In Toronto, people go hungry all the time

[tango]

http://www.thestar.com/News/GTA/article/619275

Poorest families go hungry all day

MICHAEL STUPARYK/TORONTO STAR

Patricia McKenzie, 38, waits her turn at east-end Agnes MacPhail food bank. She says she can't remember the last time she had fresh food. (April 15, 2009)

Defining poverty

BY THE NUMBERS

50%

of families delayed paying bills when faced with food shortages

22%

of families, in the past 12 months, used food banks in the areas studied

Study measures depth of poverty in Toronto

Apr 16, 2009 04:30 AM

Joseph Hall

Patty Winsa

Staff Reporters

Patricia McKenzie has no cable or Internet. She doesn't even have a television.

She has had to give them up for a far more basic staple: Food.

An unemployed 38-year-old, McKenzie says she has gone days without eating and has often had to choose between paying the rent and paying for groceries.

Thus, the Dawes Rd. resident likely would find no surprises in a new University of Toronto study that suggests two out of three families in the city's lowest-income neighbourhoods are unable to even get enough to eat.

...

While McKenzie, who was waiting outside the Agnes McPhail food bank at Main St. and Danforth Ave. yesterday, has no children, she says she has often sacrificed food for her husband, who is ill.

"I go without fresh food or vegetables all the time," says McKenzie, who can't recall the last time she has had either. She lives mostly on canned food. No eggs. No milk. No cheese.

Why can't people on disability, EI, etc. get enough money to live without hunger?

Why can't people making over $1m a year give up a little so those who live in poverty can live without hunger?

[Wild Bill]

Why can't people on disability, EI, etc. get enough money to live without hunger?

Why can't people making over $1m a year give up a little so those who live in poverty can live without hunger?

Most of those making over a $1m a year DO give up a little, if only in taxes! Many of them make huge donations to various charities!

The problem is not the amount of available money. The problem is really the vehicles and mechanisms to get that money to those that need it.

Many organizations like the "Committed Way" get workers to make automatic payroll deductions in order to "help their fellow man". 60 Minutes and other such shows have been pointing out for years that these outfits burn up to .95 of every donated dollar internally and actually deliver about a nickel to the needy!

It's an old scam. Everyone is not truly trying to address the problem and actually do some good. They just drop some money in the bucket and walk away, feeling all warm and fuzzy! Few people ever go back and investigate if their money actually went where it was supposed to go. Why bother? That's a bit of work and besides, it might spoil the warm feeling.

Care to think about how much of our tax dollars actually gets to the needy? Don't think in terms of how much was finally delivered. Think first about how much was taken from us in the first place and THEN look at how much was delivered! The difference is very, very sad.

If I sound cynical it's only because I've seen good evidence to be so! If "techies" ran charity and welfare systems they might actually work! Meanwhile, most of what we have are more concerned with making some folks feel or look good, rather than actually doing good.

For what it's worth, I take no pride at all in official vehicles that take my money for welfare or charity. For the most part I have no control over it. It's just taken away to be poured down some black hole. Hopefully there will be enough left at the end of the process to help out some poor soul but I don't have a lot of confidence. The waste is appalling! How much more good could be done with REAL systems!

Meanwhile, I've learned to make donations on my own, personally. I've done what I can for friends, family and people that I actually know. The only "official" charity I donate to is the Sally Ann. I've checked these folks out and it seems that for nearly a hundred years they have been quietly working in the background, with a total reversal of that ratio I mentioned. They apply nearly .95 of every dollar to actually helping, taking only a nickel in administration costs!

There may be other organizations like the Sally Ann but I don't know enough about any of them to recommend. Meanwhile, you might want to think beyond just "bleeding the rich" for a solution. As always, things are a wee bit more complicated.

[M.Dancer]

Patricia McKenzie has no cable or Internet. She doesn't even have a television.

She has had to give them up for a far more basic staple: Food.

At least she has her priorities straight.

I go without fresh food or vegetables all the time," says McKenzie, who can't recall the last time she has had either. She lives mostly on canned food. No eggs. No milk. No cheese.

That's part of her problem...she doesn't know how to buy groceries. Fresh fruit and vegetables cost less than canned or frozen most of the year..certainly cheaper than eggs....

Her other problem is she is able bodied and isn't looking for work.

[tango]

At least she has her priorities straight.

That's part of her problem...she doesn't know how to buy groceries. Fresh fruit and vegetables cost less than canned or frozen most of the year..certainly cheaper than eggs....

Her other problem is she is able bodied and isn't looking for work.

It said she is unemployed. No where did it say she is not looking for work. However, she has a sick husband, so caring for him may be an issue too.

