The overabundance of support agencies for poor and homeless people concentrated in Riversdale needs to be addressed in what the city councillor for the area is calling “solution by dilution.”
“The simple fact is that the status quo is not working,” Coun. Pat Lorje said in an interview. “We need to think about alternative models.”
Many of the city’s social supports for homeless people are concentrated in the area, trapping people in negative lifestyles, Lorje said. The result is the creation of a society unto itself, from which it is harder to pull people out because they are exposed to more intense levels of the forces that cause, and keep, people homeless and addicted to drugs and alcohol, Lorje said.
A word:
I hate using the word “progressive” when referring to leftists or liberals. Nothing in their thoughts, words or deeds are progressive in the true sense of the word.
Just a quibble.
There are some properties on Sask. Cres.W that would make dandy rooming houses and close to the river too, you know for the soothing gurgle and all.
City slickers. Still trying to figure out how to deal with their trash and stick somone else for the bill.
The parallel with Vancouver’s DTES, sponsored by Libby Davies, is remarkable. Concentration has been a fail here as well, but the Premier and Mayor don’t have to go there, as their neighbourhoods remain pristine.
The mark of a true “progressive” is that they will be the last to see or recognize a fact and once they do, will always come to a completely wrong conclusion about the cause of that fact or it’s consequences.
You are quite right about the underlying intent to spread the misery …. it’s what they do.
The “poor and homeless” industry is just one more societal leech and the real poor and homeless never benefit from them. How many have noticed how every new creation of a food bank creates more takers, even those dropping by in their BMWs. So if you build them, they will come.
“support agencies for poor and homeless people”
aka Poverty Pimps
The ‘progressives’ have been busing West side ghetto kids over to the east side of town. The result is as you’d expect, spreading crime over to the less crime ridden side of town. It is callled….oh right, Affirmative Action.
Solution by dilution can work, if the dilution is
great enough. The LeBreton Flats area of Ottawa was
erased. Whether the flatonards were dispersed through Ottawa and couldn’t re-make
their smelly little warrens, or went to Saskatoon, or died, I don’t know.
When the activists talk about this sort of thing they are NOT intending to dilute anything.
What they want is more of what they already have.
They’ve just come to the realization that there is not enough room for their projects in the local ghetto.
Its spring relocate to the park…….Have garden patches…to keep them busy..that will be half of next winters food if they do it right….cities should not make it easy for them…when the weather is nice their numbers double….just like rodents..
Lmao at speedy….”soothing gurgle”…way too many visuals there lol
Like others posting here, I have trouble with the word “progressive”. Instead of applying the label “progressive” as a feel-good, apple pie label, people should ask the question, “Progressing towards what?” Progression is simply movement, which may or may not be taking us where we wish to go. On the positive side, it is nice to see Coun. Lorje, who has often been in the leftie camp, acknowledging that efforts to help can be counter-productive, and need to be evaluated on the basis of where they are taking us (there’s that law of unintended consequences again), rather than if they make us feel all good about ourselves.
Once upon a time there was a place called Brownsville in NYC. It was the worst crap-hole in the entire expanse of New York. If you’ve ever been to New York, you know that’s saying something.
Into town on a shining white charger rode David Dinkins, He Who Will Save Us ALL. After a couple terms as Mayor, Dinkins had -bankrupted- the largest city in North America. And Brownsville was a bigger crap-hole than ever.
Then came the eeeeevile Republican, Rudy Giuliani. The eeeevile Lord Rudy said “bust every crack head, noise complaint, j-walker, graffiti artist and bodega owner in the city.” And it was done.
And the jails filled up with creatures great and small busted on tiny nuisance charges, but kept in jail because they had five or ten outstanding warrants, failures to appear, late child suport payments and a variety of other issues nobody had bothered to bust them for ever before.
Lo, the jails filled up so much with the accumulated scumbags of New York that there had to be new jails built.
And the eeeevile Rudy was chastised from on high in the Ivory tower, and in the lowest places of the lowest sewers.
But Brownsville was no longer the worst crap-hole in New York. Because all the scumbags responsible for making it that way were either in jail or had run away to Yonkers and Mt. Vernon.
But eventually the eeevile Lord Rudy was deposed. A new Mayor, Bloomberg The Rich, has ridden in on another white charger to Save Us All with his wonderful progressive ways. I understand Brownsville is getting pretty crappy again.
