Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
For some reason, I was thinking about walking Yonge Street on my very first visit, almost 10 years ago now. My hotel was on Charles Street, the Comfort Hotel on Charles Street. Short walk to Yonge Street and then I would explore from that base. Anyway, as I would walk Yonge towards the lake, I'd see men and women crouched out of the way with cups and sometimes sign. They were motionless and silent. I sort of gathered it was a "Canadian way of begging" (much quieter than at home where I live). On a later visit, I left Air Canada Center late at night and noticed bodies asleep on a plaza between the center and the hotel. That was about my exposure to homeless people in Toronto.
Now I remember why all this came to mind. On an episode of Da Vinci's Inquest he is walking and conversing with some colleague and there's a shaggy guy who holds out his hat wordlessly. Da Vinci doesn't even notice he's there.
Since that time I saw a film on the carters of North Vancouver, guys who expropriate shopping carts to scavenge bottles from recycle containers to turn in for deposit.
And that makes me wonder if economic conditions have led to a major growth of rootless people in Canada. Since a remake of Great Gatsby came out, it reminded me of an ominous sentence in the book where Jay Gatsby sees shadowy masses, seemingly zombielike people, and it shakes him up because they are outside the glittery world he is clinging to. And that recall makes me wonder if a society that has accustomed itself to "expendable people" finds the step to "expendable environment" an easy step. The rich may be shredding the environment, but it is the shredding of the social environment which is the costliest damage in the headlong pursuit of wealth accumulation. The society is getting poorer, the rich are, with help from government, building an oasis in the desert.
For some reason, I was thinking about walking Yonge Street on my very first visit, almost 10 years ago now. My hotel was on Charles Street, the Comfort Hotel on Charles Street. Short walk to Yonge Street and then I would explore from that base. Anyway, as I would walk Yonge towards the lake, I'd see men and women crouched out of the way with cups and sometimes sign. They were motionless and silent. I sort of gathered it was a "Canadian way of begging" (much quieter than at home where I live). On a later visit, I left Air Canada Center late at night and noticed bodies asleep on a plaza between the center and the hotel. That was about my exposure to homeless people in Toronto.
Now I remember why all this came to mind. On an episode of Da Vinci's Inquest he is walking and conversing with some colleague and there's a shaggy guy who holds out his hat wordlessly. Da Vinci doesn't even notice he's there.
Since that time I saw a film on the carters of North Vancouver, guys who expropriate shopping carts to scavenge bottles from recycle containers to turn in for deposit.
And that makes me wonder if economic conditions have led to a major growth of rootless people in Canada. Since a remake of Great Gatsby came out, it reminded me of an ominous sentence in the book where Jay Gatsby sees shadowy masses, seemingly zombielike people, and it shakes him up because they are outside the glittery world he is clinging to. And that recall makes me wonder if a society that has accustomed itself to "expendable people" finds the step to "expendable environment" an easy step. The rich may be shredding the environment, but it is the shredding of the social environment which is the costliest damage in the headlong pursuit of wealth accumulation. The society is getting poorer, the rich are, with help from government, building an oasis in the desert.
every time I see these homeless people, most in their prime age, I keep wondering how irrresponsible people can be to themselves so that they end up homeless despite being born in one of the world's richest countries. every year tens of thousands of people from poor countries carrying two luggage bags and a few thousand $$ come to Canada not knowing a single soul and are able to build a life here eventually. These people with all their home advantage, end up on the streets.
I mostly see this as their personal issue/failure, not fault of the societ (much less to do with the rich people).
If I see a 35 year old man begging for money on the street in apparently good health condition, I won't give him a cent. It is not about compassion. It is about being responsible for your own f**ing life.
There are tonnes of homeless people in the city but most seem older or really young. I believe a lot of the older ones have psychological problems and in a strange way want to be on the street as they've given up. In other words, if there mind was fully there then they probably could get some kind of job somewhere and survive but they don't have the will/mental stability and would rather get by panhandling and many get drunk/high. As for younger homeless people, I'm sure a good chunk come from broken homes and are runaways. I can't explain a middle age 35 year old dude who looks fine begging for money though. I'm sure there are some who are just hard on luck and for some reason, have no social network to help them. But in a first world country with accessible healthcare and affordable education (there is no financial or even really much of an admission barrier), people have ample opportunity to do something to make a living. And we can't blame someone with wealth for people in these unfortunate situations. It is really the government that regulates wealth distrubution via taxes and businesses in our society.
But I will say, although the numbers are slightly different depending on what you read, poverty rates in Canada are nothing to brag about compared to other developed countries (we are a more a middle of the pack) and income inequality is rising fast. The condo boom hasn't helped either with the cost of living for the average joe. I feel we can do better than to have a poverty rate of 15% in this country with our kind of social systems.