However, it has been proven over and over again that fresh, healthy diets are simply not affordable on disability/welfare assistance. Poor diet compounds poverty by leading to low energy, poor health, etc.

In other words, poverty is a trap, because once you are there it's difficult to have the food, and thus the energy to get out of the trap.

http://povertywatchontario.ca/put-food-in-...udget-petition/

Despite the evidence that the cost of shelter and nutritious food make it virtually impossible for people on social assistance to lead healthy lives, there is no formula for setting benefit rates in Ontario.

http://www.citeulike.org/user/gareth/article/1417038

A reduction in diet costs in linear programming models leads to high-fat, energy-dense diets that are similar in composition to those consumed by low-income groups. Such diets are more affordable than are prudent diets based on lean meats, fish, fresh vegetables, and fruit.

Edited April 16, 2009 by tango

[margrace]

At least she has her priorities straight.

That's part of her problem...she doesn't know how to buy groceries. Fresh fruit and vegetables cost less than canned or frozen most of the year..certainly cheaper than eggs....

Her other problem is she is able bodied and isn't looking for work.

The food bank can only provide potatoes, carrots and onion, everything else is too expensive, we buy canned vegetables.

[tango]

At least she has her priorities straight.

That's part of her problem...she doesn't know how to buy groceries. Fresh fruit and vegetables cost less than canned or frozen most of the year..certainly cheaper than eggs....

Her other problem is she is able bodied and isn't looking for work.

I want to respond to this again M. Dancer.

Why is it that people who make pots of money like to pretend that poor people are all just 'lazy'?

It's disgusting discrimination! :angry:

Edited April 17, 2009 by tango

[g_bambino]

In other words, poverty is a trap, because once you are there it's difficult to have the food, and thus the energy to get out of the trap.

If you said that to my mother, she would slap you silly. Where she came from, 14 people in a four room house was actually better than average; and you can rest assured there was no television. Yet, all the kids were schooled, groomed, and grew up strong (save for one that died in infancy), and went on to own their own homes and raise their own families; and in that regard they were not unique amongst the other families living in what any Toronto bleeding-heart would immediately, and with a feigned gasp, denounce as "poverty". Hell, forget about my mother, and let's ask a Sudanese refugee or an immigrant from the favelas of Rio de Janeiro about the living conditions of these so-called famished Torontonians.

We should first be clear on what poverty actually is before pointing out who is and who is not a "victim" of it.

_{[ed. to change # - it was 12 kids plus the two parents]}

Edited April 17, 2009 by g_bambino

[tango]

If you said that to my mother, she would slap you silly. Where she came from, 14 people in a four room house was actually better than average; and you can rest assured there was no television. Yet, all the kids were schooled, groomed, and grew up strong (save for one that died in infancy), and went on to own their own homes and raise their own families; and in that regard they were not unique amongst the other families living in what any Toronto bleeding-heart would immediately, and with a feigned gasp, denounce as "poverty". Hell, forget about my mother, and let's ask a Sudanese refugee or an immigrant from the favelas of Rio de Janeiro about the living conditions of these so-called famished Torontonians.

We should first be clear on what poverty actually is before pointing out who is and who is not a "victim" of it.

_{[ed. to change # - it was 12 kids plus the two parents]}

Poverty is when you do not have enough to eat.

[g_bambino]

Poverty is when you do not have enough to eat.

That's a pretty poor definition (mind the pun). I could buy a full home theatre and then complain that I don't have enough to eat. Does that make me poor? Plus, planting a garden is free; so, if I grow my own food, am I no longer in poverty? I'm certainly not trying to prove that poverty doesn't exist; but, I have a very difficult time accepting that it's as rampant in this part of the world as some people would like us to believe.

_{[ed. for sp.]}

Edited April 17, 2009 by g_bambino

[Wild Bill]

I want to respond to this again M. Dancer.

Why is it that people who make pots of money like to pretend that poor people are all just 'lazy'?

It's disgusting discrimination! :angry:

Lazy? Some are. Some are not! Any generalization is wrong, either way!

The problem is that while the truly lazy may represent only a small percentage of the folks on assistance they can be responsible for a far greater share of waste and fraud!

Policing such systems requires investment and intelligence, both things at which governments are notoriously poor. It's a sad fact that politicians don't get any reward for trying to make systems more efficient. They are instantly accused of being cruel and uncaring. The reward is only for shoveling money at the problems, not for solving them.

So we get the excuse of the Big Lie: "Only 10% of people on assistance are involved in fraud!". That statement in itself may be true. I pulled '10%' out of my butt but how can anyone challenge it? It's impossible to know what's the actual level of fraud! Who is going to answer a pollster honestly if they are ripping off the system?

