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Antipanhandling sign thread, part II
January 7, 2010 - 8:41am
Continued from THIS thread:
http://rabble.ca/babble/body-and-soul/anti-panhandling-signs-helping-or-...
Thought I'd start with a NON-vicious sign about the subject.
That's awesome! I hope activists in that town start doing some guerrilla postering with signs like that!
much better!
Mind you, between the homeless panhandlers (who don't take credit cards) and the charity panhandlers (who do) sometimes it's best for one's sanity to stick to the side streets when walking downtown.
I stopped giving money to panhandlers, and started giving it charities and for me, it comes down to this: I trust charities (who I know) to spend the money in a fashion that actually helps the homeless, far more than I do the panhandlers (who I don't) themselves.
End debate.
I like this idea in a way. Corporate welfare bums have one central charity in the hirelings they shove into power in Ottawa by phony majority and now minority coalition Tory-Liberals as a backstop against democracy-creep and lack of voter enthusiasm for their bs in general. The rich and corporations are able to lobby one central charity in the most efficient manner and avoiding having to go cap-in-hand to various donors. We can imagine the humiliation in that method and especially Canada's street beggars and homeless citizens.
The homeless and working poor also need the best possible charity amalgamating under one hat to eliminate bureaucratic inefficiency and waste, and that's to elect a federal NDP government.
Yes.
When I first moved to downtown TO, I was more generous, giving to panhandlers when I could afford it. I had them literally waiting outside my front door for me, or sometimes chasing me down the street. My husband was generous with one particular individual he liked, and this guy followed me home, and after he found out where we lived, he was regularly knocking on our front door asking for money. He was addicted to crack, and an alcoholic, and when I refused to give him money, he'd burst into tears on the front porch. When he found out I was a pharmacist, he showed up one day asking if I had any Oxycontin around the house.
As I have mentioned before, I work in methadone maintenance and am personally acquainted with hundreds of people living with addictions in Toronto. I see my clients around the downtown core, begging for money so they can buy drugs - and it's a huge problem; it's not the occasional person. There's a fellow who begs for money on a major street close to where I live - I recall one day where a fellow was pressing a five dollar bill in the guy's hand, and passersby were smiling at the generousity of it. Well, when that guy gets money, he buys Listerine and drinks it. My grandfather was drinking Listerine towards the end of his life - I'd be pissed off if misguided philanthropists who want to impress the neighbourhood with their generosity were helping him buy it.
Maybe if a guy is broke, and he has a drug problem, that's a motivation to get himself into treatment. Giving him money because you don't want to "judge" him only perpetuates the problem and is enabling the addiction.
Then again, you can't be sure what you're giving to the charities is going to the poor at all. In some of them, half of it goes to "overhead"(I.E., remodeling the charity directors' office or something like that).
You need to do some research on which charities you can trust.
And you don't want to be enabling the right-wing politicians who say "we don't need social benefits anymore, because the charitable system can deal with the problem".
But Sineed, we know our stooges have no intentions to make life any better for the homeless either way. We've lost a third of a million jobs last year, and so what awaits them if they do sober up? And when are the CIA and their mafia friends ever going to deal in safe and legalized and affordable drugs in North America? That aint happen' soon either. I think if I were homeless, I just might need a nip now and then to keep me sane on a homeless Saturday night on the pavement in minus 20 weather. If some of those people had real futures as middle classies, I might think otherwise. The reality is that life is dull and grey and pretty miserable experience all around for homeless Canadians this winter. A lot of those people aren't wanted by their families. They are Canada's discarded citizens and would actually have been better off under Soviet communism. It's the Chamber of Commerce idiots and others who don't like visible reminders that their ideology isnt worth a pinch of shit.
I don't see why we can assume that business people care any less than you or I. Sure, the first set of signs were clumsy and unhelpful but I for one have some sympathy with people I know who have to shovel sh*t away from their doorsteps before they can open shop for the day. Personally, depending on how many panhandlers I'd met that day, I'd rather buy the guy a sandwich or have a chat with him. There's no catch all response, everyone must be treated on an individual basis.
Unfortunately, in a free society, people will always fall through the cracks.
If the business people are upset about "shoveling sh*t", they should support the construction of MORE public restrooms in urban areas. Instead, business types almost always OPPOSE that, and also oppose the construction of "dignity centers" where the homeless can shower and get clean clothes(which is the essential first step towards getting able-bodied and able-minded homeless people back to work)because they business class just want to drive the homeless away(hopefully, to some vacant area outside the city limits where they will quietly die')
Or they could build more homeless shelters. Apparently there are studies that reveal homeless shelters cost more in the long run than if they just built some affordable housing. Chamber of commerce genies should be able to add two and two together though. If the shopkeepers are any good as business people, they should be able to afford to hire a few homeless people to clean the place up a little.
Then they should build more affordable housing. But they won't, because THAT would mean that admitting that there are some things that should be done even if they don't make more money for the rich.