Which only goes to show my friends, that Progressives don’t give a rat’s @ss about the poor. If they did, they’d be doing what’s been proven to work instead of doing what’s been proven to fail every single time.
No one feeds so rapaciously or remorselessly on the poor than a commie looking for a free meal for life.
O’s ‘hood.
…-
“A Reporter Spends the Night in Chicago (-and barely survives to tell the tale- video)
This is a video story of an ABC reporter spending one night in Chicago. He barely makes it out alive and is told by residents that they wish the National Guard could be called in. See Obama’s neighborhood up close.
(Excerpt) Read more at liveleak.com”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2512303/posts
cut off all welfare
and things will sort themselves out
Where I live, there truly is a shortage of jobs – even shit ones-the propaganda machine is not being honest about the so called recovery, there is not as much recovery going on as advertised, and it will get worse – the domino effect is on its way having begun with Greece.
Having worked with an abundance of clients on social assistance, I can say that the whole social service safety net is a lie. It is nothing but a token program that has no substance or teeth in it to get the people who really do want to work or get an education to support themselves and/or families off any type of assistance whether EI or social assistance. The article is correct in saying the system is designed to keep people in a cycle of poverty as opposed to assisting them in getting out.
Take for instance the stupid rule for clients who are on social assistance who get a whopping $450 a month if single and $819 a month if a couple that are discouraged from earning more than $100 to $150 a because every cent over those amounts is taken out of the $450 or $819. There is no – no allowance for a person to work a part time or full time job to earn enough so a person can get on their feet and afford to pay for a damage deposit and rent – an unfinished room rents in my city for $500 – a one bedroom apartment starts at $800 per month. It would cost much less and be infinitely more effective; to let a person earn enough for 6 months to ensure they can get off assistance for good. EI will assist with education, but only for a select few being largely token program with so much red tape and bureaucracy involved that running a marathon is easier to do than passing through the we will assist you to up to $4000 in tuition- those on social assistance do not get any education or tuition assistance and have a very difficult time getting student loans which do not cover upgrading if needed.
Poverty, crime and unemployment are industries with benefits-government workers are privy to the intimate details of the peoples lives they hold captive, as are these phony employment centres that do nothing to help anyone find a job – they post jobs already in the paper and online, let you use their computers to write your own resume and allow you to use their fax machine and copier, and run a workshop or two on how to bull-shit through an interview-other than that they are useless and are simply statistic gatherers and vouyers. These centres do however provide high paying jobs for employment counsellors. If you are going to have a dafety net or a system – have one that actually works and does what it purports to want to donot a scheme to funnel tax payers dollars to provide high paying jobs for government workers who are often relatives or friends of those in high places.
The same situation exists in my neighbourhood of downtown Edmonton (Chinatown business district).
We have several support facilities for the homeless concentrated within two blocks of where we live and dozens of assisted income housing units surrounding these facilities.
I think a lot of the people in this area are truly in need and being helped, but the majority are chronic boozers and drug addicts who live to sponge off social services instead of leaving the street, getting clean and going to work.
There will never be a solution to this in a free society unless we convince future generations that being self reliant is a worthy goal in life.
I’ve always found it easier to help someone who wants to get ahead in life, not someone who demands help because they couldn’t be bothered helping themselves.
The result is the creation of a society unto itself, from which it is harder to pull people out because they are exposed to more intense levels of the forces that cause, and keep, people homeless and addicted…
Posted by Cjunk at May 12, 2010 5:48 PM
Sounds like a UN assistance program: massive diversion fo funds from the intended recipients with predictable results.
Wonder what percentage of our social-assistance budgets ever make it to the homeless in the form of food, clothing, shelter or treatment?
25? 20? 10?
Parasites with briefcases.
The homeless don’t end up in those neighbourhoods by accident. For one thing, they want to have easy access to drugs. For another, all their friends are there. If they were dispursed into nicer neighbourhoods, there are only two possible results. They bring the drug dealers and whores into those neighbourhoods, or they end up migrating back to their comfort zone.
Alberta’s Metis Urban Housing does just that:
give layabouts a place to crash,make babies,and deal dope…or fence stolen property.
