Counting the Homeless

[Danjanou]

For those of you not blessed to live in Downtown Toronto and therefore who will not be harassed by an army of Birkenstock clipboard welding volunteers if you venture out tonight to walk the dog or visit the corner store to grab a  carton of milk, here are some of the main questions on Toronto’s long overdue and watered down Homeless Count er excuse me “Needs Assessment  being conducted tonight (19/04/06)

I let you draw your own conclusions on the questions and where the $200.00 million a year the city spends (in addition to Provincially funded Social Assistance payments) on this.  :

Links to what it’s all about at the bottom.
1. Would you identify yourself as:
[]-male
[]-female
[]-transgender
[]-transsexual
[]-other (specify)---------------------
[]-refused/no answer

2. Are you on waiting list for housing?
[] yes
[] no
[] don’t know
[] refused/no answer

3.Do you want to get into permanent housing?
[] yes
[] no
[] don’t know
[] refused/no answer

4. Please describe the place you will stay tonight:
[]-sidewalk
[]-ravine
[]-grate
[]-park
[]-abandoned building
[]-transit shelter
[]-under a bridge
[]-parking garage
[]-coffee shop
[]-shelter (terminate survey)
[]-friend's house
[]-don't know
[]-refused/no answer

5. Which of the following would help you find housing? (Read list and answer Yes or No for each question)
More money [] Yes [] No
Help getting ID eg Health card or Birth Certificate [] Yes [] No
Help finding an affordable place [] Yes [] No
Help with housing applications  [] Yes [] No
Help with Immigration issues [] Yes [] No
Help with legal issues [] Yes [] No
Help addressing your health needs [] Yes [] No
Help getting detox services [] Yes [] No
Help getting alcohol or drug treatment [] Yes [] No
Mental health supports [] Yes [] No
Harm reduction supports eg methadone, safer crack kit, needle exchange [] Yes [] No
Transportation to see apartments [] Yes [] No
Cultural supports [] Yes [] No
Services in languages other than English [] Yes [] No
Something Else [] Yes [] No

http://www.torontosun.com/News/TorontoAndGTA/2006/04/19/1540298-sun.html
http://www.toronto.ca/housing/sna/faq.htm
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20060417.HOMELESS17/TPStory/TPNational/

 

[The_Falcon]

Whatever the outcome, the homeless budget won't get any smaller, they will just find new ways to spin how they need more money.

 

[Danjanou]

Ok lets see, the Toronto Disaster relief Committee is against this
The Ontario Coalition against Poverty is against this
CUPE local 79 (the City workers conducting the survey union local) is against this
The NDP clique in City Council is against this

They’ve managed to water it down to this simple assessment which probably won’t be accurate instead of a systematic count as was done in NYC and they’re still oppose to it. Hmmm wonder why.

The City spends $200,000,000.00+ on homeless as noted and the problem seems to be getting  worse.

The professional homeless types who incidentally get most of that through funds, grants, studies etc claim that there could be upward of 30,000 homeless in Toronto depending on your definition. I think that means in the 15 minutes it takes me to walk from my apartment to my office that I am “not housed.” otherwise we'd be swamped by them right.

$200,000,000.00 / 30,000 = $6,666.66 per head not too bad.

Ok but suppose the numbers are closer to 3,000 homeless which is what ole Jack Layton who used to be the Patron Saint of the Homeless here before he got his new gig as leader of the Official Insignificant Party estimated the numbers at and is I think still too high. That comes out to $66,666.66, which is a hell of lot more than you can make as a latte technician at Starbucks. Why not just count then and give em all a cheque once a year and call it quits.

Now suppose the real hardcore numbers are only 300 or so. That’s… well you do the math, my calculator threw up when it saw the number.

Yeah this is gonna work Comrade Miller. :

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Soylent Green?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soylent_Green

                  -or-

Logan's Run?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soylent_Green

 

[Danjanou]

Hey drinking buddy I made those suggestions to the Mayor. They went over as well asd the lets tag em and they then become Natural Resources prob not ours, and the lets teach the gangbangers proper weapons handling techniques so that they blow each other away faster and solve the gun crime problem faster and without innocents getting hit in the cross fire.

