Assault spurs call to outlaw beggars in T.O.

[Lexi]

Okay, your profile shows you live in Hamilton.  Is that where you were a street person?  I am not familiar with the services there, but if there is a Sally Ann, I find it hard to believe that you could not have stayed there.  I think at this point, no one is ragging on the MHA's.  But sorry, if you are a drug addict, then screw you.  No one dies from the pain of addiction.  You are making a choice, plain and simple.  The penalties for choosing drugs are not severe enough, so people get the best of both worlds.  Look at Singapore and other countries where drug use will get you killed.  Remarkably low addiction rates, eh? 
How will they survive?  Hmm, I don't know, maybe pull their crap together, clean up and work like the rest of us. 
Where will they go?  Hmmm, I'll take "Topics I could care less about for $500, Alex".  Once these people get their crap wired, they can GO HOME!! 
Will the gov't help them  Yeah, it already does.  It's called welfare, and it is readily available for anyone who is willing to leech the system. 
Should we move them to another location?  Yeah, Nunavut strikes me as a good idea.  Put together press gangs to round up street tools (non MHA) and fire them up to the Arctic circle.  Put one person there to provide directions as to how to construct shelter and hunt/trap food.  If you can survive for three months, you are allowed to come back to civilization.  If you can't, then it doesn't really matter because you are polar bear food.  They would have a jump start on beating their addictions, develop a sense of team work and accomplishment.  IF they return, you give them one year at a shelter, with access to job retraining.  Daily surprise drug testing, and required community service when not in job training.  After one year, if you still fail to conduct yourself in a credible manner, you are cordially invited to die in the street. 
Seem harsh?  Of course it is.  But currently, we have a system that falls all over itself to molly coddle these losers and provide them with decent digs, free food and clothes, and no incentive to help themselves.  Drug addicts do not get help until they hit rock bottom.  Perhaps we can help bring the bottom to them. 
As for the passive street rascal that just wants a bit of love and attention, you run with that.  I'll go with desperate crack head who will pull a knife or syringe on you if they think you are someone they can victimize. 

Funny how all of these homeless rights people never seem to have any of them living in their homes?

Yes, I spent a few nights on the street in Hamilton. I found various abandonments to sleep in and managed to keep myself dry for the most part. As for staying in a shelter - I chose not to. The reason I didn't want to attract attention to myself was because it would also draw in the police, with whom I didn't want to deal. I knew I could sort things out on my own without them getting involved.

As for "going home" - most of them don't have homes. Or families. They've got nothing. Alot of the homeless are mentally ill and cannot keep steady jobs or have sufficient enough income to live. Minimum wage is barely enough to pay the rent. Some of the homeless don't want to be taken into shelters because they don't trust people. A life of backstabbing, gambling and addictions'll do that to ya.

I can understand why everybody is so disgusted with the homeless, after all they're leeches who are just trying to get their quick fix, but my few days spent on the street helped me understand them better. I finally understood what it was like to have absolutely nothing, and nobody you could trust. You can come back at me as often as you want - I'll continue defending my point of view. 

 

[Cdn Blackshirt]

The closest I came to homelessness was living on eggs and white bread for 3-months....and times I went without that, but the experience certainly left an imprint.

I guess my take on it is this....

If you've become homeless, you've already struck out.  At the point, whether it is due to mental health issues, drug addiction, poor home or just bad luck, it is thr responsibility of the state to intervene directly.  Living on the streets should not be a choice....

So what are the solutions:
1)  Manditory drug treatment centers with skills training and development.
2)  Manditory Mental Health facilities with every effort possible to cure the illness by addressing the underlying issue with prescription medicines to attempt to manage the problem as phase 2.  If the facilities are unable to do that, then the individual becomes a ward of the state.
3)  Manditory Temporary Housing facilities with skills training and development for youth who have moved away from home.

Rules:
1)  No smoking.
2)  No drugs (drug testing manditory)
3)  Manditory classes for those no determined to be unsaveable.

