ksun said:
Actually I think China should do more to help the poor - not excessively like Canada does, such as not working but collecting $1500 every month from the government, but something to improve their life.

That being said, it is wrong to say the Chinese have no freedom of movement. Shanghai and Beijing are full of immigrants from all sorts of backwater towns. Since about 10 years, nothing prevents them from moving to larger cities any more, which is why large cities got more and more congested. I moved there, my brother moved there. My retired parents moved there too. Really, nothing prevents people from moving anywhere in the country any more. It is not the 1980s.

That's beyond the point though. The point about this particular project is that the subsidized low income population will continue to be "helped" by the government, just not in central city any more, because market situation determined better use of previous downtown land. I am not sure what "displaced" means - they don't own those properties, and are living there on taxpayers' expense, now they get to decide their preferred location? Sorry, I don't get it. What would you have to complain if your landlord decides to sell his house and asks you to move? Is that unfair? For them, it is like receiving free food from charity but says "no, I don't like chicken, give me AAA beef please". Social housing should still be provided, just in different places, maybe a bit farther away from Yonge/Dundas. I honestly don't see any unfairness in that arrangement. If I were someone on social aid, I wouldn't complain and would still be grateful knowing nobody in the world owes me anything.
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Man you're moving from infuriating to just a pathetic train wreck.
 
ksun said:
Actually I think China should do more to help the poor - not excessively like Canada does, such as not working but collecting $1500 every month from the government, but something to improve their life.

That being said, it is wrong to say the Chinese have no freedom of movement. Shanghai and Beijing are full of immigrants from all sorts of backwater towns. Since about 10 years, nothing prevents them from moving to larger cities any more, which is why large cities got more and more congested. I moved there, my brother moved there. My retired parents moved there too. Really, nothing prevents people from moving anywhere in the country any more. It is not the 1980s.

That's beyond the point though. The point about this particular project is that the subsidized low income population will continue to be "helped" by the government, just not in central city any more, because market situation determined better use of previous downtown land. I am not sure what "displaced" means - they don't own those properties, and are living there on taxpayers' expense, now they get to decide their preferred location? Sorry, I don't get it. What would you have to complain if your landlord decides to sell his house and asks you to move? Is that unfair? For them, it is like receiving free food from charity but says "no, I don't like chicken, give me AAA beef please". Social housing should still be provided, just in different places, maybe a bit farther away from Yonge/Dundas. I honestly don't see any unfairness in that arrangement. If I were someone on social aid, I wouldn't complain and would still be grateful knowing nobody in the world owes me anything.
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I'm not entirely sure what you do see.

Mods, can we please move this 'discussion' out of the project thread and into something dedicated?
 
ksun said:
Actually I think China should do more to help the poor - not excessively like Canada does, such as not working but collecting $1500 every month from the government, but something to improve their life.
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I'm not sure where you're pulling the $1500 figure from. People on ODSP (disability) get a little over $1,000 while those on Ontario Works only get a little over $600, which are some of the least generous welfare rates in the developed world. It's nearly impossible to pay for rent, food, clothing and everything else on a $600 monthly budget in Toronto.
 
Marcanadian said:
I'm not sure where you're pulling the $1500 figure from. People on ODSP (disability) get a little over $1,000 while those on Ontario Works only get a little over $600, which are some of the least generous welfare rates in the developed world. It's nearly impossible to pay for rent, food, clothing and everything else on a $600 monthly budget in Toronto.
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You beat me to it. My sister is disabled and unable to work at all. She gets just over $1000 a month from ODSP to cover all her expenses. No idea where this idea of $1500/month is coming from.
 
ksun's comments go far beyond just the homeless but I think this video from last month is very timely and deserves to be seen here:

[video=youtube;0BXxxfc4aYc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BXxxfc4aYc[/video]
 
Bayer said:
Poor people are not problems to be pushed out. I agree that the area needs to be improved, but not at the cost of displacing people who have nowhere else to go. Investment in social housing is much more needed than another set of condo towers.
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I never said anything about the poor. I was talking about the low lifes.
 
ksun said:
Sure, tell me what "challenges" they face and how that can't be overcome over all these years. I am all ears.

Myself was born and raised in an average family in China. My parents made about $100 a month while I was a kid, even to the day they retire, they made less than $800 combined in the late 1990s. My father taught lessons outside his regular full time job, involving riding a bike for 40 minutes in the winter, and my mother took two jobs and often worked till 11pm, when my brother and I were teenagers, to put us through school. Are those "challenges"? Yet both of me and my brother graduated from top universities - he is living a very nice life in Shanghai and I am in Canada.

