From a fellow Montrealer
Jeliel3 posted an interesting piece on his weblog… Here’s it is…
Give Us Your Panhandlers, Your Squeegees, Your Homeless Beggars.
I’m feeling harassed by all the beggars and panhandlers in my town. I can’t make it 100 feet without getting hassled by somebody wanting some spare change or subway tickets. If I’d give a quarter every time someone asked me, I’d be broke by the end of the week.
All the archetypes are here. The guy in the wheelchair deformed by some unforgiving disease, the little old lady who just finished taking empty cans out of the garbage, the young punk with thousands of dollars worth of ink on him, the screamer in the subway saying he’s got kids at home to feed and a terminal wife (but she’s been terminal for 10 years now - yes I remember the beggars), the guy holding the door open for you at the local store holding out his plastic cup spewing cigarette smoke in your face as you enter, the guy sitting on the ground smelling like a brewing factory with his friendly abandoned dog making you feel guilty for what you are about to do, step into a store or restaurant and spend your money, then there’s the guy with obvious mental problems who would probably wrestle me to the floor for change were I not twice his size, the guy huffing glue on the train while everyone else his huddled at the other end of the wagon trying not to get high on the fumes. Most of them smell like they haven’t hit the showers in weeks… it’s the smell, if there is such a thing.
But you see I’m not one of those who think these bums should just get a job. That’s the easy no-need-to-deal-with-the-issue answer. On the contrary, it breaks my heart to see them in this suffering state. I wish I could help them all, but it would ruin me and I’d probably end up like them. It eats at me. I do feel guilty going into Wendy’s when this guy with nothing in his name just asked for spare change. And yes I know that over 85% of the money given to them will end up in a dealers pocket within an hour. But still, addicts are sick people. Not to mention all those mentally ill folks. The kids with no future because no one ever raised them to know better; you just can’t give what you’ve never received to begin with. But it all seems all overwhelming.
Sometimes I give’em change or buy them a burger on my way out of the restaurant. But I can’t do it all the time, I’m scrapping by myself, sure my situation isn’t as bad as theirs but I’m not racking in the bucks either.
But the amount of times I get polled for spare change in a week is driving me insane (not to mention that someone tries to give me a free city paper at just about every corner or subway exit). But just like them I’m doing everything I can to keep my head above the water, I’m just further up the mountain than they are, but I still have to climb the mountain. I can’t fix the problem and I feel harassed, not by the beggars, but by my guilt for having my life being better than theirs.
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That sums it up nicely. Any ideas on how to end the problem?
Look, if you don’t like it, maybe you should stay in the suburbs or just move on to a farm. You live in the city, you live in the entire cityscape, the less savoury parts included.
grow up.
PAUL obviously didn’t read the whole article, probably didn’t even click on the link.
Mary what the…??? Anything less constructive you can bring to the conversation?
I didn’t know that people have to grow up to be able to get along with seeing poverty on the streets of Downtown, Montreal. Maybe I’m just too left to grasp that idea.
I’m sorry, I must’ve meant “Paul”
Sorry Mary.
Love the story, cliche but still! Would have had a bigger impact around xmas time! Sorry! I’m not bitching you or anything. It’s my powerless situhation, like so many, that makes me mad… Some people do act!.. But it’s not always worth it! Thanks for reminding us how precious what we have is!
Clichés are found in fiction, this was just my thoughts on an a very real issue. Posting it around Xmas time, that would have been cliché.
Jeliel, word to that.
I can’t believe these people. Edgar, you and Paul are the exact proofs of the fact that the change shouldn’t start from the homeless beggars but from people like you.
Jelliel, I did, click the link and read the whole story- this guy doesn’t like the way homeless people smell since they don’t wash enough for his uptight taste and he’s consumed with middle-class liberal guilt “for having my life being better than theirs.”
I mean, unless this was written by a fourteen-year-old whose never been further east than Beaconsfield, I don’t see the point, besides to say “there are people whose lives suck and having that in my face makes me feel uncomfortable.”
Wow, deep insight there, a real call to action.
Paul-the-master-of-insight with his “grow up”. *bows*
For me it’s really simple. When I have a dime to spare I do it. When I don’t, I just move on, nothing to see here…
I’d give the win to Paul on this issue. Montreal is still way better off than dozens of other modern cities, even within North America…
AARON? This was a pissing contest?
Out of the 26 largest cities in North America (The cities that rank as large cities) Mtl comes in dead last for GDP. Wages; 24th. Are we that better off? Our crime rate per capita is higher than NY.
Out of the 26 largest cities in North America (The cities that rank as large cities) Mtl comes in dead last for GDP. Wages; 24th.Are we that better off?
Well, it costs way less to live here than in many, if not most of those cites- my 600$ a month apartment would probably cost 1000 in T.O and more than 1500 US dollars in NY, so that offsets thing to a certain degree.
Our crime rate per capita is higher than NY.
Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t - define “crime” first of all, and then remind yourself that NY City has a remarkably repressive police force and is in a country with a government that locks up a greater percentage of adult males than any other country on earth and bent on reducing civil liberties- a great help in keeping crime rates low, I suppose. I’ll take the crime, thank you very much.
But nthis has little to do with your original street people posting: you should be writing about the Quebec government’s welfare cuts and MASSIVE de-institutionalization programme in the early 1990s. Do I have to make your arguments for you?
Paul, in the great words of Cordelia, what is your childhood trauma? Just wanna have the last word? Is that it?