politics

A FINAL SOLUTION TO HOMELESSNESS

ON A MAYOR'S DESK

BY JOANNE SHAW

"This would allow any Canadian, Resident of Canada, or Visitor to Canada, if they found themselves without food, to simply go to a restaurant and eat, by signing a legal affidavit at the restaurant. And if they found themselves without a home or place to stay, they could simply check into any hotel or motel in Canada. It aims to run in conjunction with laws that already exist. "

“My intention has always been zero poverty."

September 18, 2008

I placed a final solution to homelessness on the Mayor's desk today. I mean I'm going to be the one to end it. My goal has always been zero poverty.

After years of experience as an antipoverty activist, where I was a lobbyist on behalf of a provincial group of lawyers and welfare advocates, meeting regularly with government staff and officials on behalf of the group, improving laws and policies to help the poor, and at one point drafting actual legislation governing Income Assistance, I came up the idea of the government simply using resaurants, hotels and motels to administer food and shelter instead of soup kitchens and shelters.

This would allow any Canadian, resident of Canada, or visitor to Canada, if they found themselves without food, to be able to simply go to any restaurant in Canada and eat , and have that meal paid for, by signing a legal affidavit at the restaurant that they required it. And if they found themselves without a home or place to stay, they could simply check into any hotel or motel in Canada. It aims to run in conjunction with laws that already exist.

An affidavit is all that is really needed. Theoretically an individual hungry and needing money, could get together with a restaurant owner and if he gave him a dinner, the two could document the situation, even by affidavit and take it to court and try to get the government to pay the bill for the dinner, with the owner saying he felt obligated to accommodate a person in need who was hungry and who could likely feel pain or sadness or even die, and the customer could show that he didn't have money and he needed to eat and there was nothing he could do but ask someone, and that he felt he deserved to eat -- and the two could possibly win in court, especially since other bodies, particularly the government could be seen as liable or at the least accountable for the situation.

How it would operate, is suppose hypothetically you owned a restaurant, then you would go on with your business as normal, and if you lost a customer sale due to your customer not being able to afford it due to poverty, homelessness, or similar reasons, as demonstrated by him or her presenting an affidavit, then the government would have previously insured the price of the meal, and would regularly reimburse establishments the $5, $20 or $30 dollars or whatever their meal costed, upon submitting the affidavits and bills, monthly right along their GST, PST or other tax forms.

“A child doesn't understand why there is never a place to sleep. What kind of reason is reason enough, when there are vacancy signs in the street. A child doesn't understand, why there is never enough to eat. What kind of reason is reason enough, with a grocer on every street. 'Give up smoking; Get a job. I invest in long-term plans." Those are lyrics to one of my songs. I remember also, when I was 5, I was either on a bus or in a car and I wrote my first song. It was a commercial and I had hopes of selling it the moment I was old enough. It wasn't half bad at all! It all rhymed and the tune was original. Then I wrote about 3 more jingles in my childhood, and the first full song I wrote was when I was about 19. The first song I wrote in my childhood was about children in third world countries and when like this: “On one meal a day, they try to survive. So share. And keep them alive. By sending money to Care.” Money to Care; gotta love that. And the song had or has a good tune. I hoped and hoped and hoped that I could help solve poverty or at least be the type of person who does. I am blessed that my lyrics hold meaning to the subject, but nothing works like legislation.

One would signing an affidavit along with the restaurant, hotel or motel establishment, much like they would sign a credit card, and it is a legal document one is signing. The person simply check into any hotel or motel in Canada or eat whatever they wish at a restaurant. The person would go to a restaurant, say "Table for two for free, please." And the waiter or waitress would say "Yes, Thank you. Right this way sir." "Thank you very much." I don't think homeless will need to go in in troops, and you could add a new phrase for etiquette, "Table for one 'pour libre'" - however you would say that in French. I don't speak French. Something classy that will catch on that will invite elegance and sophistication would do -- and maybe so that it is in another language where no one knows what it means but the waiter knows what it means. In Quebec, they may want to say it in English.

First, to give an idea at how much money you would be dealing with. There is an estimated 1 in 400 people homeless, without a house or apartment -- as calculated and counted by the numbers using relevant resources, such as food banks and shelters. If you think of a group of 400 people, 1 doesn't have a place to stay. If a dollar was allocated from every Canadian citizen, EVERY homeless person, could receive $400. That is enough to grab a hotel room and buy a few things. If everyone allocated $10.00, every homeless man or woman could get $4,000, probably enough to move and get an apartment or solve whatever situation the person is dealing with. It's hard to tell what we are calculating, where the money goes or why, but it buys housing and enough to eat. The average salary in Canada is about $3,000 per month. We have way more than enough money.

There are a number of terrific points to this solution.