Drug Centre Timeline (1-year initial terms):
First 2 months - detox.  Group meetings.  Everything is very low key with some confidence building exercises and light goal-setting with a focus on showing them what an alternative life could look like.  As they improve, they are issued new clothes and in general "cleaned-up" (to include haircut, shaves, etc.)
Next 4 months - Combination of skills building and confidence-building measures.
Next 3 months - Out-patient work program (reside at facility but work outside facility) at pre-approved work locations with supervisory controls in place and get paid half-wages that they can then accumulate in a savings account (additional clothes, tools, etc. provided based on successes)
Last 3 months - Probationary release - Assistance provided as rehab patients move into their own residences in teams of two.  Mandatory weekends back at primary facility for additional group meeting and the equivalent of "best practices" meetings.
After that, they still have access to 24-hour phone assistance, and several beds are left free in case they feel a relapse coming on.....

Mental Health structure would be similar but focus on evaluation and treatment while the temporary housing facilities would focus immediately on basic life skills like managing a personal budget, using task lists, then get into education to try to obtain a GED-equivalent for everyone, and for those who already have completed High School, pay for a specific training course they can immediately use.  Out-patient work programs would be limited to mental health patients who have made full or near-full recoveries and those who have found that prescription can effectively manage their illnesses.

That's where I'd start anyway....



Matthew. 

 

[GO!!!]

Mathew and Lexi,

Your suggestions effectively create a class of citizens entitled to free school, training, treatment, room and board etc. that I, as a tax paying citizen am not entitled to. You are in fact rewarding their sloth and addiction, and removing the consequences for their poor choices. Addiction does not sneak up on anyone - it is a choice - and a bad one that deserves to be punished.

Canadians are happy when our unemployment rate falls to 7%, but it hovers around 4% in the US, simply because they do not have the generous social programs that we have and that you advocate more of. Some people deserve our help, but others are on the street due to stupidity, laziness, or a juvenile lack of judgement. They deserve to starve and freeze, so that they realise the mistakes they made, and turn their lives around. 

my 2 cents.

 

[aluc]

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1147729810777&call_pageid=968332188492&col=968793972154&t=TS_Home

Homeless panel votes to oust Pitfield
Panhandling issue sparks friction
Advocates for homeless angered
May 16, 2006. 05:36 AM
JOHN SPEARS
CITY HALL BUREAU




Her efforts to control Toronto's panhandlers has mayoral candidate Jane Pitfield battling the city's homeless advocates.

During a raucous meeting yesterday members of the city's homelessness advisory committee voted to remove Pitfield as co-chair.

But Pitfield says only city council can remove her from the post. And she said she won't quit voluntarily in the face of opposition to a motion she has presented in city council seeking tougher measures against panhandling.

Some members of the committee walked out after voting 28 to 4 in favour of asking the city's community services committee to begin the process to have Pitfield removed as co-chair.

The homelessness committee's rules are informal, allowing all those who attend meetings to vote.

"Not having confidence in the co-chair leaves us in a bit of a conflict of interest in staying in a meeting with a co-chair who shouldn't be there," explained Beric German, a member of the Toronto Disaster Relief Committee, which led the charge against Pitfield.

Pitfield will present a motion at next week's city council meeting asking for several reports from city staff about what can be done to curb panhandling.

One asks whether the city can pass a "quality of life" bylaw making it illegal to "impede any other person's reasonable enjoyment of day-to-day activities through panhandling."

Her motions were prompted by an incident April 26 when Councillor Michael Thompson was "aggressively approached by a panhandler" in Nathan Phillips Square.

Dan Heap — a former Toronto councillor and MP — presented a motion of non-confidence in Pitfield's leadership of the committee, calling her proposal "a bylaw to oppress the poor."

"Taking an action against panhandling is a mistake," Heap, now 80, explained in an interview outside the meeting.

"Panhandling is not the cause of the trouble. The cause of the trouble is some of the people who are working are sometimes not paid enough to pay the rent and feed the kids.

"That's what has to be dealt with: Low, low incomes."

Pitfield originally ruled Heap out of order, because she's appointed by city council, not the committee. That touched off a series of angry outbursts that caused Pitfield to call a recess for tempers to cool. When the meeting resumed, Heap's motion was redrawn as a recommendation to council to unseat Pitfield.

Tom Smarda of the Toronto chapter of the Council of Canadians said her motions are simply part of her campaign for the mayoralty in November's municipal election.

"Her motion can be moved as a publicity strategy to garner right-wing votes on her behalf while hurting the sick and marginalized even further," he said.

But some committee members supported Pitfield remaining co-chair. Greg Paul is executive director of Sanctuary, a Christian outreach agency serving street people.

"I don't think we do ourselves a service by insisting that everybody have the same view about how to address issues of poverty," Paul said.