However, the first time I heard the Big Lie was in the 90's, from some talking head in Toronto. For once the reporter followed up on the claim. That 10% was based on people who were caught, by a system that didn't try very hard to catch them. Who knows how much more fraud was or is going on?

Meanwhile, that admission of 10% represented over $11 million dollars a year that could have gone to the TRULY needy! We can only wonder at the state of affairs today.

A relative with the local police force once told me of the "Christmas Present" scam they saw every Yuletime. Someone on assistance would take their cheque for December to the bank and take it out in cash. Then they would walk to the nearest pay phone and call the police to say that they had just been robbed leaving the bank!

No way to prove anything in such a case. The police would give a report number and the City would promptly cough up an extra cheque! As far as I know the scam is still going on today. I was told by my cop relative that every December they issued hundreds of such report numbers.

This is the sad reality of government-run assistance programs. Like most things run by the government, about the best that can be said is that they are better than nothing.

So some folks focus on the truly needy. If they are confronted with the inefficiency they just accept it as a necessary evil.

Others focus on those who don't deserve help, branding them all with the same brush and using the corruption of a few to deny helping the many.

The truly needy always seem to get screwed, probably because they can't mount highly visible protests. In the early 80's I had a good friend who was blind. She did everything she could to gain qualifications for a job. She could type from a dictaphone tape at over 80 words per minute with ZERO errors! Yet being blind as a bat she never had a chance of being hired.

She lived on a pension of $320 per month. Even in the early 80's that was a pittance. I knew perfectly able guys at the time who got a welfare cheque of $1100/mo and played tennis most of the time!

She married another blind person and they each had their pension cut by $20, since "two can live more cheaply".

That's when I began to see the difference being just having assistance programs and having programs that actually WORKED!

I don't have the answers, but I can now see that there's more to the problem than people on both sides would have me believe.

[August1991]

Why can't people making over $1m a year give up a little so those who live in poverty can live without hunger?

I think this is the telling sentence in the OP.

First, it's an extreme illustration of zero-sum thinking. Tango seems to think that if society takes $10 from a rich person then we can give the $10 to the poor person, this will make them better off. Life doesn't work that way because life is not a zero sum game. For example, the woman in the photograph is wearing sunglasses. If I were that poor, I wouldn't have sunglasses. IOW, poverty is often about making bad choices.

Second, the OP is really about envy and making the rich pay.

So here's a question for Tango: How can you tolerate living in a rich country like Canada where we have food banks, welfare and EI? Should we not first share our wealth with the impoverished of Africa, India or China?

By the standards of this world, even the poorest Canadian is rich.

Edited April 17, 2009 by August1991

[jdobbin]

By the standards of this world, even the poorest Canadian is rich.

Even if they are hungry.

[tango]

I think this is the telling sentence in the OP.

First, it's an extreme illustration of zero-sum thinking. Tango seems to think that if society takes $10 from a rich person then we can give the $10 to the poor person, this will make them better off. Life doesn't work that way because life is not a zero sum game. For example, the woman in the photograph is wearing sunglasses. If I were that poor, I wouldn't have sunglasses. IOW, poverty is often about making bad choices.

Sunglasses cost a dollar at a dollar store, and are a necessity for people with sensitive eyes. What a silly issue to use to denigrate the poor!

Second, the OP is really about envy and making the rich pay.

So here's a question for Tango: How can you tolerate living in a rich country like Canada where we have food banks, welfare and EI? Should we not first share our wealth with the impoverished of Africa, India or China?

By the standards of this world, even the poorest Canadian is rich.

On average, Canada is a rich country. However, the wealth is not properly distributed if people still go hungry here, and they do.

If each x's is 2% of the people and each $ is 2% of income, this is roughly the income distribution in Canada:

x $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx $

And that's reported income and does not even account for the money the ultra-rich stash 'offshore'.

It's simply wrong, morally, ethically, and practically, and the gap is getting even worse all the time, and the poor are getting poorer all the time.

Redistribution of only 1/10th of a percent of the income of the top 2% would raise all Canadians out of poverty.

I know kids go to school hungry. I know they can't concentrate, are often sick, generally listless, fall behind, and often drop out and fall into a life of crime.

Thus, not only would getting rid of poverty increase our production, it would reduce crime, social services, etc. Every dollar invested in eradicating poverty saves $7 in the long run.

It would be a very noble experiment.

Edited April 17, 2009 by tango

[M.Dancer]

If there were hungry people in Toronto, there would be less geese....

