There was a major series on Mental Health in the Globe & Mail recently.
There was a lot of discussion about how painful the stigma is. Many people do not seek treatment because of stigma. They may notice issues happening within themselves, and then the TV begins to repeat stories about people like Vincent Li that stabbed Tim McLean to death, or about some other killer that ended up happening to have a diagnosis ... smaller headlines accompanying the same story try to repeat that people with mental health problems are LESS likely to be violent than people with mental health problems. So, if this is the case, why mention the mental health diagnosis at all? We certainly don't refer to people's hemorrhoids or gastritis when it comes to reporting their crimes, so why do they beat the mental health dead horse?
There were a number of panelists and presenters that told their stories or spoke about potential solutions for the mental health crisis in Canada which resulted in a report from the Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology entitled Out of the Shadows at Last. I read the entire report. While it did highlight some important components to mental health, it did not really give a lot of answers as to what to do about the stigma, other than suggested the latter established Mental Health Commission to embark on some campaign to end it. There are some attempts out there to try to compare people with mental health problems with persons with diabetes, but unfortunately, that isn't working. If it worked, it would have worked a long time ago, and we not be faced with a continued stigma that even prevents many persons with mental health disabilities from entering the workforce, engaging in relationships or doing other "normal" things. The media images don't show mental health clients doing "normal" things -- they are always portrayed as violent or completely incapable of looking after themselves.
In Helen Henderson's regular Toronto Star column, she referred to a British study where it was shown that one in eight persons stated they did not want to knowingly live next door to a person with a mental health diagnosis. Further, this same study revealed that over one third indicated they did not believe people with mental health issues were entitled in the same way as others to a paid job. Similar studies have been done in Canada that have also revealed that many people would not knowingly engage a professional like a doctor or a lawyer if it was known that the person had a mental health diagnosis. So, what incentive is there to get help anyways?
There are a large number of working people I know, many in the professions, that have told me in confidence that they have suffered from depression, bipolar disorder or some other diagnosis for many years, and to maintain confidentiality, they seek help from a professional in another region, as opposed to getting it here. These people are not homeless. They are not on ODSP (although a couple of them I am aware have been receiving a partial supplement from ODSP, as they work -- but they keep that to themselves too). These people are living independently and do not need "special housing" of any kind. They, like everybody else, needs a home that is affordable, with a door that locks, a roof that doesn't leak and enough space for them to enjoy their day to day living activities.
One of them was in my office the other day and we were talking about the Registered Disability Savings Program and he wanted to know how to get it. I advised him that he would need to qualify for the Disability Tax Credit first, then I explained what happens once they become eligible for the program. It is actually not a bad program for people with serious physical disabilities, as they do not need to stigmatize themselves by applying. However, for somebody with a mental health problem, they need to show that 90% or more of the time, they have a marked restriction in thinking, perceiving and/or remembering, which would reflect more of a neurological condition, although the examiners for the purposes of qualifying people would accept arguments involving problem solving, capacity to live independently, etc. as part of their evaluation for eligibility for mental health disability.
The problem with this is that if one values their status as a professional, a student or perhaps, even an executive or manager of an organization, accepting this definition of themselves would render them unemployable, which is something most of my professional friends do not want. They do not want to face a Fitness to Practice committee of the Teacher's College or other professional regulator that would somehow question one's capacity to carry out their profession, if they allegedly have "marked restrictions" in these areas. Of course, as soon as my friend went through my literature on the topic, the whole question of the RDSP became moot. The one gentleman who receives a partial ODSP now knew this would not work well for him, thus forcing him to live within the restricted means of that benefit.
People with mental health problems CAN get the Disability Tax Credit. I have appealed many cases successfully in the past; however, in not one of these cases, was the subject able to work. In fact, even in these cases we had to prove severity. These folks had problems managing their money, handling their personal hygiene, using public transportation independently, as well as being unable to handle stress - thus, the problem-solving issue. Some of these people were relatively high functioning, such as the case with Buchanan v Attorney General of Canada, but in the end, his case was proven but he was not able to work, and had to be cared for by his wife. The new 'mental health consumer/survivor' as they call themselves today wants to be independent, competent and functioning as a human being to the extent possible, and in most cases - if analyzed at the surface, they certainly wouldn't be eligible unless they met the criteria of my successful appellants in the matter.