"The reality is Mrs. Pitfield — although I may disagree with some of her politics — has been there and she's been present and she'd stepped up when some councillors who have a more progressive reputation have not."

Pitfield (Ward 26, Don Valley West) told her opponents that counselling and job training — not panhandling — are what the city's street people need.

Panhandling isn't necessarily a homelessness issue, because some panhandlers have homes, and even cars, she said adding that most people in Toronto are worried about the extent of panhandling.

"They feel this has contributed to the decline, especially of the downtown core," she said later.

Pitfield said her motions shouldn't result in a police crackdown on the poor.

"(I see) this more as a decision by our council to do more, to do better and say we want to help people off the streets."



Interesting.... she may have a viable solution to the problem, but it would involve getting a little tougher on some of the people who seek to take advantage of society's generosity. It is amusing to read about how many of the people advocating the "homeless industry" want her to resign as co-chair simply because she is proposing a different strategy to relieve the city of homelessness. I guess these people want to increase homeless dependency on peoples' handouts, instead of getting some of these people off the streets and into social programs that we, the tax payer, already foot the bill for.

 

[zipperhead_cop]

That's where I'd start anyway....

Matt
Those look like some well thought out ideas, and I would love to see state imposed treatment of people with mental disorders.  They didn't ask to be MHA, and if their brain wires don't allow them to accept treatment, then the state has to step in. 
As for huge consideration for addicts, I'm about 90% with GO!!!.  I would like to see a one-time-use card that an addict can play to get a well constructed program of treatment at such time as they CHOOSE TO HELP THEMSELVES.  Once played, any illness related to drug use would result in an immediate exclusion from the health care system, and could only be reviewed after one year of weekly clean testing.  After that, you are cordially invited to die in a waxed refrigerator box behind a dumpster. 
My first/last call of my shift last night consisted of a crack head trying to tell us he was car jacked by a stranger.  We are calling him a liar to his face, but he is adamant to make a report.  We head into the area and locate the "apartment" he had been "helping his friend (who happens to be a Hep-C + crack whore) move into" at the time of the incident.  From the open porch door I can see no less than four losers rocking up in plain view.  Now the tool who is the actual renter is lying to us, because she has an open file with CAS and doesn't want her home to seem like a poor environment for her four year old daughter.  The smoke was so thick in there I'm not sure if I could pass a test right now, with needles and razors everywhere.  Three addresses, and hours of useless crack-versasion later, the picture we have is that the original guy leant his van out to a dealer, and just wanted it back before he had to go visit his dying wife in the hospital. 
These are the human garbage that social programs enable, and the ones I am talking about are the ones who have been able to manipulate the system and still have apartments.  At such time as you are on the street pursuing crack/booze money, you are no better than a rabid animal, and should be dealt with accordingly. 

For the record, no street person in Toronto, Detroit, NYC or anywhere else has ever asked me for money twice.  Your initial response to them will dictate how much they bother you.  If you appear weak and tollerant, you will be harrassed.  If you appear as though a second request or an aggressive posture will result in an immediate intimate three way relationship being cultivated between the skin bag, gravity and the pavement, then chances are you won't have to say much else. 

 

[GO!!!]

"hey man, got any spare change?"

me: <digging through pockets>

"of course!! how about a change of lifestyle"

<I hand over recruiters card from Canada Place>

<bum recoils in disgust after reading card, throws it on the ground>

"whatever man, I aint sellin' out"

me: "keep it real!"

 

[Enzo]

Favourite quotes from living on the island in regards to this topic:

"Spare any change so I can get the hell outta here."
Middle of the summer, beautiful Victoria day as only the tourist brochures can show. This chic had attitude and I laughed for a block. She was dressed better than I was.

"Spare any change so I can go to Jordan River for the weekend."
Same chic a few weeks later. I still haven't had a decent vacation.

Guy "Hey man, gimme some change, you can afford it"
My buddy "Pardon?"
Guy "Y'heard me dude, c'mon, what've you got on you?"
Bud "Tell you what, I'll give you $5 (pulling it out and holding it before him) if you bark like a dog."
Guy "What?"
Bud "Y'heard me, I'll give you this $5 if you bark like a dog."
Guy "Go f**k yourself a***ole!"
Bud "Oh, so accosting me for money is fine, but it's beneath you to work for it? I guess you don't really want it then."
Guy - Lots of profanity as we carried on.

