Officials in West Palm Beach, Florida are weaponizing music by playing a torturous sound loop of children’s songs throughout the night to hopefully keep homeless people from sleeping in a city park.
Leah Rockwell, parks and recreation director of West Palm Beach says the measure is to discourage people from camping out along the glass-walled Lake Pavilion. The pavilion is an events venue that overlooks the waterfront and downtown’s Great Lawn. It hosted 164 events from June 1, 2018 through June 30, 2019. Almost half of them were weddings, but they also host business meetings, bar mitzvahs, birthdays and graduation parties. Rockwell says the pavilion rakes in some $240,000 annually from these events. Rockwell elaborated:
“They shouldn’t have to trip over bodies when they or community events staffers come to set up at 5 a.m., or when caterers or a bride leave at midnight.”
“People are paying a lot of money to use the facility. Thousands of dollars. We want to make sure people paying this money had a facility that was clean and open and continue to use it in the future.”2
RELATED STORY:
Solving a problem as complex as homelessness takes time and the Lake Pavilion has a more immediate concern, Rockwell says. The city is working on a plan to formalize opening and closing hours for the park to more easily enforce trespassing laws. But meanwhile, she says, the loop of “Baby Shark” and “Raining Tacos” is working, adding:
“It has been effective and is a temporary measure to make the area accessible for those who have rented the facility and for future events. We are not forcing individuals to stay on the patio of the pavilion to listen to the music. The music is heard only if you are on the patio, a very small area relative to the rest of the waterfront.”2
RELATED STORY:
Illaya Champion, a homeless resident of West Palm Beach, says “it’s wrong” to chase people away with music. He says he’ll still sleep there, but “it’s on and on, the same songs.”1
What are your thoughts on this situation?
