Poverty Awareness in York Region

I hope everyone is having a happy holiday season. I know it's been especially tough for some I'm sure, including striking transit drivers and their families as well as transit users and theirs. Both are being affected by the lack of action to end this strike, and both are beginning to suffer the effects of having no or limited access to work.

In some cases the Y.R.T. drivers are part-timers, but even those working for supplemental income purposes are doing so often times to keep their houses afloat or simply maintain what they have but were once able to maintain without the extra income. That's what inflation does folks, and when the rising costs begin to outweigh the notsorising income levels then something has to give. Thus the Mexican stand-off which has become the York Region Transit strike.

The strike is taking a severe toll however on those that rely on it for work and every day life connections. A normally reserved young lady of 18 or so is heard screaming  at her lone parent who happens to also have a chronic illness, "You cash poor fuck!", when refusing to cover yet another taxi from their isolated community to her workplace and spoken in frustration about not being able to get to her job again. This recurring household tension is magnified in communities that may be otherwise isolated from most amenities, work or activity centres.

Imagine having your car suddenly not only taken away but your transit to work or food as well and on top you're isolated. Then your phone is disconnected because you've been unable to get to work and back with enough left over to pay it. What would you do? Would you stand for it? I doubt it. Yet they expect these riders to sit by and be used as pawns while their lives are put in turmoil, future school plans are scrapped with no income now able to be saved, kids unable get to high school or dropping out, homes lost and on...someone has to be held accountable for the lives it's destroying!! But who?

If you ask the Regional Council or its Chair, Bill Fisch, it has absolutely nothing to do with them. Nope, they are not in the mix they've arbitrarily decided. Now there's a funny word. Back to that later. At any rate, these fat cat councilors, a mixture of privileged mayors and Regional Councillors who are sworn to look out for all its residents and who are failing them badly, make no mistake, and who also very quickly turned down my proposed resolution to council a few weeks back to leave their cars at home during the strike.

Council's silence speaks volumes and mirrors their record in council of pandering to paying off debts and balancing books on the back of money earmarked or designated for social programs - such as the G.T.A. pooling dollars which they "redesignated" for their own purposes instead of using it for what it was successfully fought for to be returned to York Region from Toronto because we purportedly needed it for our own programs by dozens of honest citizens groups who believed they'd do the right thing. Well they didn't. They've given a pittance to where it was supposed to go while smuggly putting together a balanced budget largely on the back of it in 2011.

Here's an example of how out of touch this York Region council is with reality. Here we have transit riders, presumably many of whom are low income earners, increasingly who may now be facing eviction from their homes because of lost income, yet the rules of the anti-homelessness program that is distributed by the Church of the Salvation Army (lest we forget they are a religion) on behalf of the Region eliminate them from qualifying. That's right the anti-homelessness programs are not open to low income earners and these rules are set out by the Region of York, or so I was told by the local S.A. head Brian Bishop a year or so ago when I asked him to justify why they excluded the lowest income earners from qualifying. I told him they should refuse to distribute the funds under those conditions then. I had been there at the time at the invite of Mr Bishop to follow up on a complaint we'd received from someone who felt their family was treated disrespectfully through their qualification process.

I'll bet many people don't realize that 80% of all the Salvation Army funding for all their programs comes from government sources. Don't take my word for it, I read it on their website. They are like the perfect cross between corporation and charity (they are a church) that gets to walk through unchallenged, and with an American CEO who makes over 3.3 million dollars a year, a well paid servant of the Lord methinks..so be wary of the wonderfullness of charities as solutions for our social ails for they all have issues, and accountability for such is best served through government distribution, not charities that claim to offer dignity through feeding the poor.Give us a break, there is absolutely nothing dignified about how people have to open up their lives to complete strangers in order to simply to access food or extra groceries or toys at Christmas..enough of the government handouts to charities and give it right to the people..because right now they need taxis  to get food and to work and doctors and hospitals and pick up medications - not toys - thousands of which will now sit in warehouses.


With the transit strike on and snow falling, residents like Dan and Ashley who have to get by in wheel-chairs will feel the pinch too, living in a town with no grocery delivery and taxis that refuse to even if you can afford them, and having to rely on a system that asks them to book a week in advance that he and his girlfriend are unable to take together often, having different kinds of wheelchairs...and on and on..slowly they lose the will to go out..and then the zest for life wains...and did they ask for this life? Perhaps our social programs money could have been spent here so our disabled could lead normal lives. They even have to rely on hoping charities like Neighbourhood Network can fit them in to shovel their driveways. What about those who they can't get to? These councillors, unions, companies all owe a chance at life to these people and it's more than a freakin blip those I've met as the media would have you believe, but it's been a ship sinker.

This strike could have gone to arbitration which is a fancy way of saying someone who'll negotiate a compromise which is then binding, but Dictator, ah, I mean Chairman Fisch and his cohort band of merry councilmen and women) and mayors are holding steadfast and likely secretly drooling at all the extra money they think they'll have to spend at the end of this. My seeing this on the council's last meeting agenda about how to spend it, was a reminder that they are saving millions a month on the backs of the poor during this, and no wonder they are trying to distance themselves.

Sorry dudes and dudettes, you made the original deal, you fix it. If you want I'd be happy to step in and negotiate as I'm trained in group facilitation and experienced at bringing parties of differing views and opinions together with a positive result - such as our P.A.C.C. hosted and york Region approved social audit "Behind the Masks.. testimonials from those marginalized by income"of which it seems few, if any of the recommendations, have yet to be acted on.

Well I can tell you one thing..come election time each and everyone will be held accountable, so maybe this was the shake up we needed to show this council for what it truly is which is certainly not one that is doing all it can for its most vulnerable residents - true signs of any sick civilization used to privilege. Yup the beginning of the end for them methinks..and definitely the smug Dr Dolittle himself Chairman Fisch.

Curious to note The York Region Food Network, the one true ally in the fight against social injustice in York Region, even though their connection is food related, has been apparently evicted from the Inn From The Cold Building by the Inn From the Cold people..Hmmm..WONDER WHO PULLED THAT STRING! At any rate I hope this doesn't now jeopardize the fresh foodbox programs and the regular Thursday food and supplies distribution the PACC has been running for several years now...we'll see..looks like someone wants to be headmaster!

P.A.C.C. in cooperation with some community groups including from Bray and Mulock community associations along with P.A.C.C. distributed Y.R. Food Network's food boxes, and an anonymous toys/clothes donor, were successfully able to provide toys, food, fresh food, toiletries diapers, supplies etc for several communities for distribution and neighbourhood xmas parties which was very appreciated - especially by those mothers without vehicles to transport the supplies and who may of had to spend much more than usual of their xmas budgets in just getting around over the past months.

Y. R. Food Network's Yvonne Kelly & Director Joan Stonehoecker speak at Int Day for the Eradication of Poverty. The friends of the hungry have been squeezed out of  510 Penrose, the wannabe York Region "hub" for poverty issues. They were the only advocate for the 'poor" in that building, to the rest they are 'clients", "cases"and 'patrons"..too bad.

Special thanks to P.A.C.C.ers Linda and Kristine who were both instrumental in making sure people accessed the Christmas and holiday goodies and that a good time was had by all!

Tom out!