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I saw this tweet and thought I would comment:
"The city continues to take away tents on E. Hastings. People are turned away from shelters every night because there's no space. "Shelter options" is the phrase that's used, it doesn't always mean there actual is shelter. #vanpoli"
(Looks I misread "shelter options" into "shelter operations" so I started weird, but you get the picture.
The only "shelter operation" that's happening is the destruction of shelter that people have created for themselves. Vancouver and BC wage an ideological war on homeless people that's far more costly in lives and money than if they tried to fix the problem at the root. It's vile.
This is class war on the lumpen dwellers of the city, driven by a hatred of poor people. If they hated poverty, they would fix poverty as a problem. But The Powers That Lords Over the City hate homeless people and see them as disposable human beings.
Developers see homeless people as an obstacle to extract maximum profit from an artificially scare market that would be a lot more fair for everyone if the government provided ample social housing.
We are the richest societies that have existed in human history and yet we hoard wealth and step upon one another, while we have phenomenal means at our disposal to make life rewarding for everyone.
This lack of common action, the individualist greed systematized by capitalism is at the root of the climate and ecological destruction that we have wrought on earth, and eventually we will all become homeless. That will be our legacy.
When an alien archæologists reach this planet and dig through our ruins, they will wonder how we could be so damn stupid.
---
One of the most radical congregations here in Toronto, St. Stephens in the Fields, has welcomed homeless people and let them set up camp on its front lawn. It's not a large patch but there are some 15 tents or so. It's a rather undesirable spot: It's across from a fire hall, it's on one of the business streets in the city, there's a 24 hour streetcar driving by, and there are a number of bars nearby, whose patron can sometimes mess with homeless people when they get thrown out on the street. But the war on homeless camping has been so relentless these last two years that this has become one of the last refuges for those who don't want to take a gamble on whether they'll get to a shelter before they're all full. COVID restrictions have been done with and shelters house people like sardines again.
The city has figured out that the church doesn't actually own its front lawn. It's a municipal right of way or something, and the campers have been deemed to be "blocking a roadway". It's grass. There's a sidewalk but they're not camping on it. The city has issued trespass notices and will evict everyone in a few days time.
I hate this all so much.
"The city continues to take away tents on E. Hastings. People are turned away from shelters every night because there's no space. "Shelter options" is the phrase that's used, it doesn't always mean there actual is shelter. #vanpoli"
(Looks I misread "shelter options" into "shelter operations" so I started weird, but you get the picture.
The only "shelter operation" that's happening is the destruction of shelter that people have created for themselves. Vancouver and BC wage an ideological war on homeless people that's far more costly in lives and money than if they tried to fix the problem at the root. It's vile.
This is class war on the lumpen dwellers of the city, driven by a hatred of poor people. If they hated poverty, they would fix poverty as a problem. But The Powers That Lords Over the City hate homeless people and see them as disposable human beings.
Developers see homeless people as an obstacle to extract maximum profit from an artificially scare market that would be a lot more fair for everyone if the government provided ample social housing.
We are the richest societies that have existed in human history and yet we hoard wealth and step upon one another, while we have phenomenal means at our disposal to make life rewarding for everyone.
This lack of common action, the individualist greed systematized by capitalism is at the root of the climate and ecological destruction that we have wrought on earth, and eventually we will all become homeless. That will be our legacy.
When an alien archæologists reach this planet and dig through our ruins, they will wonder how we could be so damn stupid.
---
One of the most radical congregations here in Toronto, St. Stephens in the Fields, has welcomed homeless people and let them set up camp on its front lawn. It's not a large patch but there are some 15 tents or so. It's a rather undesirable spot: It's across from a fire hall, it's on one of the business streets in the city, there's a 24 hour streetcar driving by, and there are a number of bars nearby, whose patron can sometimes mess with homeless people when they get thrown out on the street. But the war on homeless camping has been so relentless these last two years that this has become one of the last refuges for those who don't want to take a gamble on whether they'll get to a shelter before they're all full. COVID restrictions have been done with and shelters house people like sardines again.
The city has figured out that the church doesn't actually own its front lawn. It's a municipal right of way or something, and the campers have been deemed to be "blocking a roadway". It's grass. There's a sidewalk but they're not camping on it. The city has issued trespass notices and will evict everyone in a few days time.
I hate this all so much.