Welfare mentality

Shakedown rackets are all the rage for getting money out of governments and businesses. Greenpeace, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and their like have perfected the art of the victimization con and lots have followed their lead. Maybe there's a "Getting money from the government for dummies" title available somewhere. Canada's natives have been on to the con for quite a while, and today in the Vancouver Province is a story of how it has worked again. "Natives hit the Olympic Jackpot," the headline reads, and the subtitle informs us that they squeezed out of our provincial government "122 hectares of land in exchange for co-operation with 2010 Games development." Don't bet on it. Pretty soon, maybe at the celebratory pow wow down at the Balmoral, one of them is going to say, "Gee that was easy. Maybe we should hit them up for some more."
That was in the Vancouver paper. In the Victoria birdcage liner they are running a series on the "homeless." On the front page a large number purports to be the population of our fair city who lack accommodation. Quel horreur. A picture illustrating this tragic situation shows a certain 21 year old young man who claims to have lived on the streets for four years. I think I've seen him before. He was trying strenuously to get into a locked dumpster in the parkade I was patrolling a few months ago. He was riding one of those tiny bicycles that look so ridiculous, and he was very annoyed when I told him to beat it. I think he was contemplating violence against my person. However, though I'm old I'm also big, and I think that was a factor in his decision to pedal away scowling. I wonder what could have been in that dumpster?
Since then I have, of course, marked him in my memory cells and I recall not long ago seeing him sitting on the pavement outside Swans with a gizzled old dude (not that old, maybe in his forties) having a nice little chat. While negotiating the sidewalk without stepping on the hats I heard a snippet of the old geezer's words of wisdom to the acolyte. "Nosir," he boasted, "I've never worked a day in my life."
Somehow, I don't think that perspective will make it into this four part series. Instead we will be harangued for our heartlessness. We will be told how unjust our society is to let such things happen. We will be lectured and verbally abused and every guilt inducing technique they can think of will be slathered all over us poor citizens who drive cars, watch TV, go to restaurants, sip our lattes and who knows whatall when right there in our very own streets are more than 2000 poor homeless wretches. It's all our fault. Why? Because welfare rates are too low. They just need more money. The reason they are homeless is because-wait for it- they have to pay rent. That will never do. They need to have places built especially for them. And above all, we have to hire more social workers. That's it. More social workers, don't you see, and more programs, and more crisis centers, and, and...They can prove it. Years ago they told us that if there weren't more programs then homelessness would increase, and just look. Oh, these poor people. Obviously, we need more outreach workers. Obviously, we need more people to bring them food, provide them with clean needles, sleeping bags when they throw away their old ones, shoes, tvs, radioes. Don't they deserve to have ipods just like the rest of us? Oh, woe, woe, the cruelty of capitalism. Why should they have to work if they don't want to? Isn't it their own business if they would rather shoot up? Why should they have to do it in in back alleys?
And those of us who wonder why this 21 year old young man is living on the streets of a city where the unemployment rate is the lowest it's ever been, where signs all over town advertise the need for people to come and work and make good money, why we must be just heartless scrooges. Don't we know how hard it is to get up in the morning and go to work every day whether we feel like it or not? How discouraging it is? Shame, shame, shame on all of us.
But I really, really do care. Honest. That's why I asked one woman sitting on the street with her begging bowl who looked rather old and pathetic if she could use 20 bucks. "Why, thank you," she smiled, until she heard the catch. She had to vacuum my apartment, a job that usually takes me about 15 minutes. That works out to 80 bucks an hour, but I guess it wasn't up to her expectations because she suddenly got hostile.
One of my passengers once told me about a young girl who regularly panhandled at one of the skytrain stations in Vancouver. She noticed the girl wore a really nice pair of boots so one day she offered to pay her 50 bucks for them. "Are you kidding," the girl retorted, "Do you have any idea what I paid for these boots?"
Oh, well. I guess only living fossils like me wonder why nobody tells these "homeless" to just get off their butts. However, if we really must do something, I suggest a good place for that something would be on one of the palatial estates in the Uplands neighborhood. There's lots of room out there. That's where all the judges live who refuse to send crooks to jail. As a matter of fact, the owner of the all the free birdcage liner editions in Victoria has a very nice waterfront property there with probably five acres of lawns. Perfect place for a tent city don't you think, with a private beach, handy to the yacht club, lots of parking and everything! Of course, I know it's never enough, is it? Oh, wait a minute, how about free drugs? Perfect fit. Probably a lot of their neighbors in Uplands know where they can get them wholesale. But it's an imperfect world we live in and we can only do our best.
Besides, if some magic wand were waved and all the "homeless" were suddenly to get jobs and families and cars like the rest of us, think of all the unemployed social workers. That would really be tragic, wouldn't it? Wouldn't It? Oh and what would happen to the chorus of scolds? They would be left with beaks wagging and no sound coming out. How cruel. No, when you get right down to it a lot of people rely on the "homeless.' We must never forget that.
The real truth is this: if you really want to help poor people, especially young people who are making a whole lot of really stupid decisions, the worst thing you can do is tell them there is nothing they can do about it. Tell them they are helpless, tell them its all hopeless, tell them that the reason they are poor has nothing at all to do with their own actionws.