Posts Tagged ‘Poverty’
Bed Bugs
I was planning on starting with a story about new voters, but a Toronto Sun article I read on the topic of community housing standards, and a recent conversation I’ve had with a friend has brought this one back to top of mind. I had no intention of providing any identifying information about the family I met, but as a result of my previous post on Mornelle Court, I did want to point out that they call it home.
When running for office, you meet a lot of people. Many stories touch you, but often stories have an ability to make you see an issue through the lens of another, and sometimes, change your own views. Often times, it is anecdotes and the stories of others that give one a far better lens to view an issue through. I met a single father and his eight-year-old boy who did just that. Together they showed me their modest apartment, the plaster less living room wall, the drywall falling into their bathtub and the holes in the baseboard that allow cockroaches to migrate into their apartment. The dad informed me of an eight-month-old maintenance request that has gone unanswered, how his son’s school was implementing a uniform policy and he did not know how he was going to pay for it. What really got me was something each of us ought to be ashamed of; bed bugs infesting community-housing buildings in our city.
Every few months, the father was forced to throw out their furniture, go to the furniture bank and arrange for new mattresses for him and his son. As it was, they had no couch, just a single large chair in the living room, a basic coffee table and a small TV resting on pieces of wood. His son told me about waking up in the night, being bitten by bed bugs, and bleeding for the sores because it was hard not to scratch. As he told me his story, he began jumping up and down, and frantically rubbing his arms and body to show me what it is like for him.
I was shocked that in a city like Toronto, we would allow conditions this bad to exist for our most vulnerable citizens. Simply put, it is not right, and particularly a government run entity should not be forcing people to live in conditions like this. Why should a boy go through his childhood fearing his bed and waiting for the next time it needs to be replaced? I thought back to my childhood, and can only recall having two beds while living with my parents and once since. I simply could not imagine such a frequent need for a new one. The amount of worries this single father had to deal with were daunting enough without having to teach his son life lessons like putting the cereal in the fridge to keep cockroaches from crawling into the box, or worrying about the next time the bed bug infestation would get so bad a new mattress could be the only solution. This day changed me. It showed me something that I could not forget, nor wanted to. It gave me something to fight for and something to want to change.
As the days and weeks went on after meeting this family, I shared the story of a father and a boy living in Toronto Community Housing and going through all they had to. I told people if elected I would fight community housing on things like this, and bring light to the backlog of maintenance requests publicly, even in the Council Chamber if I had to. I met a lawyer who told me each year he devotes two weeks of his time to helping low income tenants with landlord issues for free, and that if I were serious about this, he would help and ask some of his colleagues to help too.
I consider the time I spent in that apartment hearing their story and talking and thinking about it in the days and weeks that followed central to changing my thinking around social justice. It really opened my eyes to people not being served by their government and the need for activism within government as well. More than that though it showed me that we as a society cannot turn a blind eye to those who are less fortunate and struggling to get by. While we may feel that this family having affordable housing is a blessing, we need to also think more about the conditions of that housing and the impact it has on both father and son in this case.
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.
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I have read the Daily Bread’s 2008 “Who’s Hungry Report”, but have to admit I’m finding it difficult to articulate my thoughts. The issues addressed are perhaps too big, certainly too big to address all at once.
Reliance on food banks is not a silo issue. It is also not a cause of, but a reality of poverty. Food banks are part of a profile of a greater problem that relates primarily to housing and income . Unsustainably low wages coupled with disproportionately high housing costs spell disaster for many and force them into poverty and the need to use a food bank just to get by.
To really touch on any of these issues, I think starting from the big picture and working into the specific issues and challenges within the cycle of poverty is the best approach. That being said, those who know me, know well enough that much talk, will always need to result in action, and that too will be discussed toward the end.
Last week I attended Minister Best’s poverty meeting in Scarborough Guildwood. It was held as part of the provincial consultations on the government’s poverty agenda. Last night I attended a City of Toronto sponsored meeting at the Scarborough Civic Centre as part of the same consultation, and on the 14th will be attending a similar meeting at the Civic Centre specifically focused on the challenges of Torontonians from a south Asian background as it relates to poverty. These meetings and the ideas that come out of them will be the basis for the beginning of the big picture snap shot.
I hope to start this portion shortly after the meeting on the 14th, then move into specific issues like housing and income and barriers to both that exist and wrap it up by early August with a preview of some tangible actions I plan to participate in on poverty reduction in Scarborough. Until then, I will begin sharing some of the stories that have affected me in the last couple of years. I will for the most part share them chronologically – in hopes they will make the most sense that way.
The first three all relate to my campaign for Toronto City Council in ward 43 and in many ways the first two opened my eyes up much more to the realities of people living in poverty.
