I absolutely agree with this point of view, jimbo59. Several years ago, it occurred to me that the agencies that are set-up by various companies (non-profit and otherwise) are making money off the misery of others (in this case, those who were unemployed). In fact, in the intervening years, the government has contracted out more and more of those services so that we have a patch-work of services across the country and those agencies are making money off the unfortunate. As well, some of those agencies are for-profit who pay low wages and offer no benefits.

Much of the so-called training that's offered is cosmetic and useless. Those engaged in them often do a work-site training component that results in the employer paying no wages while people come to learn their "trade". Trainees in that situation aren't even protected by Employment Standards legislation.

So, in my view, that whole segment of agencies has an absolute stake in the unemployment of others. Without it, they would be out of work themselves. I think it's appalling that, while an individual on income assistance has to claim a gift (if a friend was giving them $20 every two weeks to help them get by) yet, the government doesn't make them claim meals at the foodbank. This indicates the overt support for these agencies that, in their absence, there would be significant political pressure to raise income assistance rates to more adequate levels. It's ugly and forces people into dependance on that whole system, in my view.

I get a bit scared of a topic like this. It's easy for it to spill over into a general condemnation of all groups who work with the poor. It's true that some are questionable -but equally true that many do as much as they can with limited resources, and no profits.

The worse are the big ones who get contracts to rebuild in Afghanistan and Iraq. Almost all the money goes to American consulting firms which produce very expensive reports with most of the money so far going to them, and none to reconstructing anything. Then there was the story of the American firm working in Afghanistan on feeding people, and which billed for its disposable plates. The disposable plates cost $28 each.

However, while there is much in dealing with our own poor to be leery of, we should try to be as specific as possible, so as not to tar some quite deserving organizations.

graeme

Naomi Klein's latest book deals with certain aspects of this phenomenon, specifically in regards to the commercialization of poverty that results from catastrophes like the tsunami, war, and hurricanes. I've been wanting to read it but haven't yet (it's called Disaster Capitalism)

I don't know much about the Salvation Army.  But outside of organizations such as the Salvation Army there seems to be very little interested in helping addicted/mentally ill street people, or even acknowledging that they are human beings.  Just saying.  

In fact, I have even considered quitting my downtown United Church (which seems mostly interested in keeping street people out of the building because of safety concerns) and joining the Salvation Army. 

Yes, and it all adds to the GDP, which means that this number, supposedly a measure of our well-being, really isn't. I should try to track down that book, cate.

I agree with graeme too, about being careful not to tar everyone with the same brush. There are good people and agencies who act in ways that honour their clientele and challenge the system which perpetuates poverty. However, overall, we have an industry around poverty that profits by the misery of others.

Just wanted to clarify the name of the book - it's full name is "Shock Doctrine - The Rise of Disaster Capitalism".

Everything Klein writes is brilliant imho.

The Salvation Army is very restrictive and bases their work on a charity model rather than on working to seek justice.

Well, they are at least trying to keep the homeless people from freezing to death.  If they don't last through the night, it won't matter how much social justice there is.  The United Church in our town won't even let the homeless people use the washrooms any more. 

Good thing they aren't in my Presbytery, or I'd be throwing the book at them.  Talk about disgusting behaviour.

Not that I'm arguing in favour of that policy but some downtown churches have experienced people overdosing on drugs in their washrooms and leaving needles there as well. When there are older folks and children using the buildings as well, some people get frightened. I wonder how these conflicting needs could be met.

I also wonder about the argument about getting people through the night by providing them with a constant round of temporary spaces, whether they be for meals or sleep. It does alleviate the immediate need of the person and for the surrounding community to relieve ourselves of guilt because people aren't out on the street and we can control them by dictating the terms. In the end, though, because they are off the street and safe from freezing to death (not safe overall), we collectively aren't pressuring our governments to develop policies and programs that treat those who are on the edges, for all kinds of reasons, with the respect that they deserve.

We need a poverty reduction plan for our country. The Citizens for Public Justice have developed a plan that would go a long way to alleviating poverty (click on the link for more information). It's time we did something better than what we're doing now.

