People are blasting a Canadian shopping mall for playing the song "Baby Shark" on loop to discourage homeless people from loitering, calling it "cruel and unusual."
The Complexe Desjardins in Montreal has been playing the viral song at various speeds in some of the stairwells and fire escapes to stop "security issues" they had been having, as reported by CTV News.
Jean-Benoît Turcotti, a spokesperson for the Complexe Desjardins, told Global News that they had been playing the song in those areas for about a year now, and have since noticed "an improvement in the situation."
However, those working in homelessness support said there are better ways to deal with the problem.
Sam Watts, CEO of Welcome Hall Mission, called the method "cruel and unusual." "It isn't possible to resolve the complexities of homelessness by using juvenile tactics that are conceived to exclude people. You don't solve a problem by displacing a problem," Watts told CTV News.
A spokesperson for Old Brewery Mission, a 125-year-old homelessness support organization in Montreal, said there are "more humane" ways to solve the problem. "It's another clear example of not in my backyard. A toddler's song to vacate the premises ... there are better ways," Mila Alexova told Global News.
The spokesperson for the mall added that Desjardins has hired two social workers to help with "dialogue" between groups, explaining that did not want "to coerce these people, but to support them."
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