I know that our local developers here in Northern Ontario are supposed to allocate so many new units of a housing complex to social housing in agreement with the people in charge downtown as a general rule. I think what happens is that when families move out of social housing for whatever reasons, the social housing commitments are soon forgotten about and rents jacked up to market rates. The local mafia housing developers in my hometown have become wealthy through dealings with the clique down at city hall. I imagine its a similar story across Bananada, I mean, Canada. Nuthin happens here until a few palms are greased and beaks wetted.
Well, that argument is kind of circular because if it saved/made them money to build shelters then they'd do it. I know at least one town where something like that happened.
Also, repeating the argument the homeless people are homeless because they can't afford a house is not really that helpful. People who are sleeping in their friends' basements etc are technically homeless, those on the streets are nearly always so for other reasons - which brings us right back to mental health and addiction issues. The issues are not economic, no matter how hard we hope they are or try to make them. Which is one reason that homelessness is one of the few issues that cross party and ideological lines.
You must mean that homelessness in Canada isn't a concern for the same two parties that have formed government since our national housing strategy was scrapped.
They thought markets in housing would appeal to Brits in the 1980's, too. The problem later was not that Brits didn't wanna make mortgage payments - it was that they couldn't make payments on time after Maggie and ideologues pauperized the nation. Today, British Labour is pouring $15 billion into social housing to make up for what the market doesn't provide. Our stooges here in Canada would be embarrassed at thoughts of spending that much to shore up the failed ideology.
Yep, and thankfully Labour will be out of power soon in Britain. Social housing there has just created sink estates, where even the police won't go. Do you think anything like that will happen in Canada?
O, and I meant to say that homelessness is something everybody cares about and can agree on, irrespective of their party allegiances.
You can't really say that of those who's first priority is driving the homeless away, though.
I was suprised to know that NYC has more social housing units for 8 million people than all of Canada has for 33 million. They've really been stooging it up in Ottawa for the last 20 years. If Canada's chamber of commerce genuses don't like tripping over homeless Canadians, they shouldn't support either of the two old line parties. Or they can always move their prospering businesses to the other side of the tracks where only upstanding pillars of the community live and spend money. Of course, then their own rents might be a little higher... This neoliberal setup just isn't working for a lot of people
Worth repeating, and thank you refuge.
many social programs don't have fees for services, many agencies geared to helping those with sever addictions and mental health issues don't charge clients.
Sure $5 is $5 and who couldn't use another $5 in her / his pocket? But it doesn't seem like a few dollars are going to help a person in any meaningful way. Maybe giving a few $ to someone out panning isn't really helping her / him all that much at all. Perhaps a few well meaning people would become more involved, in more meaningful ways, if they knew that the $ given to panhandlers wasn't accepted by any services that provide basic needs and support.
Too many panhandlers and not enough money has always been my view. I find the ads offensive because they presuppose that all the people begging for money are drug addicted or mentally ill.
Young people arrive in Vancouver and they are not eligible for social assistance and they discover rather than the promised land they have to work three jobs to pay the exorberent rent here. Some of them don't get enough hours because even though they "officially" work three jobs they are on a casual board and don't get many calls. Then one day they get two calls for the same time period and get fired (or never called again) from the job they didn't respond to. It gets to be the last week of the month and they have only worked 20 hours at their $9.00 an hour retail jobs and their share of the rent is $400. This is the real world now for Canadian youth. Your response it to tell them to go to social agencies and let the social workers and dogooders control their future. Frankly the intelligent young people I know who are poor do everything they can to stay out of the system but then again they know that if they self identify as homeless they will immediately be judged wither an addict or mentally ill.
Why are you here Viking? It is ALL about the economy and its failure to provide jobs that pay adequate enough to afford housing and food let alone roses. It is about the despair that comes from working two or three jobs and still having to live in your car or couch surf. These ads and your attitude says the poor are to blame for the last 25 years in Canada as the poverty has increased and the rich and their upper class allies have gotten very rich. Please feel free to take your right wing tripe somewhere else.
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Soothsayers had a better record of prediction than economists
Panhandlers. If I have money in my pocket, I give them some money. Meh, it's only money and I am fat and happy and have a roof over my head. I think it would suck to be trying to manage on handouts though, in the ATM age. I don't know how many times I have gone through all the pockets and both sides of my purse before I come up with what doesn't feel like a measly amount.
If caring and offering suggestions is "right wing tripe" then you are correct.
People like you do not give a sh*t about the homeless or anyone else, you just use them to further your simplistic, vacuous agenda. If there are no jobs in Canada, why is your government importing 200,000 people each year? But you can't ask that question can you, that would be "racist", probably. It's much easier to blame other people.
My government??? Like I elected Harpo or the Liberals before him.
You understand that racist, sexist, homophobic, classist (e.g. poor-bashing) and other excluding language is not appropriate on babble. This policy applies to both public and private messages.
I have written on this board about the temporary worker programs in this country. If you want to poor bash this is the wrong site. If you feel so very restricted by having to listen to us lefties why are you here getting involved in my simplistic vacuous agenda? Why do you need to prove that your MSM political insight is brilliant?
"Importing 200,000 people"? It's immigration, not the freaking slave trade. You just outed yourself as having a really toxic hidden agenda. Why don't you move to the UK, so you can vote for the British National Party?