The most appealing feature about this solution is that hotels and restaurants are much more luciourious and comfortable for the homeless and hungry.
Restaurants, already reflect the standards of what we are allowed to serve others for food, not to mention convenient, cheap, familiar and comfortable. Hotels and motels are our society's representation for sleeping when away from home. For anyone praying for the homeless or liable regarding where someone has to sleep or what they have to eat, such as cities might be, this solution is a breath of air. I could tell you for years about how soup kitchens, food-banks and homeless shelters have been dangerous solutions to the problem. Some of the food is rotting, badly cooked, outdated, only served at certain times, only served if there is enough, full of allergens or outright unhealthy or dangerous substances, Often the food is rotted, dented, outdated, inadequate, and most noticeable what somebody else wants. Do you want shelters which incestuously or otherwise neglectfully shove herds of people to sleep together in barns, chosen to be in the highest crime areas of cities, with people wasting their time and others time, but some shelters so dangerous something might fall on your head?
One of the best parts about this is that it has virtually no overhead and I mean so low overhead. A hundred dollar hotel costs about a hundred dollars. One of the largest cities in the world reported spending 600 million per year on preventative solutions to homelessness, or 2 million dollars per day toward an average of 37 thousand individuals on any given day. It's not that its all misspent. It saves a number of lives. But this would cost less than a dollar per day per person; not per homeless person, but per person in of the population, in order to attempt to eliminate all of the homelessness, which could be done to the extent that hotels and restaurants would eliminate the need for immediate shelter and food. Canada's average salary is $3,200 per month. One dollar out of each would give each homeless person $400. Or ten would give them $4,000.
Restaurants and hotels not only cater already to the general public, but are also regulated by the health board and other bodies to do so. Also, since they are attached to government licenses, it is much more easy for the government to process the administering of money.
Restaurants, hotels, and motels are familiar to more people than charity organizations attempting to do the same thing. They are easy to find, with much wider selection and already doing the work we are looking for.
It is a FINAL solution to homelessness and hunger. You might be able to add to the solution in minor ways, or copy it's properties to other goods and services and you can, but you really can't improve on it without improving on hotels, motels and restaurants. These are societies representations of eating, sleeping and living while away from home. So when you are buying and not creating the best of these services for someone without a home, or access to their home. It also tries to be federally encompasing and run, use national and international law and law for the first time. It's more stable than relying on charities and people's charity, or worse even criminals. The steady and immediate allowance of hotels and restaurants for Canada's homeless and hungry is a final solution to homelessness and hunger.

Dec. 20, 2009: Note: This issue is still so important. It should have been done passed and known by now. It got delayed

I started with this almost a year ago now, in Sept., 2009. I can't even tell you entirely what happened it is so embarrassing to those involved. I want to tell you why this has taken so long, though.
To make a long story, short, I sent out letters to enough political representatives, where it would get adequate care, so that the homeless and hungry could get restaurants and hotels.
I became apparent I had to follow up on some of them, mostly because I partially used the internet. I never had a chance to do that. But I was a bit restricted and couldn't get that done, too. But that's not where the problem happened.
Where the problem happened, I sent it to one mayor, then another began to run for mayor.
In all fairness, he didn't know that I had already presented issues to his opponents and predecessors, which were much of his campaign. But but it wasn't pleasant. This happened to one other person too.
But it was not pleasant for me. For at least 6 months, everywhere I looked there were pockets of dominating news articles which totally stomped on what I was doing and had already created. It felt terrible. And no one else it seemed was allowed to speak about the issues. And these people weren't even elected. They were running, and very noisily so. Their voters and followers were horrible people and extremely rambunctious people. That was one problem, these pockets of articles about the issue of homelessness by people tuning in to talk about them as campaign issues.
Now the day I wrote the selection of officials, I also sent out a set of public service announcements, many to various countries. It was just breathtaking. I would publish a public service announcement in one area of the world and then the next day or a few days or weeks later, would read about people
really making a difference. Or better, I would read a lack of certain issues. The warmth was just radiant. Just radiant. I could not believe how effective a public service announcement was, but could not believe the warmth.
Now one thing that happened to me, I didn't exclude my own country's, Canada from this, or the press. I sent out some to Canada, but more to other places, but I don't think it should matter.
But after doing this, I was probably never so proud in my life. I actually read an article published in
the country where I sent out a public service announcement, and it felt like the whole country showed solidarity and said it was going to follow Canada on homelessness. I could not believe it, and how united it was. And it seemed so based on what I had written.
Then, on TV, in Canada, this women on TV started wining about the country I had written: “who does that country think it is”, she said. They have homelessness also, like Canada does. I have never been so embarassed in my life. She didn't understand the issue, saying both had homelessness, instead of neither would. How she got a hold of my story and just started commenting on it, I'll never know.   It was the same station I sent either a press release or public service announcement out to. Why she was wining on TV was something I really didn't' understand.   But I have never been so embarrassed in my life. It was a personal issue for me. I could have balled.
Now that was embarrassing, but I could not get past some people running for elections in Canada. No one could, and that was so very dangerous and reckless. For 6 months I had to listen to a small, small number of election platforms do all the talking in the newspapers -- we all did, but it wasn't on topics we all necessarily prevented -- before I could even follow up to any of my work.
It was horrible. I saw so many people suffer with everything these criminals were doing, jumping in
and toward vehicles, then others suffer with homelessness, when something could have been done about it – while these people ran for office talking horribly about overlapping campaigns. We had to wait until buildings were built to house odd probably non existent segments of the poor, before we could tell them it was wrong or even illegal and as well the construction was so dangerous and illegal. Some would let drug users do drugs outside of shelters and every building trying to legalize drugs. Many of their voters would constantly be jumping in front of vehicles and sky trains with signs. Some politicians allowed people to bring their dogs and shopping carts anywhere the homeless “were allowed to go” and they took them into every other building of the city, too.   It was terrible. Absolutely terrible.
I'm going to try again (to make sure those in office all have copies). But it is more important to me that it goes to court, because that is where I see the changes are more easier made. God Bless.