In Canada, people receive high quality socialized healthcare from the day they were born. High quality free education until high school and very affordable but excellent universities. Plus all sorts of assistance/programs from the government to the low income (deductions, child subsidies). Exactly what challenges have made them homeless and unrecoverable from utter poverty as well as drug problems for years? I don't lack empathy, but I don't think throwing money at those who have no intention to be self-sufficient is responsible or fair. Are you willing to financially help someone who you know are not interested in pulling himself together and being independent? And Toronto taxpayers are supposed to save the downtown land for them forever, forgoing all the potential benefits to the city?

Some rants here. Feel free to delete if Mods find it off topic.
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Not this stuff. Not the "My parents came from....if they made it...why can't others?" stuff. That's a tired narrative. People are not equal and neither are their situations.
 
TheKingEast said:
Not this stuff. Not the "My parents came from....if they made it...why can't others?" stuff. That's a tired narrative. People are not equal and neither are their situations.
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So a sentence like "people have challenges" apparently suffices.
Anyway I have expressed my position and I respect though not agree with theirs.
 
Canadian Chocho said:
Except this logic is pretty much the basis for ghettoization which is effectively an exacerbation of the problem.
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Yep, this is probably the most incisive way of putting what I think is wrong with ksun's and TheKingEast's views, to run them together a bit. But I'm going to indulge myself with a bit more elaboration...

Here's the problem with their view. Even if some people dislike social assistance programs like welfare, rent subsidization, etc., discontinuing these programs exacerbates the very problems that these people find so objectionable in the first place. So you're caught in a catch-22. Continue these programs, and put up with what are to you minds objectionable social problems; discontinue them, and make these problems worse.

The fact that the argument self-destructs so quickly is compelling evidence that this very way of framing the debate is wrong.

So there's just no point in continuing it in these terms. It's a non-starter.
 
My position should not be confused with ksun's. I believe in assistance. I just don't think everyone should be helped. And by everyone, I mean those who do not give back to their community or who are able bodied and do not want to get out of their current situation. Those who commit crime and are a blight to our society.
 
TheKingEast said:
My position should not be confused with ksun's. I believe in assistance. I just don't think everyone should be helped. And by everyone, I mean those who do not give back to their community or who are able bodied and do not want to get out of their current situation. Those who commit crime and are a blight to our society.
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Criminals are dealt with by the authorities. Government programs are such that it is very unlikely an able-bodied person (and let us include people with no debilitating psychological problems) would get disability benefits, and welfare benefits come with strings attached; you need to get training or try to find employment.

Those programs exist to avoid complete destitution and are insufficient, especially in Toronto, for anyone to live a comfortable life. For this reason, it would be immoral to deprive anyone of those benefits because we are dissatsified with our superficial perception of who they are or how they live.

One of the institutions that help and that I support, the Good Neighbours Club, is located at ground zero of this coming gentrification. I do not want them displaced out of the core. Cities should serve people and not just the shiny, happy ones. My own spouse was once homeless, and I do not tolerate prejudice on this issue.
 
Bayer said:
Criminals are dealt with by the authorities. Government programs are such that it is very unlikely an able-bodied person (and let us include people with no debilitating psychological problems) would get disability benefits, and welfare benefits come with strings attached; you need to get training or try to find employment.

Those programs exist to avoid complete destitution and are insufficient, especially in Toronto, for anyone to live a comfortable life. For this reason, it would be immoral to deprive anyone of those benefits because we are dissatsified with our superficial perception of who they are or how they live.

One of the institutions that help and that I support, the Good Neighbours Club, is located at ground zero of this coming gentrification. I do not want them displaced out of the core. Cities should serve people and not just the shiny, happy ones. My own spouse was once homeless, and I do not tolerate prejudice on this issue.
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It's very easy to work the system. I know enough people who know all the tricks. These people are who I'm speaking about... I don't see how building up these tired areas is a bad thing. It's understood that sufficient accomodation will be put in place for those individuals who are struggling. Would you not say that Regent Park has been a success?
 
TheKingEast said:
It's very easy to work the system. I know enough people who know all the tricks. These people are who I'm speaking about... I don't see how building up these tired areas is a bad thing. It's understood that sufficient accomodation will be put in place for those individuals who are struggling. Would you not say that Regent Park has been a success?
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Regent Park is a success, but it is insufficient, and it is not at all guaranteed that those people will have a place to live. There is very little affordable housing in Toronto, and little new public housing is being built other than replacements for aging units. The Ontario government brags that it is the leanest in Canada, and frankly, it shows.

I am not opposed to improving the area, but it should not be done at the expense of the vulnerable. I think it is possible to coexist with them and the organizations that serve them.
 
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