Doesn’t that defeat the purpose? Recently the city of Fargo at the request of the Downtown Community Partnership installed new benches downtown without backs in order to deter transients from loitering on them. Apparently businesses are concerned about the number of homeless people downtown. The problem in downtown Fargo is not homeless people but rather intoxicated individuals. Certainly those two groups can overlap but not every intoxicated person downtown is homeless.

As Fargo grows in leaps and bounds, it’s important to take care of all of its citizens, those with homes and not. Homeless shelters a lot of the times locally are at capacity. Perhaps it’s time to look at building more rather than pushing the homeless out of downtown. With growth comes money and resources back to the city. Those resources should be used to take care of everyone, not just certain classes of citizens.

We need to be concerned about the gentrification of downtown Fargo. The growth in Fargo and in particular specifically downtown Fargo has been swift and remarkable. There is no question downtown Fargo looks way different than it does 10 even 5 years ago. It is thriving and only seems to be heading for more and more growth. But if that growth means higher rent and pushing poor and homeless people out of an area of town which they’ve been a staple for years, it isn’t worth it. When things like this happen, we need to put a magnifying glass to the agenda of the people pushing it. What are they actually trying to accomplish here? Is it just all about sweeping up downtown of anyone who doesn’t fit their mold?

This is not to say that we shouldn’t deter or prevent anyone loitering from harassing shoppers or patrons of downtown restaurants and bars or more importantly those who work in the service industry. It’s important for those people to feel safe and comfortable in downtown Fargo. But there are ways that can be done without targeting classes or groups of people.

Some have felt that there are definitely more transients and loitering people in downtown this summer than previous years. Earlier, police officials told HPR that is not the case, it’s just that they become more noticeable during warmer weather as happens any year. Perhaps instead of figuring out ways to push them out of a certain area of town, we should look at ways to get solve the issues they are dealing with. Does making the benches uncomfortable downtown really do anything but move them to a different area to sit or seek shelter? Maybe we should focus on ways to get them shelter versus ways to make them not feel welcome in area of town. Maybe we should focus on helping over intoxicated individuals get sober for even a short period of time when they are constantly harassing people in area of town.

In response to this uproar, a group of homeless advocates put blankets and pillows on the benches in order to signal to the homeless that not everyone is unconcerned about their plight. We applaud those who made an effort to show they care and that downtown should be welcoming to everyone. What is more noble than helping those less fortunate than you? Shouldn’t those who have help those who have not?

As downtown continues it’s rapid growth, there is going to be a constant struggle between the old and the new. Between what was and what it is now. That’s natural and normal and we need to find a happy medium that takes the good of both. But we also need to decide and have conversation about what we want to become. That conversation is ongoing on these pages and elsewhere across the community. From our perspective, a downtown that pushes out a class of people because they don’t like them is downtown not worth having. There better ways to address the problems they are trying to solve. Poor and homeless people, those less fortunate, should always be welcome in any part of our community let alone a section of town of which they’ve been staples for years.