...and then there would be cottage industries selling goose down...

[tango]

If there were hungry people in Toronto, there would be less geese....

...and then there would be cottage industries selling goose down...

Again, that's just a disgusting denigration of poor people, a flippant and derogatory dismissal, designed to make rich people more comfortable with gouging the poor and leaving them hungry.

It's the kids growing up hungry that bother me, because I saw them all the time. It limits their development unnecessarily

It's just disgusting in Canada that we allow that.

Edited April 17, 2009 by tango

[M.Dancer]

Again, that's just a disgusting denigration of poor people, a flippant and derogatory dismissal, designed to make rich people more comfortable with gouging the poor and leaving them hungry.

It's the kids growing up hungry that bother me, because I saw them all the time. It limits their development unnecessarily

It's just disgusting in Canada that we allow that.

What? You think fois gras is too rich for the poor?

Or is it the poor are too stupid to look after themselves?

[tango]

What? You think fois gras is too rich for the poor?

Or is it the poor are too stupid to look after themselves?

Again, just more prejudice and denigration of the poor.

Discrimination is particularly ugly from the well fed against the hungry.

Edited April 18, 2009 by tango

[August1991]

Sunglasses cost a dollar at a dollar store, and are a necessity for people with sensitive eyes. What a silly issue to use to denigrate the poor!

Sensitive eyes?

Tango, if anyone in Toronto goes hungry, it is because they make bad choices. But at least, they have the choice. I don't quite know how we should encourage people to make better choices but I don't think giving them more choices will help matters much.

----

I recently watched the movie Smile. (Have you seen it?) In particular, I recommend the documentary on the DVD.

Tango, I happen to think that giving $100 to this smile organization will do far more good for this world than giving $100 to the woman featured in your OP.

Edited April 18, 2009 by August1991

[g_bambino]

Again, just more prejudice and denigration of the poor.

Discrimination is particularly ugly from the well fed against the hungry.

Tango, you make an awful lot of personal attacks, but fail to present much of a substantial argument. I'm still left wondering who exactly it is that victimises these people you seem to very easily cry for.

[Michael Hardner]

To me, this entire topic is about a society that doesn't have the imagination to think of its problems in a new way.

We have social programs, as well as NGOs helping with these problems, and still The Star paints a picture worthy of Dickens.

I tried to do a search of "hunger in Toronto" and most of the statistics were about food bank usage. I'm glad that food banks exist to help people on the margins, but their success isn't an accurate measure of the problem of hunger. To their credit, The Daily Bread is asking folks to help develop a new measure for 'poverty' on their main pag:

http://www.dailybread.ca/index.cfm

Starvation and deprivation is a problem that needs to be addressed first, before we talk about relative poverty and wealth distribution. In order to address the problem, we need to all talk about real numbers so that we can understand where exactly we stand. Otherwise, we're all just reading Dickens and bringing our own prejudices of rich vs poor into the discussion.

[Muddy]

My Mrs. who has a more social conscience than I gives to our local food bank. My question is why is there such a big parking lot for their clients ? Why do they have such nice cars? Food banks are a self perpetuating industry. Welfare cheque is in , lets see now! I can buy beer ,take in a movie, designer jeans or food! Heck I can get free food!

There is no reason to go hungry. Get a job. Manage your prioritys.

[Peter F]

My Mrs. who has a more social conscience than I gives to our local food bank. My question is why is there such a big parking lot for their clients ? Why do they have such nice cars? Food banks are a self perpetuating industry. Welfare cheque is in , lets see now! I can buy beer ,take in a movie, designer jeans or food! Heck I can get free food!

There is no reason to go hungry. Get a job. Manage your prioritys.

are you talking to the four year old or the parent/s?

[tango]

Sensitive eyes?

Tango, if anyone in Toronto goes hungry, it is because they make bad choices. But at least, they have the choice. I don't quite know how we should encourage people to make better choices but I don't think giving them more choices will help matters much.

Ya right. Everyone who is poor just made "bad choices".

Like this woman's husband getting sick.

There's an awful lot of ignorant denigration of the poor in this thread.

It is very revealing.

There are so many positive solutions that could be considered, but instead we are supposed to dismiss them as liars and people who all made 'bad choices'.

No real sense of just how fortunate we are to not be in their shoes.

It's been said ... at least half the country is only 3 paycheques away from living on the streets.

I think with the economic reality today, a lot of people are learning how true that is.

Did they all "make bad choices"?

[g_bambino]

Everyone who is poor just made "bad choices".

He didn't say everyone who is poor, he said anyone in Toronto who goes hungry.

[tango]

Right. And that's just as much nonsense, imo.