Then there were the squeegee kids from Quebec who worked Government @ Fort St a few years ago. A girl I was dating worked nearby and they came in often to convert their change. Their story, they were "working" through the summer in Victoria, then in the fall they were going to head down to Mexico for the winter living on their "savings." Oh well, power to them, although she was a starvin' student who didn't appreciate the irony and another buddy has issue with squeegee kids in general since he feels that they acquire their squeegees from fuel stations (where he worked).

I'm of a mindset that parallels zipper, so I suppose I'm not one to go out and hug everyone eh?

 

[The_Falcon]

In regards to the Homeless Committee voting to get rid of Pitfield, it doesn't suprise me.  Those clowns who make up the committee are the most closeminded, leeches around.  Anything that would remotely infringe upon them receiving thier grants is looked upon with spite and scorn. So much for freedom of speech eh?

As for the rest of the discussion my thoughts are inline with GO!! and ZipperheadCop.  EDP's get treatment in a government facility, and those who are truly on the street through no fault of their own can get services.  Drug addicts and leeches, can go fist themselves.

 

[The_Falcon]

http://www.torontosun.com/News/Columnists/Levy_Sue-Ann/2006/05/16/1582298-sun.html

Begging her to leave
Homeless advocates out in full force to denounce Jane Pitfield for her 'war on the poor'
By SUE-ANN LEVY

My esteemed Sun colleague Peter Worthington got it wrong recently, I'm afraid, when he claimed that the panhandlers infesting this city are a bunch of bums and predators.

I'd take the behaviour of a bellicose beggar any day over the horde of bums -- i.e., the so-called homeless advocates -- who endeavoured to hijack yet another meeting of the city's homeless advisory committee yesterday and are proving more each day just how irrelevant they are.

Borrowing a few tips in civil disobedience from their friends with the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP), the Toronto Disaster Relief Committee (TDRC) folk came in all their unkempt splendour to target committee co-chairman and mayoralty candidate Jane Pitfield.

Their intention was to depose Pitfield as chairman for daring to propose -- at last month's city council meeting -- a quality of life bylaw that would ban the scourge of pesky panhandling in the city.

When I arrived at yesterday's meeting former NDP city councillor and self-professed "peace activist" Dan Heap was being trotted out for effect -- denouncing the councillor for proposing a bylaw that declares "war on the poor."

Tom Smarda of the Council of Canadians, claimed Pitfield's ban on panhandling was nothing more than a "publicity strategy" to "garner right-wing votes" in the November election. All the while the TDRC's usual suspects -- Cathy Crowe, Beric German, Michael Shapcott and Tanya Gulliver -- presided over the chaos like proud parents.

As Pitfield endeavoured to explain -- above the heckling -- people who visit the city see the number of panhandlers and that "tells them the city is not working properly."

She said she never considered panhandling to be a form of employment and many beggars are not homeless. "They get in their cars and drive away to their homes," she said.

Pitfield said she feels a "great deal of compassion" for the homeless and unlike any of her council colleagues (including the mayor) she's worked on the issue since 1998. "I was elected to give leadership in this area," she added, noting she has no intention of backing down and will leave it to council to decide her fate on the committee.

Yesterday's action only demonstrates how threatened the TDRC folk feel by anything that might take their homeless pawns off the streets. If they cared the slightest about the homeless, most of the 28 who voted to oust Pitfield as co-chairman wouldn't have darted from the meeting immediately after the vote.

ORIENTATION FAILED

Crowe said she'd spent two years trying to "orientate" Pitfield to the "issue" (i.e. the TDRC's way of thinking on homeless.) It didn't work.

Imagine that -- a city councillor who actually listens to constituents fed up with panhandlers plying their trade throughout the city. Imagine a councillor who actually has the balls to show leadership on a controversial problem. Strength of one's convictions is a rare commodity at City Hall these days.

Based on his track record of ducking controversial council votes, I dare say His Blondness wouldn't have shown the same courage or class -- exemplified by Pitfield yesterday -- with this motley bunch.

I asked Crowe if any other councillor had come forward to offer to chair the committee. She said no, they don't have "a lot of heroes on council right now."

Perhaps Greg Paul, a member of the Christian Leaders to end Homelessness put it best. While he couldn't support strong anti-panhandling laws, he felt that excluding people with divergent opinions (Pitfield) is "always" destructive.