And I say that as a petite woman who has a disability & can’t stand for long. If I were someone more likely to get picked on…forget it, I’d rather stand.

If I was in that situation I would probably address a bunch of people more generally and explain my disability & ask if anyone could help me sit down. With luck the person would move their bag without direct confrontation. If not, perhaps someone else would give me their seat.

And I see no reason why anyone would have a problem asking someone to move their bag off a seat on a bus/train if it was the only seat free.

One such installation was a drop ceiling put in over the length if the alley running beside a concert hall. There was also assorted office detritus strewn about.

Here’s a link describing it: http://vagueterrain.net/content/2008/10/nuit-blanche-recommendations-zone

Note the language in this writeup: “GL will construct a 40 metre long drop ceiling in the alley of St. Enoch’s Square beside Massey Hall, framing the dumpsters, recycling bins and other life of the alleyway”

Other life indeed, for this installation was built, quite unintentionally I’m sure, around a stairwell under which a homeless fellow had constructed himself a makeshift shelter and sleeping area. Imagine having hundreds of interested art-seekers strolling through your bedroom in the dead of night!

I certainly felt akward stumbling through this man’s public-domain abode, so “framed” by this piece of art. Are the homeless then no longer individuals, no longer people? Are they to be reduced to some form of intellectual construct? To be framed, as architecture or litter, as simply part of the landscape, to be studied as object?

In any event, I just thought that ties in, on the note of boundaries and what have you.

So I think our fear of confrontation is greater than our desire to sit down on public transport.

But there is a definite message in our culture that places blame on the shoulders of the homeless and leads to non-homeless people feeling indignant when homeless folks express their humanity in any way other than submissively.

The ability for a person to say “no” and have their voice be respected is one thing that separates humans from animals in this society. We recognize each other’s autonomy and humanity when we allow each other to say “no.” I’m sure that people think they’re helping when they try to push stuff on her, but when they ignore what she is saying, they’re reducing her humanity.

It is very sad. I will keep this in mind when I think about social service in the future.

I am very sympathetic. I can see that two of the most absolutely frustrating aspects of being homeless (in a social sense) would be 1) that people continuously make prejudicial assumptions, such as, this person is homeless, therefore must be on drugs/crazy, this person is going to want the free stuff I give her, etc., and 2) the inability to establish boundaries and personal space. I mean, this is both a personal issue and a safety issue too; homeless people are often unable to protect themselves from theft, sexual assault, even random violence by sadistic people, and often they aren’t treated well by local law enforcement either (and often find themselves displaced by said law enforcement too).

So, while we don’t know much about this woman’s story, I think we can see that she is trying to establish firm boundaries and maintain them. That is something we should all be able to respect, unless we cannot recognize how important boundaries are in our own lives.