FARGO - Five new benches were recently installed downtown and if they seem a little uncomfortable to sit on, that's because they were designed that way.

They're styled similar to the black metal benches that have long graced the sidewalks along Broadway, but are backless so no one can lean back.

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It's an experiment to improve the area's "walkability" by deterring "transients" from loitering too long in high-traffic areas, said Mike Hahn, president and CEO of the Downtown Community Partnership.

His group, which represents downtown businesses, encouraged the city to make the change. For some of those businesses, street people have become an annoyance.

Benjamin Joy said they often sit on the bench near Spicy Pie where he works as a cook and will ask for change or hassle customers. It seems to happen every day, he said.

Laurie Baker, executive director of the Fargo-Moorhead Coalition for Homeless Persons, said she hasn't heard much about the new benches, but is concerned they'll create a perception that downtown is only for a certain kind of people and not others.

Hahn, who sees the benches as a compromise, said they're only being used in high-traffic areas. "From my perspective, downtown's for all; it's for everybody. I don't want to come off that we're trying to push people off."

There are still more than two-dozen backed benches downtown and Hahn said the five backed benches that were removed will be installed in other locations.

A place for all

Baker loves what's been done with downtown, but she cautioned against trying to exclude homeless people.

Many poor and homeless people call downtown home because, years ago when the district was in a slump, that was where many of the cheap hotels and tiny low-rent apartments were, she said. There remains some tiny low-rent apartments, but many have been pushed out by new condos and renovated apartments, especially on Broadway, she said. "A lot of them are still small spaces, but they have varnish on their exposed beam now."

What makes downtowns special is they're places where residents from all walks of life gather, she said.

Madeleine Henry said homeless people like her feel targeted downtown, more by violent hooligans than officials. The new benches feel like they're there to mess with the homeless, she said Wednesday while resting on one of the backed benches.

Baker said she doesn't believe the homeless are actually hassling anyone because, for the most part, they know the rules and are just trying to make their way between places where they can find food and places where they can sleep. There is a rough crowd that seems to be responsible for hassling, she said, and they are also a problem for homeless people.

A call to downtown officers and repeated calls to Lt. Mike Mitchell, the police spokesman, were not returned Wednesday.

Old and new

All five of the backless benches have been installed at intersections along Broadway: two on Second Avenue North, two on Fourth Avenue North and one by the railroad tracks on the north side of downtown. Several of the backed benches that were removed will be installed a few blocks east and west of Broadway.

This is not a surprising pattern to Baker, who said she feels like there's a policy to get homeless people away from Broadway, which has become the part of downtown that's gotten the most investment.

She said she now hears complaints about the homeless on Roberts Street a block to the west where new businesses have emerged. The homeless, she said, were waiting for help at the Salvation Army office just as they've done long before those businesses came.

More businesses may be coming to Roberts because the city plans to build a parking ramp on the parking lots and encourage developers to build new residential and commercial buildings. They'll be right across the street from the Graver Inn, one of downtown's remaining low-rent apartment buildings.

Hahn, too, senses the tension between the old and new downtown, but he agrees with Baker that the homeless belong there as much as anyone else. When he took a Winnipeg delegation on a recent tour of downtown, they were approached by street people but thought nothing of it, he said. "They said, 'We see this in Winnipeg all the time. It's just part of that downtown grit.'

"It's kind of like, as we evolve as a downtown, what's our tolerance level of that grit going to be."