Montreal shopping mall plays “Baby Shark” on repeat to prevent unhoused people from loittering : nottheonion

[-] Undearius@lemmy.ca 182 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

This is from the city where it's illegal to be homeless. One man even collected over $100,000 in fines for being homeless.

Yeah, that'll help.

[-] manqkag@sh.itjust.works 110 points 2 weeks ago

Man that sounded wild to me, so I dug around a bit and it's fucking true. Although the amount is closer to $110,000 it's still insane.

[-] Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 93 points 2 weeks ago

Hey, we heard you can't afford a house, so we're charging you fines in the amount of what it would have cost to buy a house.......we're so cool! We solved homelessness! Because now if you want to be homeless, it actually costs more to NOT buy a house. So you may as well just buy a house!

We did it guys! We ended the concept of homelessness! High five!

[-] manqkag@sh.itjust.works 47 points 2 weeks ago

I mean why don't the homeless just buy a house? Are they stupid?

[-] NeatoBuilds@mander.xyz 40 points 2 weeks ago

Have they tried just being rich and buying their own building to sleep in front of?

[-] manqkag@sh.itjust.works 33 points 2 weeks ago

Maybe it's their broke mentality that's the issue bro stay on the grind 🔥 💯

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[-] 4z01235@lemmy.world 19 points 2 weeks ago

we're charging you fines in the amount of what it would have cost to buy a house

Oh how I wish I could buy a house for that kind of money. You should go look at what housing costs in Canadian cities.

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[-] thisisbutaname@discuss.tchncs.de 26 points 2 weeks ago

Aaaah, I love living in a capitalist hellscape

[-] Dirk@lemmy.ml 16 points 2 weeks ago

What happens if the man does not pay? Will they put him in jail?

[-] moody@lemmings.world 47 points 2 weeks ago

Canada does not have debtor's jail. Nothing will really happen except that more fines will keep racking up. No collection agency is going to take on a homeless person's debt, so eventually those debts will just disappear, assuming he makes no effort to pay them off.

In the meantime, if he tries to escape homelessness, it's a lot harder nowadays to find an apartment with a landlord that doesn't check your credit, and 100k+ in unpaid debts looks really bad.

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[-] jaybone@lemmy.world 21 points 2 weeks ago

In the ultimate act of irony… Maybe they’ll put him in a house.

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[-] Kidplayer_666@lemm.ee 73 points 2 weeks ago

Unhoused? Has homeless as a word been banned?

[-] spankmonkey@lemmy.world 44 points 2 weeks ago

Not sure about Canada, but in the US:

Homeless = no permanent residence, which also includes couch surfing, parents and children who just fled an abusive family member and are temporarily ltaying with friends or relatives, and people who are living in their car. All people without a home.

Unhoused = homeless people that don't have a roof over their heads. Might include living in a car.

[-] Grimy@lemmy.world 26 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

They are synonyms. Please don't make things up.

Edit: to all the knee-jerk downvoting. This is literally a quote from an article the user himself supplied as proof that there is a difference.

Unhoused is probably the most popular alternative to the word “homeless.” It’s undoubtedly the one I see most often recommended by advocates. But it doesn’t have a meaningful difference in connotation from the more common term, “homeless.”

It's literally just a pc synonym of homeless.

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[-] sunbytes@lemmy.world 29 points 2 weeks ago

I think the idea is to put the responsibility for housing onto society/authority as opposed to the victim.

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[-] Revan343@lemmy.ca 20 points 2 weeks ago

Welcome to the euphemism treadmill

[-] spankmonkey@lemmy.world 18 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

In the US they mean different things, as homeless includes people living in other people's homes. That can include people whose house just burnt down and are living with friends or family because they lost their permanent residence (home). Unhoused is about where they are staying.

People on the street are homeless and unhoused.

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[-] bricklove@midwest.social 58 points 2 weeks ago

What about the people who work there? Are they trying to make them quit then become homeless and leave the mall too?

[-] ouRKaoS@lemmy.today 30 points 2 weeks ago

According to the article, it plays in the emergency exit stairwells, a place that if you're using it you should be trying to leave as quickly as possible.

[-] surewhynotlem@lemmy.world 53 points 2 weeks ago

If I was escaping a fire, and the stairwell had baby shark playing, I'd walk back into the fire.

[-] ouRKaoS@lemmy.today 19 points 2 weeks ago

I really don't want to die with Baby Shark being the last song I hear

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[-] Akasazh@feddit.nl 18 points 2 weeks ago

No they are supposedly insane already.