@ Botticelli - there's always a story in there somewhere. Many people are only 2 or 3 bad luck or lifestyle choices away from poverty. You try getting a job with no phone number or no address. There is a kind of poverty in this world that once it pulls you down, you can never pull yourself back up from. There might stories of sexual abuse, or being orphaned and brought up in the system, or physically beaten by a drunk father every night, to running away and running into drugs, to everything. History suggests that societies are judged not by how they treat their strongest citizens, but their weakest. Volunteer at a soup kitchen like the good shepherd and you can look poverty in the eye, and hear their stories. Then see if you still think they're pathetic or maybe you're just a little bit more lucky than some.
every time I see these homeless people, most in their prime age, I keep wondering how irrresponsible people can be to themselves so that they end up homeless despite being born in one of the world's richest countries. every year tens of thousands of people from poor countries carrying two luggage bags and a few thousand $$ come to Canada not knowing a single soul and are able to build a life here eventually. These people with all their home advantage, end up on the streets.
I mostly see this as their personal issue/failure, not fault of the societ (much less to do with the rich people).
If I see a 35 year old man begging for money on the street in apparently good health condition, I won't give him a cent. It is not about compassion. It is about being responsible for your own f**ing life.
Botticelli, why must we always disagree on everything? You obviously don't know much about the homeless population in Toronto, or you might have a little more sympathy and little less hostility. As jonathanc and AlsoNotMe noted, most of these people are not on the street because they are lazy bums, and living on the street is such a great way to live. Most of them have serious mental health issues, or have ended up on the street after a series of misfortunes. Many people in this country are one paycheque away from homelessness, yet in your upper-middle-class downtown bubble, you assume that everyone has the same opportunities and if they fail it must be their own fault. Very few people on the streets have really chosen to be there.
The exception is often street kids, but there are a lot less of them than there used to be. When I first moved to the city, I befriended quite a few street kids, and I can attest to the fact that most of them were not victims of abuse or neglect at home, and simply liked the lifestyle and didn't want to live under their parents' rules. They could return home at any time, but chose not too. But I did know street kids who had fled abuse and neglect, and their stories were very sad. Young people who start off life in that manner are much more likely to be homeless when they get older. Can you blame them, or are you one of those people who truly believes we all have equal opportunities to be successful in this country regardless of mental health, addiction, childhood abuse or neglect, unemployment, etc. Really. People who dog on the homeless either don't know much about them and make assumptions, or lack the ability to empathize with someone who may not have had many of the same advantages as they did. Let's face it, not everyone is able to overcome the most adverse of circumstances to be successful. To think they should simply because you don't approve of the notion of people begging while you work tells me that you should volunteer at a local shelter or soup kitchen - maybe meeting some of the city's homeless and hearing their stories will change the way you think about them.
I've struggled with my feelings about the homeless for years. In my 20's and 30's, I had the typical idealistic outlook, i.e. these people are victims of society or suffered a string of bad luck and just need a leg up. I honestly believed that if given the chance they would be honest, successful, and productive members of society.
I don't really think that way anymore.
People who are mentally ill or suffering some other disability have my sympathies. But addicts, and those who choose the street lifestyle because they simply refuse to participate in society, not so much. I find as I get into my 40's my worldview is becoming more cynical and rational, in that I recognize there will always be this class of people no matter what we try to do to change it. And like almost everyone else, I have found myself conned and lied to and manipulated enough to make me generally suspicious of most panhandlers.
I see human beings much the same as a herd of wildebeast. Some folks, no matter what you do for them, are just not able or willing to function at the level required to be "normal". They cannot keep up with the herd, and nature weeds them out. You could feed them, give them houses, give them money, and it just won't work. They eventually slide back into the same state, much like hoarders and those people you see on TV living in complete squalor. They are what they are, until they decide to change.
It's a cold worldview, I admit. But I tend to sympathize and want to help people who are willing to also help themselves. I honestly think that those who are smart enough and determined enough will find a way to get help and improve their situation. But there is a majority who will never be able to get it together, and while I feel for them to some degree (mostly pity, I guess), my energies are better directed to those areas where there is at least some realistic sense of hope.
People who are mentally ill or suffering some other disability have my sympathies. But addicts, and those who choose the street lifestyle because they simply refuse to participate in society, not so much. .
