A proposal to let people in need in Toronto help themselves

Prometheus' Gate by John Clapp

My friend John Clapp is one of Toronto's most talented artists. But he's been going through a bit of a tough spell recently. He's been involved with the system that, while ostensibly created to relieve poverty, in reality does little more than to provide a good living for an industry of "poverty pimps" who pocket close to or better than six-figure salaries while doing nothing to really improve the lives of the disadvantaged.  This system is made worse by the cozy, insidious relationship between City Hall and the poverty pimps, by which their enablers in the political class get support from activist 'boots on the ground' in exchange for taxpayer money. Your money, which is often being grossly misused.

As an alternative, John has a proposal by which, with a little help, those in need can be given the opportunity to help themselves:

How about helping the homeless by helping them stay housed in market rent tenancies, rather than building an industry on homelessness? 

And let's be honest, that's all this city has done. And they've used poverty reduction transfer payments to that end. 

Let me ask you the public, something. Over the past approximately 20 years since the city has been investing (millions if not billions of dollars) in the T.C.H.C. and the shelter system, has poverty been reduced? Has it?! Has socio-economic marginalization been reduced? Or again, has the City merely built an industry on poverty and socio-economic marginalization? 

I would argue from the evidence, that the City has done more to perpetuate the issues of poverty, socio-economic marginalization and homelessness than it has to resolve those issues exactly in order to build that industry. For example, I'm on O.D.S.P. and have been denied twice over the past 2 months for support from the so-called Housing Stabilization Fund. And the two denial letters presented two mutually inconsistent reasons respectively...

Read the whole post HERE

And you can hear a proposal from Conservative Senator Hugh Segal that addresses some of these issues: