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

Visions? Much ado about not much

I don't often find myself in the Star boardroom, but I was there recently for an editorial board meeting with some of the members of the Steering Committee of 2020, an OPSEU-inspired undertaking bringing together business, union, education and political leaders to brainstorm on what Ontario might look like a decade from now.

This meeting was perhaps premature, as there wasn't much in the way of a substantive presentation by the group: a lot of grand talk about a conference that had taken place in early March, self-congratulatory comments on risk-taking and "forward lookingness" and "cross-sectoral pollination," you get the drift 

The notion that this is so bold a move when the differences are less evident than the similarities left me a trifle bemused.  These are all economically comfortable individuals, who closely resemble one another in social strata, income, education, and expectations.

It is encouraging to see that people can move beyond party and ideological lines when needed.The steering committee includes  powerhouse liberals such as Kathleen Wynne and Dwight Duncan as well as Francis Lankin,  who is soon to retire from the United Way. The idea of looking ahead, of having a vision of where Ontario needs to be in a decade is a worthwhile exercise.

But in order to do so, its really important to have visionaries at the table, people with proven ability to tackle the issues of today as well as define those of the future, so I find it jarring that TCHC has been included, when it can't preserve the present life of its tenants. And OPSEU as well has much work to do in the present, especially at the community level, to understand that the clients they work with must have a stronger voice and equal opportunity for employment in the services staffed by their members and funded by government and charities.

At street level -- and that doesn't mean front line agencies -- it means senior citizens being devoured by rapacious bedbugs, women lost to back alleyways and crack cocaine, children running from CAS foster homes, couples faced with empty fridges and cupboards earlier and earlier in the month.

At street level there was nothing on offer. Nothing about Ontario's reneging on its promises to adhere to the Poverty Reduction Strategy, nothing about creating opportunity for those on social assistance. Nothing about the poor except when discussing the needs of NGO's, those agencies who feel as starved for funding as those who really starve on Ontario's streets. 

We need ideas, we need examples that work, we need to show that Ontario has a vision that is inclusive and meaningful.  Smokey Thomas, the head of OPSEU, said there is a profound and pervasive sense of fear and dread out there.  I'm certain there is, because the consequence of losing your job is to become insignificant, invisible, to become a statistic, to fall off the radar, to have no one looking after your interests.

This is not 2020 vision, this is simply more of the same.

About Pat Capponi

Suicide barriers a waste of TTC money

Transportation has been identified as one of the major obstacles keeping the poor isolated and unemployed.  Its true- as some of the posts have rightly asserted-  that compared to small towns and northern communities, our system is amazing.  But that shouldn't stop us from making it better and more accessible. I quite like the fare-by-distance traveled notion, there is a fairness about it.  

And add to that what some small cities are trying, such as extending the time a transfer is valid to allow for shopping and appointments, or having free subway rides in the downtown core from 10-3. I enjoyed reading most of the posts, although a few left me scratching my head, such as the one that lumped the mentally ill and conservatives together. And speaking of the mentally ill,  the cash-strapped TTC has recently decided to spend $10 million per station building suicide barriers. Three stations are targeted, and they will be in place by 2015. 

Last evening I was with a group of psychiatric survivors, people who've been diagnosed with serious mental illnesses who have a passing acquaintance with suicidal thoughts and acts, and I asked them about these proposed barriers. 

A good use of limited funds?  A resounding "No!"

If there are millions just sitting around waiting for a bad idea to devolve, then we really can afford to lower the price of a single ticket. And we would have enough dollars left over to hire a few survivors to patrol the platforms looking for signs of people in distress.  And the TTC could sponsor stigma-busting ads, splash them all over the walls and the stairs the way they do for major corporations, so that people in trouble wouldn't feel so hesitant about seeking the help they need.

We cannot prevent every possible tragedy out there.  We can however ensure that those who are poor and vulnerable and in need can access public transit when required -- for appointments, for job searches, to get to cooling centers on those days when the city experiences extreme heat alerts. A small step to make life worth living in the big city.

To those who blame the drivers and the ticket collectors: they are not the enemy, and don't deserve the kind of collective bashing that is going on these days.  Funny how we never look up to see where the problems start, we're too busy beating up on those whose circumstances most closely mirror our own.

About Pat Capponi

Public transit a necessity

Pat Capponi.

I love to walk, I do it every day, for health, for stress, to think out difficult problems.

It wasn't always something I enjoyed, but now that I'm working, I can afford good shoes and proper socks, I can dress against the cold, and when its hot, I can stop and have a cool refreshing drink on a patio somewhere. I can visit different neighborhoods, enjoy gardens with their floral gifts, feel a part of the world. And if I get tired, I can use my bus pass to get home. 

Not so long ago, walking was the only alternative to staying in place.  The price of a TTC ticket was too high, even just one way.  I simply didn't have the money to spend on this luxury. Walking hungry and cold and tired, walking on blisters or untreated corns, walking weighed down by hopelessness and despair was never much fun, watching as buses roared past, filled with people with options, with lives..  Now the price of a one way fare is up to  $3, we've removed public transit as a possibility for far too many.  Three dollars can be the difference between eating and going hungry.

The poor are stuck in their neighborhoods, effectively shut in since we've priced transportation so high. Job searches are out, as is the prospect of real grocery stores instead of the high priced corner variety store. For those on social assistance it just slams the door on opportunity, with a very final sounding thud.  Allowing those in need to have a bus pass increases their chances of making their way out of poverty, of seeing other ways to live. 

Public transit is one of life's necessities, and we should treat it as such.

About Pat Capponi