andreapalladio - which is kinder, accepting the premises that sleeping in the open in the downtown is (a) sane, (b) healthy and (c) your civic right or instead not accepting any of those.
The panhandling thing is a weird reversal, since in order to eradicate it the right wingers would have to come up with a plan to house these individuals, many of whom (homeless advocates regularly tell us) have been ejected from shelters for unacceptable behaviour/drugs etc. Letting people live on the streets rather than housing them is usually something you'd accuse a RIGHT winger of permitting rather than a leftie.
If you're a city native, male and fairly robust looking you probably don't have much to fear from panhandlers. Aren't I lucky, and I suspect that applies to most on this board. The elderly, women or men of slight build or people who are new to Toronto should not have to feel uncomfortable because of being approached by beggars. This is because taxes are paid in this city to the City, Province and Fed Govt in order to see that various levels of funding flow to people who can't help themselves.
This is plainly not happening, and even when it does I feel the "homeless advocates" beloved by NOW magazine act as enablers by telling them "it's public space, sleep in it if you want" rather than saying "you should be sleeping in a bed as everyone else does in this city". City refuse collection are forbidden from picking up the blankets and clothes strewn at downtown street corners. The City Councillors don't help by treating shelters as leper colonies, running scared of having them anyplace other than downtown. It also doesn't help that Habitat and other affordable housing schemes get cut back and delayed because of opposition from people already resident.
Bigmouth Ford et al accuse other municipalities of driving their homeless out toward Toronto. The advocates ensure that city staff can't ask people where they come from so we don't know if it's true or not true (and even if it is their Charter rights would protect them anyway) and we can't know how many there are because rather than help the City provide an accurate homeless count they badmouthed it and boycotted it and encouraged the homeless not to cooperate.
It's time OCAP, "Disaster Relief Committee" etc. were told - we don't want homeless on the streets. It's not good for the City and IT'S NOT GOOD FOR THE HOMELESS. They should present a plan to eradicate individual long-term homelessness in a way that is fair and to cope with short-term homelessness - this will cost money but I believe the existing situation is costing us money too. Where this involves mental care the Province should be told to find the beds or a homeless shelter will appear beside Queen's Park and no panhandling bylaws will not apply within 200m.
Finally - I work at King and Bay. I guess a lot of the homeless I pass daily congregate there because of the high foot traffic and well off workers. A no panhandling bylaw might encourage these homeless to wander elsewhere in the City... the uptown councillors wouldn't like that at all...
On the up side - maybe if cops were patrolling the panhandling bylaw maybe streetcars would run faster on King because the cops might find spare time to shoo cars out of the streetcar lane at peak and move on some of the line of parked taxis. Just a dream I guess