So they can buy more dope. Social housing under other programs follows the same script.
N’er-do wells scheming all day long on the couch, and prowling at night when working people are asleep.
Three houses hit this sunday on my street. My truck gone in January. A friend’s two days after. Another two disappeared a week ago, down town, three blocks away.
Gives more support for Sharia law…..amputation for offenders…..
I can just imagine the new model … expropriate every tenth house in the upscale neighborhoods, move the scrote bags in so they can, by osmosis, become wealthy, law abiding and successful.
Ya, that’s it … that’s progress.
Somebody must have booted the lefty NDP’er (Lorje) upside the head to make her finally see the light!
But, No-One @ 9:16- WTF’s wrong with clawing back any earnings and reducing the assistance entitlement?
That’s what’s at the real root of the problem! Most recipients who need a hand up to get them through a difficult period would appreciate the help and take any earning opportunity, and be proud of their payback; the chronic abusers/lazy sob’s will take it as a slight against their character and holler blue bloody murder. ‘How dare you infringe on the entitlements of the downtrodden!’
Your last paragraph I agree with. I wonder if the problem would be cut in half if these ‘help’ programs were cut in half!?
And really, how many of these social workers go home at night thinking they’ve really made a difference, and how many go home with a fat paycheque and start planning their next vacation or RV purchase?
snagglepuss: because $450 per month is not enough to live on – one certainly can not save enough money on that allowance to secure shelter-it’s really a penalty for trying to do something to better your situation. The government also takes any return in the form of a tax refund if you work while on assistance – did you know that?
It’s really just a way for the government to keep its customers and the industry going – very little of the amount we pay in taxes that goes to social programs ends up in the hands of those that need it. More goes to administrating these programs or in the pockets of outsourced contrators who administer many of these programs now, than to those on the reciving end – remember the ones getting the contracts have to prove – justify a need for their services – they do that through numbers – more clients equals more numbers equals more money and ensures contract continuation.
Public housing is not the answer – inevitably they end up being ghettos and crime centres. I say allow people to earn enough, gain working experience for a limited time so they can secure safe and descent housing and then cut them off – they will end up paying the assistance back in the form of taxes.
National Review once ran an article about “the Gap”. The Gap is the difference between what it costs to give every “poor” person warm dry shelter, adequate nutrition, clothing and medical care and the cost of social programs to help the poor.
The cost of the aid; leave barrels of beans, lentils, cooking oil, tofu in supermarkets where anyone can help themselves to reasonable quantities for free, piles of t-shirts, tidy whitey underwear and dungeree trousers (the Bible instructs use to cloth the naked, not style them), a dorm with beds and a foot locker. Just basics. Minimal monitoring mostly done by minimum wage workers.
The article was published in the early or mid 1980’s. Low and behold the Gap was over US$100 billion!
The war on poverty is there for the poverty warriors not the poor.
Reform the social services any way they want, but keep the whores, junkies and violent drunks out of my neighbourhood.
I choose to not live with them. For good reason.
I live on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. The main town, Hyannis is the welfare/homeless industry center. We are taxed roughly 5 million+ for a 100 homies. That’s $50K/bum/year. That doesn’t include police/fire/rescue costs, lost business costs from having five bums hanging around your store or breaking into your business, etc.
Hey, if people want to drink themselves blind, play at being modern day Thoreau’s, more power to them. Just don’t tax me to support a bunch of leftist welfare advocates in their nice cush jobs. Also, get off my lawn.
You’d think after all these years of experimenting, there would be no one left who still thinks that the condition of the housing one lives in causes social problems. There is a cause and effect dynamic at play here, but the “progressives”, as usual, have it backwards.
No-One: I think we both agree that an industry of welfare for the poor and disadvantaged has become entrenched in govt/social services circles and there are a lot of well paid jobs doing very well by it.
Those recipients willing and able to work no doubt have no problem with the clawback of benefits should they find employment- perhaps it should be graduated. What galls me is the sense of entitlement by the freeloding segment.
Abe @ 11:12 PM: “expropriate every tenth house in the upscale neighborhoods”
================
Better yet, expropriate every tenth house in Riversdale and move Pat Lorje and her fellow “progressives” in. Should work just as well.
Speaking of which, I wonder where Pat Lorje lives. Anyone? I’m betting it’s in one of Saskatoon’s upscale neighbourhoods.
