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News Roundup for August 23, 2024
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Pitfield, on Panhandling...

A busker is a street entertainer, and provides amusement that you can either enjoy for free or pay a tip for. A panhandler may be amusing, but doesn't set out to be. The situation is muddied because we're sometimes never sure if we're facing real street poverty or "faux" beggars.
 
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.
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And therein lies the irony. It has become acceptable to have people living on the streets in many Canadian cities. People have a "right" to do so, it is often said. But I wonder if that means that mental illness, alcoholism, drug-dependency and numerous social problems are also to be enveloped in the notion of a "right"? Somehow it has become acceptable for those who have illnesses to endanger and sicken themselves, poison themselves and slowly die on the streets because we are supposed to acknowledge the right for them to do so. Is that really true?

What bothers me with respect to some "advocates" of the homeless is that they use the homeless, panhandlers and so on, as a captive element in their politicking. Street people are all too often a convenient fodder for debates over whether money should be spent on the Olympics, for example. The Olympics vanish, and so do many of the defenders of the homeless - without anything actually being done.

Homelessness is a complex issue. But it appears to have become an accepted fact of city life; a new tier of impoverishment that where people are allowed to inhabit. Too many people have come to accept begging by virtually anyone as tolerable action. Maybe it is a response to not knowing what to do in the face of such a daunting problem.
 
Well, we used to know what to do - there were hospitals for those who were ill, marginal jobs like copy room clerks and elevator operators for those who could do that sort of work, and low cost housing were people with marginal jobs could afford to live.

Then people like Jane Pitfield and Steven Harper came along, and decreed that it was wasteful to spend tax dollars or corporate revenue on such things. And so they were swept away in the name of efficiency and tax breaks. And having those people, who once had jobs and homes on the street is the price we pay.
 
I agree that people panhandling should be offered jobs with the city or something. Have them clean up the streets, and stuff.

My dad remembers when he first moved to Toronto, the government use to have all the people on welfare, etc clean the ravines, and stuff for their welfare check.

Maybe we need a little bit of that kind of style back again. Where we offer jobs that need to be done to people who seem not to be able to get jobs.
 
^ I'm not sure if that was "offering" jobs or forcing jobs. Anyway, that would only solve part of the problem. I'm sure many of the downtown homeless panhandlers are unable or unwilling to work.
 
How about that fellow who jogs along the sidewalk and happily careens through traffic at College & Yonge drapped only in our flag as boxers; busker or "faux" beggar? And where do I deposit my change?
 
The Igor Gouzenko Busker - who wears a paper bag over his head - is one of my favourite street people. He was performing at Bloor and Bay on Saturday - without his smart chapeau at first, and later with it on.

I would imagine he makes more money with it on, or else he wouldn't do it. He's about sixty.
 
The Shaky Lady and Scary Shirtless Santa are still my favourite people about town.
 
At any time. I rarely see them by the Hummingbird Centre. And they seem more daytime people. Scary Shirtless Santa, in particular, seems to like to be seen by as may people as possible.
 
That black dude who wanders around downtown ranting and holding a big cross is quite funny too. The funniest homeless folk I've come across are in the States, esp. San Francisco.
 
I haven't noticed Stinky Man lately. Last winter he sat marinating over a hot air vent in the sidewalk on Richmond Street, just east of the new opera house.

I wonder if OCAP will come to the opera house opening? Last I heard, they planned to protest at "elitist" Stratford today - either unaware or not caring that actors are among the lowest paid groups of people.

I do hope I won't get pelted with eggs or something on the 14th!
 
Oh, god, that guy right in front of the RBC machine on Richmond. Pee-yew.

OCAP could potentially earn my respect if they brough their knitting to one of their protests against the so-called elite, all Madame Defarge like. Alas, OCAP is not a group of subtle or sophiscated thinkers.
 
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