Will someone catch us if we fall?

Fixing the transit mess, installing road tolls, creating bike lanes, are these really the top issues for our city?  When polls are done to identify our concerns, who creates the questions?  I suspect if the pollsters were closer to ground level, they might be surfacing other issues, especially those dealing with quality of life here in the big big city. 

You know how it is when you're having a bad day, when you're worried or grouchy from lack of sleep, or your job is driving you crazy and you think you can't stand one more instance of someone getting "on your last nerve", whether that's a store clerk or a fellow employee or yes, a TTC driver.

I think a lot of people in this city are on their "last nerve", and that has to do less with the issues identified above and more to do with worries and fears in this economic climate.  We're realizing that the social fabric we've come to count on is rapidly unraveling and that leaves us frightened for our sons and daughters who are struggling, parents who are aging, and jobs that are leaving.

We see that what we thought was a caring society in reality lets people fall so far they can never recover. It's hard to escape or ignore the evidence on our streets, our sidewalks, or in our public parks.  We're bombarded with charities demanding more and more, yet though we give, it seems as though nothing gets better.  So we're angry, and fearful, and fed up.

We want to keep our tax dollars rather than give them to people who we're sure waste them.We want to distance ourselves from the homeless, from the needy, because we have to believe they are not like us, they do not have the same work ethic, because, if they are like me and you, then me and you are in more trouble than we thought.

And we're already stressed to the heavens. 

None of us wants to feel as though we're absolutely on our own in this world. We want to be sure that if we fall, someone will notice, someone will be there, helping us to get back on our feet. We want to be able to breathe freely, throw off some of the heavy weight we're carrying on our shoulders and enjoy the best this city has to offer its residents. Hard to do when we trade in our idea of a vibrant caring community for a individualistic, Darwinian world.

About Pat Capponi

Comments

[Dawnmarie]

This captures what I have been seeing and feeling lately. I travel on the transit quite a bit and people seem to have gone from neutral to hostile within this last year. It was sad when I saw only few people offer their seats to others in need, but now mothers with children in their arms, people visually impaired and the handicapped have to fend for themselves. People are either out of work or working to hard with nothing to show for it.

Legal aid is going to be the next big lay off. They are closing all the locations around the GTA and setting up shop downtown.

[Sonny Yeung]

The City & Province provide some supports and sometimes the Federal Gov't if you qualify for EI.
I have proposed a Department of Peace and Conflict Resolution. Maybe councilling services are necessary to help those who are stressed beyond their wits. We share the burden paying various taxes, though Toronto gets less than it puts into Ontario and the rest of CANADA...

[Michael Creek]

i have to agree with Pat. As someone who has lived and experinced this city both as a homeless person and someone who has lived in poverty. It is not about the transit and it's faults (which are many) but about how we view and see each other. Have we forgotten that people matter the most not the individaul but our neighbours, our communties when one of us is suffering do we all not share that pain? You want a vibrant healthy safe city you better start at the bottom and start addressing the people factor or in the long run if we can't move past the me how will we ever see the big picture. Now more than ever we need the vision and passion to address these issues.

[Cheryl Smith]

Precise, provocative and eloquent. Thank-you Pat Capponi

Glaring realities are often avoided, denied or scapegoated because they appear to be such insurmountable and ugly challenges, and because, yes, we are exhausted by just struggling to remain afloat on a ship with a gaping hole...

This article inspires in me empathy for each and everyone of us whose life-jackets are torn from our arms as we are brutally tossed from this sinking ship...though we might be the very ones that could repair it.

[Meghan Currie]

I sometimes think people need to experience the fall, as Pat describes it, for themselves before they can ever truly understand the reality of our lives. And they should know it, because it's the reality of everyone's life. We are all just one step away from poverty, homelessness, mental illness. It's what scares us. And it should. But we need to take that fear and do something positive with it, something other than keep ourselves in denial. We can't simply continue to disregard entire populations of people who can contribute, who want to contribute and who are already contributing in significant ways to the solutions we need. We have to run straight into what frightens us the most, and then work hard to see people for who they truly are. Exactly like you and me.

[David Reville]

Lots of people have already fallen; who will help them get up again?
Over the next six months, we'lll be hearing from the people who want to be mayor of Toronto. They will talk about the transit mess and road tolls and bike lanes. We need to make sure they talk about helping people get up again and catching people if they fall.
One of the candidates, George Smitherman, was at the Dream Team fundraising dinner on April 29th. Along with a couple of hundred other supporters of the Dream Team, Mr. Smitherman got see Pat Capponi get the first Eliana Roman Memorial Award and he got to hear her remarks afterwards.
Can we expect him to bring Pat's anti-poverty message to the people of Toronto?

[Michelle Nelson]

Do you remeber those confidence and cohesion meetings were one person would face the wall and fall back? All the others would reach out to catch them? I do and I knew when it came time the likely-hood of any of them strecthing there arms to save me were slime to none. This is the Darwinein life style that I feel Pat was referring too. The survival of the fitist!!! I just want to remind all those( alphas) on top with to much money,power and authority . What would happen to you if you were the weakest? Would'nt you hope to be helped crave to be cuodeled?or Sought to be caught? If thinking of this issue hurts your head or seems to big to tackle then think smaller ,think about your saftey net and remember that the best friend only gets in front of you when your on the way down!

