Busy City

I came to Toronto from Montreal in the late 1980s and one of the first things that hit me was that it was a busy city. It looks and feels like a busy city, especially downtown. Everyone is always running around with no time to talk let alone catch their breath. Maybe if they calm down they would be happier but I doubt it. Could it be that they are rushing from place to place to get away from the yelling and the stink of the homeless? Who knows... But they all seem like the rabbit from Alice in Wonderland; they are all late for a very important date.

They all need to calm down and become relax-ed. They have nowhere to go, especially when you see people who look like they just stepped out of the welfare office in a rush to go somewhere, what are they thinking that maybe someone will steal their bench at the mall?

Why is Toronto Wasting Money On the Homeless?

When you arrive to Toronto for the first time you'll notice something you probably didn't see in the travel brochures. As soon as you leave a subway station downtown you will hear the shouting of the homeless and be accosted constantly for change from drug addicts, junkies, bums, and a plethora of other street urchins. 

To see the contradiction of the reality of a crumbling city vs. the fantasy you see advertised will leave you feeling disgusted. 

The city has become a dump with rampant homelessness. Nobody in office is thinking about or addressing any of these issues.

Toronto is spending $1932 a month per homeless person it supports according to The Star based on research conducted by the Canadian Homelessness Research Network. Yes, you read correctly: $1932 to keep somebody in a bed in a shelter!

The same study found that it only costs $701 or less per month to provide rent for a homeless person for a month. Alternatively, providing them with social housing would only cost them $199.92 per month, per homeless person.

So while City Hall is promising to make the economy better and make budget cuts to Torontonians why they don’t they house the people who are homeless. It's a question, one question that nobody wants to discuss. It is simple solution that would save the city and it's taxpayers money while cleaning up the filthy streets of Toronto simultaneously.

Now, if you are a reasonable person you would be asking if housing the homeless would actually clean the streets.

If the city built more social housing on the fringes of Toronto and crammed all the homeless in there the majority of the downtown core would change overnight. The streets would actually be enjoyable to walk around and more people would go out which would lead to more money being spent. Economy wins.

This probably isn't the correct answer as North America has already locked itself into a perpetual welfare state in it's terminal decline into triviality but if Mayor Giuliani can make the homeless disappear from New York, then maybe that greasy slime ball we have in office, the Honorable Rob Ford should be able to do something other than ignore the problem.