If somebody were injured in a car accident, for example, and ended up in a wheelchair, or if they had only 20% of their hearing and required sign language or other adaptations, then the stigma of applying for and receiving something like this isn't there. The examples given in the Canada Revenue Agency guide appear to favour physical disability over mental disability and this is post-review of the criteria, despite what some progressive mental health organizations might like to pretend they have accomplished on people's behalf. To me, this should be based exclusively on additional costs - direct or indirect - as a result of having the disability. This was in fact the original purpose of the credit. However, a high functioning consumer/survivor that is working, but needs to pay out of pocket for psychological counseling services isn't eligible. A high functioning professional with epilepsy that cannot drive due to seizures is not eligible. This can be a very long list indeed, as we can all cull out examples from our own experience.
One of the other issues faced by consumer/survivors is that they are too often chronically unemployed or under-employed regardless of their educational attainment. In a study cited by the Global Business Roundtable on Mental Health, employers tend to under-estimate the number of people they have working for them that could possibly be consumer/survivors. In this study, the figure estimated was almost always under 5% - when the general figure given is that one in five persons at one time or other experience a mental health problem, according to the Canadian Mental Health Association. When they do have problems, they are not usually accommodated, but instead sent on disability leave. If the employee is fortunate enough to have a long-term disability insurance plan, they will at least not be forced into poverty, like so many thousands of others. The loss of productivity is shameful and dispiriting.
Some consumer/survivors think it is a good idea to get consumer/survivors to work in a consumer/survivor-run business. To most of my friends I spoke of earlier, this is NOT a good idea, as one is permanently labeling themselves and later restricting their employment options, as research and experience has shown that society has not yet progress far enough to recognize the skills and talents of people without the label first. However, for those consumer/survivors who may never work again in a "normal" job, it may be an option for them. If they can be taken off or substantially off disability benefits, that is even a better thing over the long run.
So, it seems that people still do not want to accept people who directly experienced the services of the mental health system. How does one go about resolving that? This is an age-old question.
I, for one, do not like the term "mental illness", not only for its logical inconsistency, but it does contribute to the stereotype of incapacity. Moreover, there is no actual peer-reviewed research that definitively ties mental health diagnosis with a specific physiological cause. This is not to say there is no value in the use of medication, as many consumer/survivors are helped by the different medications prescribed for their condition. Because a medication may "work", it does not mean it corrects a physiological condition, but may provide symptom relief in other ways, such as a person suffering from a major headache taking an Advil. Again, as always, one needs to be informed about their medications and ensure they try different ones before they settle on a cocktail that may eventually be proven to be most effective over time.
But not all so-called "mentally ill" respond to medication or need it. Medication is just one part of an array of services, or weapons, against the problems of the condition. Alternative therapies help many consumer/survivors, as does some forms of psychotherapy. When given a wide range of choices, understanding the benefits and drawbacks to each, a consumer/survivor will eventually find their way. But, to label them "mentally ill" automatically generates a picture of somebody who is "mentally defective" or "mentally incapable", whereas the focus is on what the person cannot do, as opposed to what they can. Advocates attempting to "educate" on mental health issues and to eradicate stigma should take this issue into account.
Nor are persons with "mental illness" likely to be homeless as a direct consequence of their condition either. Unfortunately, the media and even many social workers tend to paint this picture of their clients, as people who are not capable of caring for themselves. Earlier, I referred to the Out of the Shadows at Last report from the Senate. Various deponents slated the percentage of persons with mental health disabilities as unemployed or underemployed as 75 - 90%, which also explains a lot. When you are unemployed, especially chronically so and without access to long-term disability under a private plan, you are forced to impoverish yourself in order to be eligible for the remaining programs, Ontario Works and Ontario Disability Support Program. Neither program pays well and a single person, even on ODSP is several thousands of dollars below the poverty line.
I spoke to a homeless gentleman named John, here in the city. He supposedly had a mental health "history", but he chose homelessness over starvation, because he knew he could not afford both housing and other basic needs on ODSP. As such, most times when I seen him, he was enjoying a meal of sorts. To me, it's the consequent poverty that often arises out of discrimination and stress from the job market that leads to homelessness, not the other way around. Can you live on $572 a month and cover housing, groceries, clothing, transportation and other needs with that? My suspect is that most of the homeless are like John. The only ones where I actually feel their disability itself may have played a part are those that are addicted, as many would "blow their rent money on drugs". For those folks, we simply dry them out and get them treated and housed, but for somebody with only a mental health problem, get them enough money to live on or housing they could afford - period.
