I’m not sure what he was raving about, this old hobo on the corner of Cordova and Seymour. He was in a wheelchair of sorts a buggy in front of him with a huge pile of found treasures. He went on and on, to no one in particular, about welfare payments. Most people it seems get only four days worth, he got seven. I have stopped trying to understand it.
It got me thinking about things, though. He was maybe talking about how he could stretch his payments over the course of a week where many people would run out. Even if he wasn’t that’s where I’ll go. Welfare is a strange topic. Most people agree (at least in Canada) that it’s a useful, even required, option for people that can’t provide for themselves, like this old boy.
the social question in it is that the service is expensive. There is a school of thought that says if we pay them too much they have no incentive to find employment. Well, that guy was unemployable, trust me. Do we punish everyone then because a few people are slackers? Do we look at the bad apples and say that barrel is ruined? How can we turn our backs on that old man (as I admit I did yesterday) and not provide for him. We closed the hospital beds where he would have been safe and turned him out to fend for himself. Do we not owe him some sort of proper living?
I’m not saying things should change, I was just thinking about it. I think thinking about these things is a good practice. Maybe I’m trying to justify turning away from him without listening.
3 Comments
human guilt is such a beautiful thing.
where is his family the so called loved one’s, they nowhere to be seen and why should they let the tax payer of Canada take care of them.
there are slackers on the same welfare system as him but they not hobo’s, people are getting welfare and living a better life than me. I believe there has to be checks and balances, if you want to live like that then do it on your own dime, for everyone else there is help
We don’t know anything about him so blaming his family might be futile. It’s just as likely that he has none, he was old.
Most people on welfare are not slackers but, sadly, single mothers and people with disabilities. Since we set up the environment that forces them to accept welfare, we should at least make it enough for them to live a decent life. Like all things there will be people who find a way to cheat the system but the majority of the people who do need it should not be punished for our lack of governance of it.
Don’t you need an address in order to get welfare payments? Regardless of whether or not he actually receives welfare, he clearly needs some looking after. So many homeless people are mentally ill, and should have a place to stay and get help. The problem with leaving them on the street (other than the obvious fact that they’re without shelter) is that they have no purpose and nothing to occupy them. If they were living in cottages of some kind, they would have a garden or something to tend to. Everyone needs a purpose, or they lose hope.
We take work away from our old people too, and think they should be satisfied sitting in chairs and staring out the window, as long as they’re cared for. Or we (and they) think that playing golf for 20 years is a worthy occupation, that they don’t need to contribute any more. But that’s another topic.
The Riverview land should not be sold off to developers. Some people just can’t cope on their own and need to be cared for. How about creating homes and programs for them, and providing people to care for them? That would be a nice stimulus to the economy. We don’t let elderly people fend for themselves when they lose their faculties or physical health (unless they slip through the cracks); why do we throw the mentally ill out on the street when it’s obvious they can’t cope?