Originally Posted by dbd33

I like San Francisco and don't feel intimidated there at all. That said though it's the only place I've been where there were more beggars than in Toronto. I think people moving from the UK (ok, specifically London, I've no cause to visit the North) need to be prepared for the large numbers of homeless and mentally ill on the streets in North American cities. Visiting London now is refreshing because there's much less visible poverty and personal harassment there than here.

I think the mass homelessness, and specifically the homelessness of the mentally ill, is the result of deliberate actions on the part of past governments. Those of Klein, Reagan and Harris but that's neither here nor there now, it's now a feature of life that each traffic light has beggars and on the major streets where traffic flows slowly there are beggars between the lights. I literally step over the homeless most days and each winter people freeze to death, some of them ones I've stepped over. In the GTA it is increasingly the case that there are people living on the streets even in the suburbs. One particularly reprehensible character leans against my glass on Cawthra Road in Mississauga. I have a convertible car and like to drive with the top down, I carry a riding crop in order to keep the grubby fingers of the dispossessed outside the car.

Comment on this in Toronto and the inevitable response is "you should see Vancouver". I'd rather not.

Originally Posted by Katie76

I think London has brilliant support for the homeless and all, infact the whole of the UK in general.

Originally Posted by dbd33

A problem with this is that Canadians mainly live in suburban housing projects where they are insulated from the problem, if they give to charities they likely give to ones working abroad as they don't see the need at home.

Originally Posted by Jingsamichty

I'd suggest that street-living crack and meth junkies aren't a charitable issue, it's a public order and public health issue. They should be picked up by the police and put into (for want of a better word) asylums until they're clean enough to be dealt with. Not treated as criminals or victims, just people who are messed up and need to be given a bit of a structure in their lives.

Originally Posted by dbd33

That's what used to happen prior to the "Commonsense Revolution" of the Mike Harris government. The system had survived various Liberal, NDP and mainly Progressive Conservative governments with minor shifts in policy, such as varying willingness to lock people up.

Harris was from the sticks and cared nothing for the city. He closed the asylums and cut the rate of personal income tax. That noticeably worsened the quality of life for people in Toronto by greatly increasing the homelessness and begging problems. It also did bugger all for the people previously living in secured care facilities. In the short term it was good for people in suburbs, the 905ers, who voted for him in droves.

IMO Mike Harris in Ontario and Ralph Klein in Alberta share a neo-Conservative political philosophy with Stephen Harper and Ronald Reagan. It's way less compassionate than that of Margaret Thatcher, to the point of doing idiot things for the sake of ideology, see above. It's my experience of Harris that makes me so scared of Harper.

Originally Posted by dbd33

I like San Francisco and don't feel intimidated there at all.

Originally Posted by Rich_007

Check out Mission next time, or the raggedy assed parts of Oakland.

Tres sketch, innit.

R.

Originally Posted by Steve_P

Ralph Klein did the same in Alberta as Harris in Ontario but Ralph did it first, not that, that is anything at all to be proud of.

When it comes to the disadvantaged Ralph Klein is an uncaring git. :curse::curse::curse:

Originally Posted by Butch Cassidy

Hey Ralph cares a lot about the disadvantaged....................................



Well he cares about Collen at least