One of the consequences of linking so-called "mental illness" itself to homelessness is the danger of it translating into social policy, whereby one's liberties are once again at stake. Proponents of this "model" tend to favour forcing people into mental health treatment -wanted or not - effective or not - on such persons and keeping them under some kind of prison-like condition in the community. They would be under curfew, forced to share their accommodation with others, often with worse problems than their own, and forced to take medication at the risk of being evicted if they don't. While this policy may keep some people on their medication, it does not necessarily "cure" them, nor does it help them progress to citizenship status that we all take for granted. You need to ask yourself if YOU want that kind of quality of life FIRST, before you suggest imposing it on others. Nevertheless, liberalizing mental health incarcerations and follow-up supervision has NOT reduced the homeless numbers one bit.
Instead of attacking people for what they are labeled as, one needs to view all people for who they are. People sharing the same diagnosis are two very different people with different needs, interests and abilities. But nevertheless, they are people first. It is high time we start to demand treatment from mental health professionals and their advocates that assume they can eradicate the stigma by telling everybody how poor John is crazy, hopeless, incapable and delusional, so he becomes homeless ... How does this advocacy make John look like a person, other than distance his problems from those of yours and mine? Instead we need to stop the labeling and let John speak for himself. We might learn something.
Your thoughts?
Showing posts with label UNEMPLOYMENT. Show all posts
Showing posts with label UNEMPLOYMENT. Show all posts
Friday, August 28, 2009
Monday, March 16, 2009
ORCHESTRATED CRISIS AND CHAOS
The global stage is going through a major recession, unlike anything seen since the Great Depression. Every day, we are hearing about how thousands upon thousands of jobs are being shed by company after company. We hear stories about people walking away from their houses in the States, tent cities being set up after people lose their jobs and the sudden need for billions of dollars in corporate bailouts to save what few jobs are left.
On the street, people are getting cranky. Public servants, frustrated by an increase in their respective workloads, are talking back to their customers in ways that provoke, instead of provide insight. People are butting into lines everywhere, worried that the last scrap of whatever folks are after will be gone by the time they get there. Pensions, investments and other trusts we once believed were safe are rapidly disappearing, leaving many pensioners the choice of living their "golden" years in poverty or returning to work.
We hear more about school shootings, rampages where gunmen go crazy shooting up everybody in their home and then move on to random people on the street, or work rage, where the same thing can happen at the place of a former employer. Last Christmas, we heard about a man who dressed up as Santa Claus, drove up to the home of his former in-laws and began to throw pipe bombs and tried to torch the home, as well as shoot anybody else who got in his way. In the end, he blew himself up, when one of his home-made weapons set itself off too soon. We learned the shooter in this case was laid off from a well-paying job as an engineer, then his wife sought and won a court order against him for more money ... He planned to come to Canada. God only knows what he had planned for us up here.
In Germany, a 15-year old suddenly takes a gun and goes to his former high school and begins shooting. His targets were mostly female students and teachers. Though reportedly treated for depression two years earlier, one would question how relevant that is to this mass explosion. Another man in Alabama came home, took the lives of most of his family, as well as took down a few random people on his street, before ending his life at a metal plant (possibly where he might have been recently laid off). Two parents in Quebec had a suicide pact, whereby they were to kill their children, then one another, after leaving a detailed note as to why the economy was hurting them. This goes on and on and on ...
People are more likely to sue or get sued in these rough times, or fall behind in their debt payments, subjecting more folks to the ire of collection agencies. Family law disputes are taking on a more bitter tone, leaving many to the courts in what are known as the "high conflict" family files. Government agencies undergoing cutbacks experience an increased rate of error and declining rate of empathy, as payers of support payments end up with less than 50% of their income and often, end up in dire straits themselves. One man called me from his car, which is where he is living these days after he lost his job and then his home.
Many times, the only thing we can do is make appropriate referrals, or provide encouragement and moral support. Many of these people do not have money for legal services, nor do they fall under the purview of Legal Aid Ontario. On paper, their income is too high, but after the garnishment, they cannot even meet basic needs. Their only choice these days is to approach Family Law Advice Counsel at the court house, or to phone Lawyer Referral Service, with respect to how to best represent themselves in what will likely become a battle of a lifetime. They need to vary the court orders, amend visitation or even seek custody of children, or reduce or eliminate spousal support payments. Unless they can pay a lawyer, most of them end up representing themselves.
This has always been part of the problem, even before the chaos of the present recession began. The present recession is just wearing people down more. People talk to me more about how much they hate, as opposed to how upset they are. I lost someone to suicide in January 2009, and then somebody else to so-called 'natural causes' in his forties in February 2009. If the second one had access to a family doctor, medications and transportation, I am sure he would have survived (which is all I can say publicly). Poor people die, while rich people thrive.