It is a real Christian conundrum isn't it, the dangers of some of these folks entering the church.... and yet, to me, it comes down to an action plan at the congregational level. If your church is located in a high risk area, you need to have a plan for how to genuinely help this population - in the immediate sense (networking with agencies that can come to assist you in urgent situations) and in a long term sense.

Mo5, the same issue applies to good-intentioned projects like the Christmas Cheer Board and various other hamper delivery projects. They fill a real need, they make kids happy for one day a year... they are meaningful and yet... they are not a solution and in part, they distract people who have the power to do so much more, from ever doing anything more. I organize hampers every Christmas at work but I have to admit, I use it mainly as an opportunity to pull out my soapbox about the larger issues of poverty and social justice in Canada in the hopes that I can convert a few Conservatives....

I hear what you are saying.  But surely there is some way to pressure the government without letting them die.  Perhaps if dozens of people froze to death overnight it would create a big outcry, but surely there is some other way.   Those street people have mom and dads and brothers and sisters and children who love them.  You can't deliberately let people die just to make a point. 

The outcry from a dozen people freezing to death is short lived, and often ineffectual in bringing real change.  Real change comes when the comfortable, white bread, conservative/liberal voting pew sitters get to actually see homeless people, and come to understand them.

Yes, the bathrooms need to be checked carefully and often for the health of all involved.  I would even be OK with simply limiting the area of the church that is open during the week, but only if that space is used by everyone at some times, too.

Fear IS the problem.  We can confront it gently, or not, (realistically both, depending on the moment) but if we don't confront it, we will never make genuine progress towards a better world.

I think that in dealing with foreign countries the main thing we need to do is work with the local people - ask them what they need - hire them to do the work.  Provide money for basics but expect them to develop.  (Read 'Three Cups of Tea') about a man who raised money to build schools in the mountain villages of northern Pakistan and Afghanistan.  He talked to the village elders about their needs.  He had the buildings designed locally.  He bought local materials and used local labour.  The village built their school.  Sometimes he also found that before he could build a school, he had to build a bridge or road to provide access - again at the local request using local supplies and labour.  And he had to help them provide their own water.

It is my understanding that through the M&S fund the UCC tries to work with local people in assisting them in developing their own programs.  And money given to emergency relief funds is often used in locally planned long term help in rebuilding their lives rather than just in providing blankets and food for the first few days (also an important consideration). 

Locally, I think that same principal applies.  Find out what the people want and need - not what some cooperation decides they need.  Whenever possible put the power into their own hands.  It seems that whenever public housing units are provided the area soon becomes gettoized.  Maybe the answer would be to enable people to rent apartments and housing units scattered about in other neighbourhoods - maybe in issuing permits for housing there should be a stipulation that a certain percentage of units be for public housing (units that are non-distinguishable from their neighbours).

And those organizations providing emergency relief (food banks, community kitchens, emergency shelters) should always be non-profit.

And don't think that used clothing stores are all for the benefit of the poor.  Sure you can sometimes find real bargains, good quality used clothing for very reasonable prices, but I have heard that Value Village is owned and operated by Walmart.  If this is true, then I'm quite sure that Walmart is making a profit.  Items that you donate, thinking they will go to the poor, are often sold in balk to Value Village and the profits from resale go to the shareholders of Walmart.

so much good stuff in this thread, I'm particularly intrigued by those like cate, Mo5 and revmatt who have focussed on what we can and/or should do in our churches. I don't have much in the way of answers; I see the danger of rousing fears and anger in the congregation. But that surely is the way we have to go to take any immediate and direct action.

graeme

I'm not suggesting that that the way to deal with the bigger issue is to lock people out from getting shelter. I am suggesting that we need to do something different. We need to mobilize support for a plan which includes programs that provide real help as opposed to a constant round of temporary solutions. People who are poor, regardless of the reason, deserve better treatment that they receive from us as a society. It's long past time that we did something different.

There are an abundance of truly purposeful, successful, and reliable NGOs and non-profits operating to help the underpriviledged in Canada. I used to attend a church in a high-risk area that had the same tendencies Mely - spend time and money strategizing about how to keep "them" out - because "they" weren't the ones attending church, it was the doctors and lawyers who lived in the surrounding area. It used to really turn my stomach, even moreso when no one seemed to even acknowledge the hypocrisy of turning them away (even in the midst of a winnipeg winter).