[Thomas Graff]

Pat - we need to change the way our society works - temporary food banks have become a permanent necessity for many people. you want a solution? OK, so do many of us.

Most people who earn enough to pay taxes feel stressed out and fell it unfair that they will pay taxes and then that money will be given to someone else to bring them up to the same standard of living as the taxpayer. Forget solving this by more transfers of tax money from the rich to the poor - either directly or through subsidised housing etc. - here is what we do:

1. Have the federal government mandate an tional minimum wage - $15.00 - if companies cannot pay someone a living wage, they should go out of business instead of expecting their employees to live in near poverty, or have the rest of us provide housing subsidies etc. to their employees.
2. Cut immigration in half. Many of the people living in poverty are immigrants with skills that are not needed, and immigration has created a "labour surplus" - this is another reason why wages are low, and productivity gains get kept by companies instead of being split with the workers through higher wages. We need to do a better job of selecting immigrants, and bring in younger immigrants, if the idea is to reduce the future problems of an aging population.
3. By doing the above, we get into a "virtuous circle" - we reduce poverty and increase taxes and reduce the number of people on welfare - which means that we can increase incomes for poor people who are on fixed incomes because they are not capable of working, or are in temporary distress. By cutting immigration, we also reduce the need to build additional infrastructure that will barely keep up with population growth and the congestion it brings.

[Pat Capponi]

Thomas, its an old and tired and unwise belief you're putting forward. Immigrants are not responsible for labor surpluses, and neither are they to blame for poverty. Toronto owes a great deal to all the newcomers in its midst, the city's vibrancy, its 'world class status', its exciting future have all been substantially added to by people choosing to make Canada their new country. Our mistake is to block their progress by refusing to properly recognize their credentials, something they are not warned could be an issue during their application processes. The last thing we need is to replicate the foolish and standard fallback position of blaming the immigrants when times are tough. I do like your idea of increasing minimum wage, and at the same time Toronto could increase opportunities for the unemployed by concentrating its efforts on job creation.

[Gunnar Sewell]

I have to agree with Pat about the priorities that are set to improve our city. There are a lot of people living comfortably in this city, and who don't seem too concerned about the less fortunate. People on OW do not receive enough money to live decently. There's not enough money for nutritious food for the whole month. There's no money for phone bills, hair cuts, many medical services, pschotherapy. Social Assistance boasts of employment support programs, but they are ineffective and often misleading. Most marginalized people have little sense of self-worth. The housing available to the poor is limited and almost always unhealthy: small space, small windows (if any), poor circulation, and no common space in which visitors would feel comfortable. These reflections are based a my personal experiences and many interviews with people on social assistance or living in rooming houses.

About public transportation: the price has gone up but the quality has dropped significantly. Are we concerned about congestion in the city? pollution? The signage in the subways and at bus stops leaves a lot to be desired. Accommodations need to be made for the undeniable increase in passengers.

Toronto is a great city. It has its problems, Many of them could and should be addressed.

When the well-to-do are approached by panhandlers, a little compassion and kind words go a long way. There is no dollar price for this.

[Lotus]

Its the same thing all over the world. Lack of wisdom to run a country in a positive way. Let me give an example: Money for a gay parade or money for homeless. What is most important. Gay parade of cause. ; - ) Who cares about the homeless. Its much more exciting to sponsor the gays.Be cause they are an minority.And just be cause of that. than it is to give a home to the ones that doesn't have one. Who wants to trade ? Gay or being homeless ?
Its the Canadian and the rest of the worlds way. Hope i am forgiven for saying that. Nothing agains gays. My dad is gay.

[Sylvia]

The problem the entire Canadian society is facing is one of growing inequality. If inequality grows than trust, well-being, population health and happiness decreases, and insecurity, criminality and animosity increases. We need more equality in our society, it's just no good this idea of economic growth at all costs. Or it's only beneficial to so few people that it's hardly worthwhile pursuing as a major paradigm. People were happier in the 1960s, not because it was a "better" society but because it was a more equal society,

[michelle nelson]

Thank you for all your years of hard work and most of all for never forgeting where you came from, be it the neighborhood ,or the family,or the street you grew up on, your a great advocate and i appreciate all that you do for the city and the people in it..

[D Huneault]

It has been a slow climb to independence since separating from my partner in March of 2005. Coming out of the save haven of a shelter directly into a roach infested, one bedroom that was situated direclty over a bar. There was not one night were the music did not blare or the beat of the music did not keep me and two of my children up. This along with frequent fights and a neighbor who regularly blared his stereo on weeknights. It's no wonder that my daughter was too tried to get to school in the morning. Yet, I was trapped into remaining there because I could not afford to be anywhere else. Ontario works covered the minimal and with strick budgeting along with working here and there for cash, took me over the hump of midmonth and end of month, when food and cash seemed to dwindle. Visiting food banks helped, but not much. That clawback on my baby bonus every month for the kids could have
helped. It was difficult to stay focused and positive. We are survivors. Now,
in a home where there is comfort, stability and support. I am off welfare,
but still it is a struggle pay cheque to pay cheque and would like to be able to save but cannot because of financial obligations and just because of the rate of inflation. I am the working poor.