Preview of Things to Come
You know when you say or do something and then realize it is far harder than you’ve thought it would be? I’m there right now and have been for a while. On the getting ready to do something about this front, things are going extremely well, so hopefully I won’t be feeling the same way once that ball is rolling. As I said before, breaking up the discussion of poverty seems to be the only real way to give it any justice. I’ve been reading a lot, recalling a lot of anecdotal stories people have shared with me, and talking even more. All of these things explore different aspects of poverty, reading to understand, listening to feel, and talking to work out an action plan to address some of this.
Below is the basis of my plan on how I am going to tackle this.
Bed Bugs — Basically this is something that really touched me, enraged me and opened my eyes to how real issues like affordable housing, social assistance and persistent poverty are for so many. It’s a personal story about a single father I met in 2006 and what spending half an hour did to me as a person. I will post it tomorrow.
New Voters — A lot of the people who supported me lived in lower income communities, and many were voting for the first time ever or the first time in a long time. I had a lot of frank, and spirited discussions with people who self identified as non voters. A couple of them really touched me even more so than others. I will post this on the 18th.
Poverty Reduction Meetings Re-Cap — I’ve attended three. One held by Minister Best, one held by the City of Toronto, and a third held by a community organization focused on providing services to members of the South Asian community. I will re-cap what came out of these meetings and share it here. I will post it on the 19th.
Child Poverty in Ward 43 — I can’t say much more or this will become the entry devoted to this topic. Let me just say it is shocking and needs to be talked up more and I plan to start that process on the 20th.
Conclusion – Part One – Causes and Effects of Poverty — Here I am going to summarize the often fragmented bits of information that come out in the other posts and try to draw some of it back together. This has been the most challenging part, because poverty as an issue as much more woven into itself than most issues. I’ll post on that on the 21st
Conclusion – Part Two – Solutions to Poverty — I’m going to provide my own thoughts on what government, social service agencies and business should do to help reduce poverty. This will be posted on the 22nd.
Preview of What I Plan to Do – I have no idea when this is coming because much of what is being discussed is still fluid. But I hope it will come together shortly after the rest of these things.
So from personal stories that touched me on issues relating to poverty through a better understanding of the challenges out there, the ideas others have and are calling on the government to act on, and back to personal action. That to me seems like the best way to pull it all back together. Hopefully you’ll read along, think about some of this stuff and maybe even offer to lend a hand when there are some opportunities to actually stand up and do something.
As a final note, I want to thank the people who’ve talked to me about this site, and the things I’ve been writing. It is really nice to hear encouragement and support — especially when it is unsolicited. So thank you for that.
Tags: Poverty
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