But I have to agree that turning to the Salvation Army or similar charity-based models will not alleviate the systemic poverty in Canada.

Poverty will never be truly alleviated in Canada until middle class Canadians make the elimination of poverty a priority. That's the bottom line. As long as politicians know that their voting base is in the middle class, and the middle class keeps arguing for tax cuts and get tough on crime legislation and other nonsensical and selfish fiscal priorities, the poor will be the ones to suffer.

I believe the main impediment to mobilizing the middle class to act on behalf of the poor is that they don't see them. The poor are invisible in daily life EXCEPT when their kids show up on the news for knocking off convenience stores or stealing cars. Or for gang activity. This leaves the middle class with the overall impression that they must fear the poor (this is a truly historic pattern dating back hundreds of years, we just cannot seem to shake it) and when they fear the poor they want even more distance between them, not less. They want to alleviate their guilty conscience by donating to a hamper or two, or a charity or two, but they don't want to actually SEE the poor.

There are different ways the middle class needs to see the poor - they need to first see them normalized in their communities. This is where social housing (not government housing) needs to incorporate low-income subsidized housing into middle class communities. This model of communities in which you have multiple socio-economic, ethnic, and age groups is the BEST model for a strong modern community. In cities with a deteriorating core (like mine) the government needs to take serious and often controversial action to stop urban decay which only isolates the poor further from the outlying middle class neighbourhoods. Strategies for bringing the middle class downtown need to be implemented and at the same time, programs to target the root causes of inner-city crime need to be paid for (ie, the opposite of the "get tough on young offenders" approach which will perpetually fail because it never addresses the root cause of the criminal behaviour).

The extremely poor (homeless) are even more invisible because they keep getting shuffled out of any public areas to protect the sensitive eyes of the middle class - and to protect the government from any onslaught of criticism about homelessness. I believe a court case was recently won in BC (?) where homeless won the right to keep their tent cities up in public parks. This was a major victory for the poor. I also believe there should be legislation that makes it illegal to force any obviously needy person out of a public place. I believe you should have to call for help for them, which takes us then to the need to fund organizations that not only provide shelter and safety for the homeless, but moreover ones that can give them back their human face for the public. In Winnipeg that mammoth task seemed impossible until a small child took on the issue of homelessness full force - but she didn't take it on as a pet project, but rather as a mission to repatriate the homeless to their rightful place as human beings alongside each and every middle class person that lives here. 

That one little girl - an upper-middle class pretty little blonde white girl - was able to do more for the homeless in 2 years than all the NGOs and non-profits had done in decades. Why? She changed their face to hers. She associated herself with them directly - as in, she hung out with them, she hugged them, she held hands with them, she knew them by name. They literally became her friends and the media ate it up. In doing so, she managed psychologically to bridge the gap between the clean middle class and the dirty homeless. If a child could do it so easily, that gap must not be as big as we thought it was.

Anyhow, my point is that the first step is actually a PR issue. The next step is a funding isse. Both require the buy-in the middle class if they are going to work.

Wow--some really good ideas here.  Amazing about the girl in Winnipeg.  Victoria is the place where the courts said homeless people could sleep in the park.  (I'm in Victoria right now, visiting my daughter and her husband and my little 18 month old grandbaby)  There  are a lot of homeless people in Victoria.  The other day a drunk man pushed a homeless woman in front of a bus, and she died.  Horrendous. 

I should say that perhaps I am being a little unfair when I said my church won't let homeless people use the washrooms.  What they have done is started locking the washrooms (except on Sunday morning), and anyone who wants to use the washroom has to ask the secretary for the key.  I don't know whether the street people have been asking for the key or not, or whether it is given to them.  The AA and NA meetings that are held in the church are supplied with a key.   

On Sunday afternoon a meal is served in our church.  However, we do not host the "Out of the Cold" program that allows people to stay overnight, although the church was asked to take part in this program.  The Anglican church up the street hosts it.  If we opened out church and got volunteers, the program could be offered for more than one night a week.  Currently it only runs on Wednesday night unless it gets very cold.   