Policy makers know the poor are worst off. They know that poverty is costing us more than $30 billion annually. They know that poverty is a good part of the reason our health care costs are skyrocketing. The growth of poverty seems to coincide with the growth of methadone clinics in urban areas; unfortunately, they too are responding to demand. I hear stories about how a few have sold their weekend carries on the street, or prostitute themselves to get the "real" thing ... or turn to booze or another drug of choice. Tenants get evicted more now for illegal drug use or for dealing from their units.
My work is to evict them. There have been cases when I met the same tenant time and time again, through different buildings, after a repeat performance of the first time they were evicted. The public and private interest is to get these people housed and protected, but at the same time, one must ask where ... living on the street can only exacerbate whatever problems they created when they started with my buildings. The problem only leaves one building, only to land on the doorstep of another. One thing my mother was right about was that things started to go really bad when drugs were introduced in society. Trying to remain impersonal and objective throughout this chaos is difficult to do, but one of my responsibilities.
I know there is a huge increase in addictions and drug dealing in general, as I see it in the streets, hear about it through various people I speak to, and learn of it from the coffee shops. But it is not just the low income people on Ontario Works or even ODSP that are using; many of the people who are using get no formal income, as well - many are fully employed. There are also wealthy professionals who also find themselves entangled. They just go to better places and are able to hide their habit better. People cry for a war on drugs, they cry for prohibition, when we know this will never work ... esp. when the world is falling apart at its seams.
In my building where I work, I often have to chase people out, feeling bad at the same time as many of these people have nowhere to go, except the streets. Many of these people do not have any income, as they were kicked off Ontario Works a long time for some misunderstood transgression. Perhaps, they lost their identification and did not have the funds to renew it, or they happen to be living rough and their OW worker can't really communicate with them, nor can any employer for that matter.
As an advocate, I am a lightning rod for people that feel strongly about things, from both the right and the left. The right wants to believe in the existence of the welfare queens, that continue to procreate with impunity to increase their income. Of course, they have no evidence of this except from "a friend of a friend who knew somebody that had fourteen children so she can make a mint off the 'system'". I have worked with low-income people as well as middle and upper income folks for years, and I have yet to meet anybody that would even want to have more and more children, particularly when they could not even feed themselves. There were a few teen mothers who never heard of birth control, as some might add, but they were referred to programs where they learned how to become successful parents, as well as finish high school.
From the left, they want governments to spend, spend and then spend some more to get us out of this global crisis. Spending more in a recession is not a sin, but indiscriminate spending can make the problem worse than when it started. While building "affordable housing" will create some construction jobs in the immediate term, money is still going to be needed in the future to maintain these units. The City of Toronto has a half a billion dollar backlog in repairs to its own housing stock, let alone thinking of building new stock. At the same time, poverty groups are pressuring the City to fix their units, which are more than just a mere "leaky tap" ... many have ceilings falling down, bad foundation, vermin, mould, as well as other problems that make their unit uninhabitable. We have to decide if we want to spend billions and billions of dollar propping up these buildings, many of which should be razed and rebuilt anyways, or whether the money can go somewhere else that might increase the incomes of all of the poor to encourage greater local investment, and thus, more capital to invest in the private market.
Today, an interested observer noted that "half the region is on Ontario Works or ODSP" and now more people are trying to get Employment Insurance. He suspects a secret government conspiracy that the powers that be simply want to put everybody on welfare, where they can control them. Others say they are attempting to make people so desperate that they will take any job, even jobs that do not pay minimum wage or follow health and safety standards, just to keep oneself one step ahead of starvation. Other theories are more foreboding; one has shared with me the idea that there is a policy of "slow genocide", whereby the weakest of society will be forced to slow starve to death or die of many of the diseases the poor are more likely to get, just so we can save a few tax dollars. Well, we all know they cannot directly put us all in the gas chambers anymore, or put us all against a wall and shoot us. That is too humane.
But billions of dollars have been handed to large companies ... people are becoming wary of how the executives are getting paid, even union workers in such industries as the auto sector. People are rightfully concerned that the majority of taxpayers that earn much less than these people collectively should continue to fork over money to keep these relatively wealthy classes alive. In the Toronto Star today, there was a story over "pension envy" where people in the private sector get no defined benefit plan (as these are slowly moving to the status of the dodo bird) are continuing to be forced to pay into secure, relatively high pensions of those in the public sector or even GM workers. Pension reform certainly needs to be on the table. I wouldn't want to be old right now; I would not be able to retire, as what is given to those without a private pension plan is peanuts. Again, we will be forcing our seniors to choose between housing and eating.