The man just does not think outside the box I tell ya. ;D

 

[Zartan]

30 000 people is astronomically high. Calgary has only 1500 homeless people - which I would be willing to guess as the highest rate of homelessness in the country. Even if Toronto was as bad as Calgary (and Alberta in general) at supplying housing, Toronto still wouldn't have more than 7500 homeless.

 

[ArmyRick]

I say we build a lovely new government homeless facility with first rate plumbing, heating, air conditioning and filled with furniture....



We will put on Baffin Island though.....




Right next to where I would put our fenced in refugee camp...

 

[George Wallace]

I always thought that was a good idea.  Even if we moved it a bit south to Churchill; that would be good too.

I wondered last night when I watched this on the news, about the number of volunteers out doing the count and how many of the volunteers counted the same people more than once.  Sort of like those 'Body Counts' in Vietnam, where on VC was killed, but everyone in the Company counted him, making a total count of several dozen KIA.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

.............or how many answered multiple surveys themselves, in order to squew the results to their socialist way of thinking and possibly garner more money for their particular pet program.


Sir, please answer yes or no.

5. Which of the following would help you find housing? (Read list and answer Yes or No for each question)
More money [] Yes [] No

"uuuughghghharraggblowchunksalloveryourshoescoughhack............"

"What do you think Blossom? Sound like a yes to you?"

 

[Danjanou]

And that’s why it will take into July before the results are known. Need a couple of months to fudge the numbers so they come up they way the Poverty Industry needs them to.

According to reports in the Toronto Sun, who actually defied the Mayors edict on no press coverage of this, the next day, one team of intrepid volunteers actually led by an experience street worker who probably knows which nooks and crannies to look came up with a whopping 9 homeless for the whole night. Now presuming that every team was the same size and that they all were as successful as this one and there was no duplication that would come out to some 3,500 which is probably still too high, and about a tenth of what the Birkenstock Brigade are saying.

One rumour on the street is the real hardcore homeless types knowing about the survey went and hid in the burbs for the night until the clipboard types left the downtown core.
:

 

[aluc]

Soylent Green....classic. Don't know if they'd taste to appetising though. Maybe the fact that city council welcomes the "homeless" to come to Toronto is the real reason they're all here.  There is a huge "homeless industry" here in Toronto and they have a very opinionated, and organised following of professional agitators, or protesters, that have a lot to gain by increased numbers of "homeless" flocking to Toronto. It's nice to see where city council has its priorities set. I'm not allowed to smoke outside of office buildings anymore, (I know smoking is stupid, tyring to quit) but "homeless" people are allowed to piss and sleep in front door of my building, all tax free. Culture of entitlement plain and simple. For all the money the government takes form me, we have to accommodate freeloaders, because they are more important than the hard working people that pay through the nose to keep this city functioning properly - barely. ( I may have said    to keep this city beautiful, but those days are long gone.)  As a result , we have to pay more money, and lower our standards of living to facilitate the "homeless life" people have chosen for themselves. If you ever frequent downtown TO , you can't even walk / drive for more than 30 seconds with out having to step over a filthy street urchin, or get harassed for smokes, money, bus tickets etc. You're not even safe in the car, as soon as you stop at a light you get harassed. Toronto has turned into a homeless colony of sorts. The ultimate incident was when OCAP decided to march through an affluent Toronto neighbourhood a few weeks ago, doing what they do best, demanding for an increase in welfare money, and sh#t disturbing in general. The nerve of these people in the "homeless industry". If it were up to ocap we'd turn the whole city into a homeless playground , complete with free drug kits, booze, bus tickets, money, food, and a bright new grate to sleep on for eveyone. Why work at all, now I see why there are so many freeloaders and why they come to TO, we give 'em eveyhting. There just like seagulls, the more you feed them, the more they come around.

 

[Kat Stevens]

Toronto council should take a page from Winnipeg for a homeless survey.  They go to the corner of Portage and Main at 0700 on 1 Feb of every year.  They then count the number of frozen rubbies in a 2 block radius of that intersection.  That number is then fed into the super computer known as Deep Sympathy, and a complex mathematical formula is applied to it.  After 6 months, the computer gives an accurate head count of homeless people, and budgets accordingly.

 

[monika]

I think the 30 000 includes those without "stable" housing, such as those who crash at friends and so on.