And I know there are many people in the congregation who want to keep the homeless people out.  We had a vote about congregational priorities, and helping the homeless ranked ninth out of ten items.  Parking was tenth.   I think it is fear, combined with some sort of blindness that makes people think the homeless are somehow less human than other people.  I don't think I have ever had this blindness, because when I was a child I often heard my mother telling my drunken father that he was going to wind up "a bum on skid road".  I remember being very troubled by this, and when ever I saw "a bum" (which was much less frequently in the 1960's than now) I wondered if it was someone's dad, and my heart ached.  More recently, my daughter came dangerously close to being a heroin addict when she was a teenager.  Whenever I see a sex trade worker standing on a corner, my heart breaks.  That sex trade worker is someone's beloved baby girl. 

This is an intriguing thread, and a very helpful one.

I wonder whether any church has gone a step further, or considered doing so. I'm not quite sure what i mean by that. Roughly, offering immediate help is laudable, and something we should all be doing. I'm wondering whether any church has considered, for example, involving some of the homeless in organizing and providing necessary care - thereby helping some of them get a little beyond dependency. Or is there any experience to suggest it is unrealistic to think that would work?

graeme

I agree with everything you've written but with this statement especially, cate.

Mely, I, too, think about those I see who are struggling to keep body and soul together a daughter or son...it could be any of us, given the wrong circumstances.

I believe there are many genuine groups, such as the Salvation Army, who do provide immediate relief to the many. I will not fault them in any way. They do also provide a very small quantity of extended services also, but on a very restricted budget. Thus limiting their ability.

I believe the problem in dealing with the homeless and the impoverished is in how they are seen and percieved. Group labels; "homeless", "impoverished", "welfare". They have a way of placing these people into boxes and making it all quite impersonel. The advance and advantage is only to be found in looking at the individual person. Not the group they fall into as a label. Each person has a story and a reason for their situation. It may be drugs or alchohol. It may be a traumatic event they never were able to overcome. It May be anything that we, as the judges, have never even considered. Yet, to not consider this aspect is to condem them to the groupings and the maintenance effect, rather than a solution to an individual human problem. A hand up is what is required, on a person to person basis. Not an easy task. Throwing money at them does not solve a problem. Human contact, guidance, and genuine assistance is what the individual needs. What the groups need are a lot of understanding and willing people to be there.  Not something that many are capable of doing. That is not to say that there is a bad flavour in society in general, but few are truly capable of doing this demanding and thankless work.

The other angle not looked at is to get those who are incapable of working, because of a disability of any sort, away from the welfare system. Incapability is not a reason for them to be in the system. They, as mambers of our society, deserve the respect and honour of a pension for an income. A decent living arrangement, without the inference of a system which is, at best, set up to assist very moderately, on a short term basis, then send them on their way. The system has been bogged down and now shows as a regular way of life for many. Not that they necessarily want to be there, but rather, remain stuck there. The system is not able to do what it should to make them able and willing to move on and up and was never meant to be in the position it is in now.

A touchy subject on all fronts. I do not believe everything I have read in the various "reports", by a long shot. Entertainment sells, especially if it is highly speculative and very provocative. Most reports on such matters are not anything more that that and should be treated as such. Yet I do not disbelieve all that is said either. It is a matter of seeing with one's own eyes. So that restricts us to legitimately assisting where we actually see and know, That is an assurance to the mind. Trust what you know and have faith in their direction. Charity does indeed start at home, and branches from there.

Groups are just something arbitrary and impersonal. The individuals are the real and actual  concern. Creating an acceptable and understanding system to save them and solve the individual's crisis will then help the group and overcome the group problems.

Mo5 -- i concur with some of yoru concerns

Our church started with Out of the Cold quite a few years ago, that was then also offered at other churches around the city. The organizers realized how much time & energy just was spent going from place to place -- where is lunch servered, dinner, where is sleeping tonight..what buses, etc.

there was also a needle exchange.

There was a "workboot" program and other social work type actions, where people were integrated into programs.

Then, s The Bridges was built -- a wonderful building/space with program, transition housing, overnight, etc. ..

They have also acquired the building next door.

Readmore about it here:

http://www.cambridgenow.ca/npps/story.cfm?id=957

Many folks involved are church folks, either from our or other churches.

I am sure they would be willing to converse with others for ideas / challenges, etc.  Lots of wisdom re access to programs, challenges of the various models.. working relationships with comsoc, etc