Snugglepuss: no doubt there are those that feel entitlement;unfortunately, they spoil it for those who have fallen on hard times and have real barriers that they are working hard on overcoming or have overcome and do not want to be on social assistance, yet find themselves needlessly taking two steps back with every step taken forward which, of course, takes much longer and means the said person remain in the system longer. The invasion of privacy is brutal and “choices” are dictated by the system which is why many prefer to collect bottles instead, it’s less humiliating. The homeless rate is already increasing – persons that never thought they would ever find themselves in that situation. Doing something half way is worse than not doing it at all. If our government is going to assist a person with barriers become self-sufficient then they need to do it and not play cat and mouse.
There is a simple solution, just assign a number of weeks per ten year period that you are able to collect welfare or EI. You do this across the board, so that it becomes a safety net not a life style. I’m tired of seeing construction workers work all summer and collect all winter…many in Florida, I’m tired of seeing welfare recipients taking taxis on check day to the bank…have the taxi wait while the go in the bank to cash their cheque then go off to the LCBO or bingo palace. And mostly I’m tired of all the government workers being paid to protect their clients from having to go out and get a job…
Every time someone on the dole leaves the country their cheques should stop immediately.
As so many have stated it is a poverty industry that keeps this going.
In Toronto the homeless survey figures were released after Miller sat on them for a year. Just 583 people actually lived on the streets, some 5,000 were homeless, this was down slightly from the last survey. Yet over $220 million is spent each year on the homeless industry! This works out to 40k per person if you actually gave them the money. We know almost all of this money is spent on the homeless industry government employees.
I have a problem with Lorje’s thought that it is the environment that cause, and keep, people homeless and addicted to drugs and alcohol. We all know of people who find their way out of that environment. We all know people from privileged backgrounds that find their way into that environment.
What makes them different?
I think one of the biggest contributors is personal attitude. Assuming you are of sound mind and body, if you are determined that you are going to claw your way out, or if you are determined that you are going to find a way in, you will. If you decide that it is easier to harvest your entitlements and lay about, you will.
The second biggest contributor is you peer group. If you run with people living negative lifestyles, you will likely end up living a negative lifestyle. But this is related to attitude too. If you want out – you will avoid that crowd.
You might think then that the idea to expropriate every 10th house in a “good” neighborhood is the way out. But I think that just feeds the desire to live off of handouts.
The way to promote a desire to get out of that situation is to stop rewarding it for able bodied people. Cut the funding so very tough decisions are made and only the truly needy get benefits. The rewards of work will soon outweigh the rewards of laying about and people will move there.
“Somebody must have booted the lefty NDP’er (Lorje) upside the head to make her finally see the light!”
Considering Lorje’s history, I wouldn’t be so quick to give her credit for having any rational thought. You can bet your last dollar that there is an ulterior motive behind her pronouncements and that it will result in more tax dollars being flushed.
Or possibly, she just wanted some publicity. She is the female equivalent of Jack Layton in that regard.
Posted by: rroe>
“Assuming you are of sound mind and body…….”
Back in the day it was called natural selection or survival of the fittest.
Look at where we are going now, 7 billion most of whom can’t feed themselves without some sort of foreign assistance. How could anyone possibly think it can get better with more handouts?
The Third World and first world poverty is increasing exponentially, while the First World is declining.
The welfare will eventually end with western civilization of course.
The ‘athlete’s village’ on false creek combines social housing with market housing.
The price of the penthouse is $10 million, while a 3,000 sq ft. condo is a bargoon at just over %5 million.
Hmmm. I wonder how much the ‘subsidized housing’ for those who wouldn’t be able to afford a roof over their heads, will be?
What’s that old saying about both the poor and the rich having a right to sleep beneath bridges? Now both the poor and the rich have a right to live in the most expensive properties in Vancouver! Ahhh, equality.
Pat L is a two faced SOB. Many years ago she and her actor husband/ boyfriend moved to San Fran for his acting career. I asked her if she had private health insurance in the USA or did she opt for publicly funded Medicare like a good NDP’r should have, and she responded that it was none of my business. All I wanted to know was if she talked the talk and walked the walk. In other words she told me to go F— myself. She is a dingbat. She also lives in Montgomery.