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[-] intensely_human@lemm.ee 42 points 2 weeks ago

We can solve homelessness once and for all by making every part of civilization just suck as much as possible. If literally no part of our society is capable of supporting safety and life, then all the homeless people will just move along

[-] LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 12 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Homelessness? Oh, you mean unhousedness! Many of them are also unreadful and non-jobulated.

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[-] Thcdenton@lemmy.world 35 points 2 weeks ago

My highschool did this with classical music to make us fuck off after school was over. Jokes on them in into that shit

[-] 13esq@lemmy.world 16 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Everyone likes at least some classical music, most people are far too cool to admit it though.

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[-] EmoDuck@sh.itjust.works 35 points 2 weeks ago

What's with the wording of this title? "Unhoused people" instead of "Homeless"/"Homeless people"

[-] kandoh@reddthat.com 25 points 2 weeks ago

It's like the difference between calling someone wittless and uneducated.

One implies that's just how the person is, the other implies a failing of society/family.

[-] ziggurat@lemmy.world 24 points 2 weeks ago

I like the word unhoused, it implies they should just be housed if they are homeless. Everyone should be housed, even if they don't own a home

[-] Famko@lemmy.world 13 points 2 weeks ago

A home is an abstract thing, a house is a quantifiable object.

Also it kind of implies that society should provide a house for them.

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[-] SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world 32 points 2 weeks ago

Doesn’t this violate the Geneva convention ?

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[-] sp3tr4l@lemmy.zip 26 points 2 weeks ago

At least its music, though this does confirm that Baby Shark is something they'd have played at Gitmo if it'd been around 2 decades ago.

I have been to many places where things like these are everywhere:

Imagine this but diesel powered, a bit chonkier, and they just emit this high pitched scream (there are other versions called 'mosquito alarms'), and has extremely bright, blue strobing lights that will induce seizures in anyone susceptible.

[-] Passerby6497@lemmy.world 13 points 2 weeks ago

JFC, the cruelty really is the point...

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[-] M0oP0o@mander.xyz 26 points 2 weeks ago

Just in case people do not fully grasp the amounts of "doo"s in this song:

Baby shark, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo.

Baby shark!

Mommy shark, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo.

Mommy shark!

Daddy shark, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo.

Daddy shark!

Grandma shark, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo.

Grandma shark!

Grandpa shark, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo.

Grandpa shark!

Let's go hunt, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo.

Let's go hunt!

Run away, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo.

Run away!

Safe at last, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo.

Safe at last!

It's the end, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo.

It's the end!

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[-] jaemo@sh.itjust.works 25 points 2 weeks ago

I mean, this will keep me away too, and I'm "housed" and even occasionally legitimately go to malls with money to spend on things. You play even one loop of that song and I'm Swayze.

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[-] TokenBoomer@lemmy.world 24 points 2 weeks ago

Jokes on them. The homeless loitering are veterans that lost their hearing in the wars we’ve been fighting since 2001.

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[-] giuseppe@lemmy.world 23 points 2 weeks ago

The article says the music is played to keep the emergency stairwells empty. If you haven't lived around unhoused before, they can take up a lot of space with their belongings and can be pretty unresponsive.

Exactly the kind of thing you don't want in an emergency stairwell.

Honestly if the owners of a building CAN'T keep the emergency stairwell clear then the building should be shut down for everyone for safety reasons.

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[-] tiny@midwest.social 22 points 2 weeks ago

Interesting case of military tatics in a civilian settings. First Decide is blasted at the Vatican embassy, then born in the USA is looped at Guantanamo Bay, now this

[-] ____@infosec.pub 22 points 2 weeks ago

Fuck these greedy, utterly insensitive, bastards.
Malls are generally owned by large corps in the business of owning malls. Anyone know offhand who owns this one so I can avoid their other properties?
How many “housing first,” programs could we run using a year of the company’s profit?

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[-] drivepiler@lemmy.world 20 points 2 weeks ago

Fuck the people who work there, amirite?

[-] UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml 17 points 2 weeks ago

Yes, that is the basis of the economic system.

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[-] NotSteve_@lemmy.ca 19 points 2 weeks ago

I honestly don't know if this is better or worse than the ear murdering high pitched screeching they play in the stairwells at a mall in Ottawa

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[-] ReiRose@lemmy.world 18 points 2 weeks ago

Jokes on them, noise canceling headphones are cheaper than a house

[-] snekerpimp@lemmy.world 16 points 2 weeks ago

So as a worker with a house, can I sue when I go insane from hearing that song over and over? Didn’t they do this in Guantánamo to torture and break people?

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