USA: Spends billions on hostile infrastructure to keep homeless people out of sight from the rich
Scandinavia: Just builds lots of free apartments, turning the homeless people into productive workers, thus injecting a lot more money into society
Capitalism only makes sense if you're exclusively looking out for yourself, and if you happen to be at the top.
Don't talk about it! 🤫 Hide it! Pretend it doesn't exist! Shoot it, arrest it, prosecute it, imprison it. Make a profit from it! Blame political party for it!
Wonder why the problem never goes away 🤔 fashion elaborate conspiracy theories. Complain about it!
Repeat.
American society and governance is thoroughly dysfunctional and that's why it's a failure.
We still have those benches because there's still homeless and honestly them taking over those benches ruins it for everyone else. Not because they're homeless because they're almost always addicts and drunk people or people on drugs who might also have mental issues are a bit threatening and unpleasant to others.
For what it's worth, they have cut down the number of public/park benches in some places in Finland too. Or at least that's what I noticed when I started developing foot problems and needed to sit down more. In the 2000s a lot of the benches in near area got replaced by railings you could lean on. Real benches might have been slowly starting to do a comeback in recent years though, and at least murderbenches were never in fashion.
Different take on the bench. The dividers allows for the pregnant and the disabled to sit. Which I believe is more important than letting some homeless sleep on that particular bench.
A lot of homeless people choose to be homeless. I remember I was talking to a homeless in downtown Los Angeles and he told me he used to be a housing contractor and was a millionaire. He said he preferred the street because he likes the drugs and likes to harass women with impunity. I was also told by other homeless that they don't like the housing projects and prefer being outside.
Edit: you can downvote me all you want but this is my experience. Sure there are many that want to be in homes but they also want no strings attached honestly for free like if they are babies.