Hugs for the Homeless: Fuck Off, This is a Travesty.

Louis Shalako

Hugs for the fucking homeless.

(Make my fucking day. – ed.)

This story really pissed me off, ladies and gentlemen. I will try to be calm and sensible and explain just why that is.

It’s simple, really. The Canadian journalists who report these stories, whether on the radio or in a community newspaper, never seem to ask any questions. They’re more concerned with making a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, in the sense that it’s Christmas. They don’t want to bring anybody down.

No, they’re just being good corporate citizens. No, this is a heart-warming, touchy-feelly sort of a story, and how wonderful it is, that the community will find some dried soups in the back of the cupboard and drop that off at the radio station...

They’re virtue signalling like mad, just like the rest of the bourgeoisie. They want that fuzzy, feel-good glow that comes from making some sort of charitable, public-service announcement that, in the case of radio, is in fact part of the license agreement. Just as they have to play X-amount of Canadian Content, which leads to repetition and a certain, inoffensive boredom-ness if nothing else.

The fact is, young people between the ages of 16-18 can apply for OW, (welfare). There are some restrictions. Reading the guidelines, (which you probably won’t), a simple runaway doesn’t really qualify. But here’s the real problem.

Welfare is only $733.00 per month. This Ministry has always divided subsistence (as well as ODSP, the Ontario Disability Support Program), into ‘shelter portion’ and 'subsistence portion'. This is part of the colossal cluster-fuck of a system that this province has just claimed to have solved in their ‘comprehensive’ 100-day review of social services. Never mind the fact that you can’t find too many one-bedroom apartments in this town even for $733.00 per month. The shelter portion is $390.00 per month. If they don’t have a place, an address of record, they are simply not eligible for that $390.00 per month. Simple subtraction shows that the remainder is $343.00 per month to live on.

Bearing in mind the need to contribute, even for a couch surfer, something in terms of food, laundry, transportation, it is virtually impossible for a person in such circumstances to save up the necessary first and last month’s rent to move into virtually any apartment, shared accommodation or rooming house.

They'd better not be sharing or co-habiting with anyone else on OW or ODSP, because one or the other will have to give up that shelter portion, or both will have to give up some of it.

There’s nothing left at the end of the month for them to save, and quite frankly, that’s damned little for a month’s worth of food—especially, as the piece notes, they don’t have cooking facilities to begin with. It will be, out of sheer necessity, fast food. It will be junk food, just exactly the sort of behaviours that make it so easy for the true, knee-jerk Toronto Sun comments section trolls to bite on. And having bit on that, the fuckers will never let it go, either.

I remember that fucking goof St. Myles of Yappi, in a story in the Sarnia Journal, once said, “People aren’t getting the assistance they need.” Even then, he was careful not to mention Ontario Works or ODSP.

He’s too afraid to piss off corporate donors or just the smug, mealy-mouthed hypocrites that like to call themselves Christians but they’re basically just ignorant. They’re ignorant as all hell, when it comes to any knowledge about the people they are ostensibly trying to help, or what resources are (or aren’t) available, or what sort of circumstances or conditions people are operating in.

When they donate a tin of beans or some stale bread, they actually think that it does something--anything, to end poverty. The truth is, that it doesn't because the problem is structural.

They are extremely careful not to know that.

And that’s a damned shame, because this problem, this travesty, really doesn’t have to happen. It is a choice, and a political one.

I say that because if starving, homeless children isn’t a political issue, then I would sure as hell like to know what does qualify.

In other words, fuck off.

Image: Stolen.

Thank you for reading.

END