How to gumpify benches

Access controls on street benches? Photo Creative Commons

Forrest Gump was a genius! He solved problems and figured things out with his teeny IQ.

Gump taught us problem solving is really easy. You don't need to think about it, especially if the problem looks simple on the outside but is actually complicated on the inside.

Simple like why homeless, drunk people sleep on park benches because they prefer not to sleep on the ground. Or complicated like how to deal with their addictions, mental health and poverty? Or why we can't do better to help the indigent living on the street?

Target hardeners in the city of Angouleme, France have found a simple answer: Fence the benches!

Sadly, just like like homeless spikes in London last year, public outrage forced Angouleme's Forrest Gumps to remove the bench-fence-defence. Some ungrateful sod complicated matters by pointing out it's not just the homeless who can't use fenced benches, no one can! Forrest was so right - Stupid is, as stupid does!

Shame too. They looked so darned attractive.