Just dont forget in your "cynical" worldview that addicts are also mentally ill, just like a schizophrenic, or someone with bi-polarism. The Province of Ontario and even the Canadian Government agree, and view addiction as a mental illness (which makes it all the more contradictory that the Canadan criminal justice system continues to treat addicts as criminals in many cases). The Province of Ontario Ministry of Health describes addiction this way (http://health.gov.on.ca/en/public/pr...electcom.htm); the Ontario Addiction Strategy also sees addiction as mental illness major mental health concern (http://news.ontario.ca/mcys/en/2011/...trategy.html); prominent mental health centres and in Ontario and Canada agree with the mental health designation and have even adopted tactics of "harm reduction" and medical treatment of addicts, including the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons, (CPSO Members | College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario the Canadian Mental Health Committee further encourages the treatment of addiction as a mental illness, with a detailed initiative and approach to the issue (CPSO Members | College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario and the Canadian Mental Health Commission, as well (http://strategy.mentalhealthcommissi...gy-text-en.pdf).
Every single credible and legitimate medical institution in this province, as well the province and country's own policies categorize addiction as a mental health issue and it should be treated that way. So why do you assume that addicts are somehow more responsibe for their situation than other mental health sufferers? If you have a hardened attitude against homeless people, that's your decision, but don't make judgments about degree of responsibility a particular mental illness sufferer has over their illness. They all suffer, and most people addicted to hard drugs and alcohol have lifetime relapse rates approaching 90%. Not because they have no willpower or bad character, but because they have a chronic illness. You should read those links I posted so you can get educated on the subject of addiction. Maybe you'll feel a little more sympathy when you see them in the street.
Just dont forget in your "cynical" worldview that addicts are also mentally ill, just like a schizophrenic, or someone with bi-polarism...
First, as far as addiction being classified as a mental illness, keep in mind that the medical community also considers "restless leg syndrome" and "high cholesterol" to be "diseases" or conditions requiring treatment. With expensive and profitable drugs, of course. There are considerable financial incentives to classifying everything as a disease. The ex-CEO of Merck (Henry Gadsden) even said as much over 30 years ago. His goal? To prescribe drugs to healthy people. And with statins and the reflux drugs, etc, they are succeeding beyond his wildest dreams.
Quote:
Every single credible and legitimate medical institution in this province, as well the province and country's own policies categorize addiction as a mental health issue and it should be treated that way. So why do you assume that addicts are somehow more responsibe for their situation than other mental health sufferers?
Because they made the choice to use an addictive substance. If someone signs their waivers and decides to climb Mount Everest and freezes to death on the mountainside, who is to blame? The mountain, for being there and tempting them with its vast greatness? Or do we have to accept that the individual knowingly took a risk and lost? When you CHOOSE to dabble with addictive substances, you are to blame for the consequences. That is not being cynical or unsympathetic; it is calling it for what it is.
Quote:
If you have a hardened attitude against homeless people, that's your decision, but don't make judgments about degree of responsibility a particular mental illness sufferer has over their illness. They all suffer, and most people addicted to hard drugs and alcohol have lifetime relapse rates approaching 90%. Not because they have no willpower or bad character, but because they have a chronic illness. You should read those links I posted so you can get educated on the subject of addiction. Maybe you'll feel a little more sympathy when you see them in the street.
I'm not sure if you intend to be so condescending or if that is just the way it comes across.
Any addiction begins with a choice. You can choose to put a needle loaded with heroin into your arm, or you can choose not to. Nature doesn't arbitrarily draw a person into an alley with a loaded crack pipe, nor hold their head back for a haul of whiskey. People must take responsibility for the decisions they make in this life. If you gamble away your paycheck and lose your house and family, whose fault is it? I don't buy the argument that it was the flashing lights of the lottery terminals that seduced a person to the point where they had no control over themselves. This notion of "I am not responsible, I have a disease" is a cop-out.
Once you remove personal responsibility from a person by assigning him a disease, it is much easier to prescribe pills for said affliction. After all, they simply cannot help themselves. We are all puppets at the mercy of our addictions, not people making bad lifestyle choices. And if we don't want to relapse we had better keep taking our pills, until the doctor says it is ok to stop. Which, oddly enough, almost never happens.
Sorry, but I am not going to spend much time weeping for people who chose a path of self-destruction. I will not absolve them of their personal blame for their situation anymore than I'll absolve someone who drives drunk or recklessly and ends up crashing and injuring themselves or others. I'll save my sympathies for people who are truly victims of tragic circumstances beyond their control. They are simply more deserving of them. But of course, it is sad to see any human beings suffer, and I always hope they will eventually get themselves together.
You know I think the main thing I was just saying is that it's not ALL or nothing.
There are some homeless out there that choose to be. There are some that are trapped and can't get out.
My posting was just to say that to argue it's one way or the other is not valid.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