People are wanting greater controls over CEO salaries and perks, as well as some control over certain sectors, whereby it seems that wage hikes beyond inflation, plus retention pay, seem to be the order of the day, even when times are tough for everybody else. President Barack Obama has taken a great interest in a story of AIG executives receiving bonuses all of a sudden, right after receiving billions of dollars in taxpayer handouts ... I say, fire them all and make them pay it all back. Never going to happen, of course. But if somebody on welfare got a little more than what they were entitled to, you could bet your life that this individual will be hauled before the courts, charged with fraud and then thrown to the wolves. To me, what is good for the goose is good for the gander. Maybe Barack Obama represents a change in direction. We can hope.
As for seeing our way out of this chaos, I am not sure. Some economists, such as Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of Canada, and Prime Minister Stephen Harper, see this as being a short, sharp dip, whereby Canada will be less scathed than the many. Others are not so optimistic; Don Drummond from the TD Canada Trust, is saying about 500,000 jobs may still be lost ... it is going to get a LOT worse before it gets better.
In the meantime, some communities are getting together and holding rallies. I wish there'd be more of them in Niagara Region, but nevertheless there are more rallies ... politicians need to stop playing Chicken Little, as the sky is truly falling, but they can't simply run, scream and point their fingers at everybody else. They need to take action.
How positive action would certainly help me ... I would stop feeling so much in chaos. It is so bad that our building got its water cut off, then it was followed by a flood and now the plumbing on the second floor washroom (the only "public" washroom in our building) has no water and we can't even flush the toilets ... and we go downtown, walk down the street on my side and then we see construction job after construction job, whereby holes are dug up and filled up again ... I am pleased somebody gets to do the digging and the filling, but they are ensuring people's essentials are getting cut off, people are commuting in chaos and it has become rapidly known there really is no definite street I can walk through in my own neighbourhood ... too many holes, too many tractors, too many excavators, too many shovels ...
Now, if we would only get that shovel in the ground for that hospital we are supposed to build in west St. Catharines. To me, this chaos and crisis was orchestrated; it was certainly not something that would come out in the end to harm the elite ... just put us old runts through yet another rough patch. I just look forward to the day that this is finally over and I can actually talk to people about something else once again, instead of the havoc this world is wrecking on our little world.
Your thoughts?
On the street, people are getting cranky. Public servants, frustrated by an increase in their respective workloads, are talking back to their customers in ways that provoke, instead of provide insight. People are butting into lines everywhere, worried that the last scrap of whatever folks are after will be gone by the time they get there. Pensions, investments and other trusts we once believed were safe are rapidly disappearing, leaving many pensioners the choice of living their "golden" years in poverty or returning to work.
We hear more about school shootings, rampages where gunmen go crazy shooting up everybody in their home and then move on to random people on the street, or work rage, where the same thing can happen at the place of a former employer. Last Christmas, we heard about a man who dressed up as Santa Claus, drove up to the home of his former in-laws and began to throw pipe bombs and tried to torch the home, as well as shoot anybody else who got in his way. In the end, he blew himself up, when one of his home-made weapons set itself off too soon. We learned the shooter in this case was laid off from a well-paying job as an engineer, then his wife sought and won a court order against him for more money ... He planned to come to Canada. God only knows what he had planned for us up here.
In Germany, a 15-year old suddenly takes a gun and goes to his former high school and begins shooting. His targets were mostly female students and teachers. Though reportedly treated for depression two years earlier, one would question how relevant that is to this mass explosion. Another man in Alabama came home, took the lives of most of his family, as well as took down a few random people on his street, before ending his life at a metal plant (possibly where he might have been recently laid off). Two parents in Quebec had a suicide pact, whereby they were to kill their children, then one another, after leaving a detailed note as to why the economy was hurting them. This goes on and on and on ...
People are more likely to sue or get sued in these rough times, or fall behind in their debt payments, subjecting more folks to the ire of collection agencies. Family law disputes are taking on a more bitter tone, leaving many to the courts in what are known as the "high conflict" family files. Government agencies undergoing cutbacks experience an increased rate of error and declining rate of empathy, as payers of support payments end up with less than 50% of their income and often, end up in dire straits themselves. One man called me from his car, which is where he is living these days after he lost his job and then his home.
