Most responses to poverty are driven by ideology rather than individual assessments and personal interaction. Most policies and pronouncements originate with people who don’t live in neighbourhoods like mine.
Some folks insist, or insinuate, that all people on welfare are bums. From their perspective, every poor person should pull themselves up by their bootstraps, quit complaining and quit sucking tax dollars.
Others insist that all people still receiving welfare are helpless and unemployable. From their perspective, there is no welfare fraud, and every “able-bodied” person is anxious to work.
In my neighbourhood, I work with a different definition of “able-bodied.” If a person can trek from the bank to the beer vendor and haul a 24 back to their apartment, I figure they’re able-bodied. If they’re working the streets, running with gangs and crack dealers, or applying graffiti, I figure they’re able-bodied and creative as well.
Many of these people, however, would provide more harm than help for work-fare volunteer sites. The question is not whether the body is able, but whether the attitude is willing.
At a recent community meeting a representative of an employment program commented on the deeper problem. “It’s not that there aren’t jobs out there. It’s not even that people don’t have skills. The companies I’m talking about will take time to train them. The most serious problem is attitude.”
The attitudes manifest themselves in comments like, “I could make more staying at home.” Alternately, “I won’t work for something that’s beneath me.” “I don’t like people telling me what to do.” “I don’t see why I can’t set my own hours, as long as I do the work.” “I don’t like some of the people I work with.” “I was only late a few times (3 times in one week) and I don’t know why they’re so ticked off with me.” “I don’t need the grief.”
The problem with “one-size-fits all” pronouncements of social policy is that one approach doesn’t fit all people. Welfare or workfare pronouncements don’t adequately address all situations. Neither has addressed the two examples which follow.
There’s a sniff house just north of Ellice Avenue on Sherbrook Street. In our neighbourhood, some houses get “named” by the behavior of the residents, not their family names. The many inhabitants (guests and residents) of that house are causing lots of trouble for the majority of good folks on the block. Smashed car windows, aggressive panhandling, intimidating loitering, urinating in public, these folks are a general nuisance to themselves and all around them.
Welfare cheques going into that little house aren’t spent at the grocery store. Residents are consistently dumpster-diving for meals at local restaurants and convenience stores. I don’t understand how social services can fuel their destructive behavior and pretend it’s not their problem. I’m not sure how workfare would work, but I know that the social welfare cheque isn’t promoting social welfare either!
Then there’s the little 540 square foot house on Maryland that just got cleared out this week. The landlord isn’t bad, just out-of-town. A family was living there and receiving public assistance for her three kids and 5 dogs. Then came the puppies. The kids, all under 12, were often unattended and ran roughshod in the neighbourhood. The next thing we noticed were the 6 security cameras mounted around the property, covering every possible means of access to the house. A relative’s trailer parked at the rear of the house was drawing power and water from the house. Utility payments were skipped. As more people complained about the property, they made arrangements to move.
They didn’t tell the landlord they were moving. They didn’t tell the landlord they weren’t paying bills. Welfare kept sending cheques without checking whether the money was used as claimed. Cops, Child and Family Services and Animal Control Services were notified of problems. Without notifying the landlord, welfare provided rent for the family to move. They’ll continue their trail of destruction – all the while funded by social services.
Workers sometimes compound the problems. Sometimes they harass compliant clients while neglecting chronic abusers of the system.
Many people are really in need of social assistance and don’t abuse the system at all. Shelter allowances are woefully inadequate – both for tenants and for the landlords who are expected to provide well-maintained accommodations for artificially depressed rents. Communication with landlords is horrible. Social welfare of addicts is consistently neglected.
It’s high time we got less political and more practical about poverty.
Rev. Harry Lehotsky
514 Maryland Street
Winnipeg, Mb R3G 1M5
(204) 775-4929
lehotsky@escape.ca