Most of the time, a bike rack is just a bike rack. But in Seattle, one questionably placed rack is drawing attention to the relationship between homelessness and hostile architecture in the urban environment.

Ground zero for the controversy is the densely settled neighborhood of Belltown, where the Seattle Department of Transportation cleared out a makeshift homeless encampment under the Highway 99 viaduct and installed a series of 18 bike racks in its place last fall. Given the nondescript location, the purpose of their installation was immediately obvious to area resident Jeff Few: “They serve no purpose other than seemingly to deter the camping,” he told the Seattle Stranger in December. This was then confirmed by an SDOT spokesperson, who said the project was part of a “strategy for lessening the hazards of unsheltered living by creating space for a different active public use.”

Few’s disappointment soon fueled city council action. In a letter to SDOT dated December 20, councilwoman Teresa Mosqueda said the racks serve only to "interfere with those who are unsheltered, in a location which serves no meaningful public transportation purpose." Councilman Mike O’Brien reiterated Mosqueda’s point in a committee meeting in February: "It appeared that was not an area where there was a lot of demand for bike racks and the bike racks were being used, actually, to prevent the campers from returning." That was enough to get Mayor Jenny Durkan to “[make] it clear that bike racks should be deployed to support and encourage biking,” according to an SDOT statement. The racks are now slated for removal once another site for them has been located.

Reaction against the bike racks has brought conversations about Seattle’s use of hostile architecture out into the open. According to Sara Rankin, a Seattle University law professor and director of the Homeless Rights Advocacy Project, the practice is so widespread precisely because it pushes the homeless out of sight in subtle ways. “It serves a function of forcing out targeted or undesirable users of public space, but is supposed to be imperceptible to nontargeted users,” she told Next City. “That helps shield public officials from pushback.” Though costly efforts to set up fencing around cleared encampments may be more obvious, spiked ledges, armed benches, and conspicuous bike racks are just as pernicious to the homeless population.

While it may be too soon to expect Seattle and other cities to remove every instance of hostile architecture, there seems to be a greater awareness of how cruel and costly these efforts can be. To that end, Mosqueda wants to “make sure [that] if there is a fund being allocated for hostile architecture, it is redirected to housing options for those that are unsheltered.” Given that a report Rankin coauthored suggests the city of Seattle spent $2.3 million on the enforcement of laws that criminalize homelessness, it sounds like there should be plenty to go around if Seattle wants to meaningfully assist its homeless population rather than push them farther out of sight.