Many times, the only thing we can do is make appropriate referrals, or provide encouragement and moral support. Many of these people do not have money for legal services, nor do they fall under the purview of Legal Aid Ontario. On paper, their income is too high, but after the garnishment, they cannot even meet basic needs. Their only choice these days is to approach Family Law Advice Counsel at the court house, or to phone Lawyer Referral Service, with respect to how to best represent themselves in what will likely become a battle of a lifetime. They need to vary the court orders, amend visitation or even seek custody of children, or reduce or eliminate spousal support payments. Unless they can pay a lawyer, most of them end up representing themselves.
This has always been part of the problem, even before the chaos of the present recession began. The present recession is just wearing people down more. People talk to me more about how much they hate, as opposed to how upset they are. I lost someone to suicide in January 2009, and then somebody else to so-called 'natural causes' in his forties in February 2009. If the second one had access to a family doctor, medications and transportation, I am sure he would have survived (which is all I can say publicly). Poor people die, while rich people thrive.
Policy makers know the poor are worst off. They know that poverty is costing us more than $30 billion annually. They know that poverty is a good part of the reason our health care costs are skyrocketing. The growth of poverty seems to coincide with the growth of methadone clinics in urban areas; unfortunately, they too are responding to demand. I hear stories about how a few have sold their weekend carries on the street, or prostitute themselves to get the "real" thing ... or turn to booze or another drug of choice. Tenants get evicted more now for illegal drug use or for dealing from their units.
My work is to evict them. There have been cases when I met the same tenant time and time again, through different buildings, after a repeat performance of the first time they were evicted. The public and private interest is to get these people housed and protected, but at the same time, one must ask where ... living on the street can only exacerbate whatever problems they created when they started with my buildings. The problem only leaves one building, only to land on the doorstep of another. One thing my mother was right about was that things started to go really bad when drugs were introduced in society. Trying to remain impersonal and objective throughout this chaos is difficult to do, but one of my responsibilities.
I know there is a huge increase in addictions and drug dealing in general, as I see it in the streets, hear about it through various people I speak to, and learn of it from the coffee shops. But it is not just the low income people on Ontario Works or even ODSP that are using; many of the people who are using get no formal income, as well - many are fully employed. There are also wealthy professionals who also find themselves entangled. They just go to better places and are able to hide their habit better. People cry for a war on drugs, they cry for prohibition, when we know this will never work ... esp. when the world is falling apart at its seams.
In my building where I work, I often have to chase people out, feeling bad at the same time as many of these people have nowhere to go, except the streets. Many of these people do not have any income, as they were kicked off Ontario Works a long time for some misunderstood transgression. Perhaps, they lost their identification and did not have the funds to renew it, or they happen to be living rough and their OW worker can't really communicate with them, nor can any employer for that matter.
As an advocate, I am a lightning rod for people that feel strongly about things, from both the right and the left. The right wants to believe in the existence of the welfare queens, that continue to procreate with impunity to increase their income. Of course, they have no evidence of this except from "a friend of a friend who knew somebody that had fourteen children so she can make a mint off the 'system'". I have worked with low-income people as well as middle and upper income folks for years, and I have yet to meet anybody that would even want to have more and more children, particularly when they could not even feed themselves. There were a few teen mothers who never heard of birth control, as some might add, but they were referred to programs where they learned how to become successful parents, as well as finish high school.
From the left, they want governments to spend, spend and then spend some more to get us out of this global crisis. Spending more in a recession is not a sin, but indiscriminate spending can make the problem worse than when it started. While building "affordable housing" will create some construction jobs in the immediate term, money is still going to be needed in the future to maintain these units. The City of Toronto has a half a billion dollar backlog in repairs to its own housing stock, let alone thinking of building new stock. At the same time, poverty groups are pressuring the City to fix their units, which are more than just a mere "leaky tap" ... many have ceilings falling down, bad foundation, vermin, mould, as well as other problems that make their unit uninhabitable. We have to decide if we want to spend billions and billions of dollar propping up these buildings, many of which should be razed and rebuilt anyways, or whether the money can go somewhere else that might increase the incomes of all of the poor to encourage greater local investment, and thus, more capital to invest in the private market.
Today, an interested observer noted that "half the region is on Ontario Works or ODSP" and now more people are trying to get Employment Insurance. He suspects a secret government conspiracy that the powers that be simply want to put everybody on welfare, where they can control them. Others say they are attempting to make people so desperate that they will take any job, even jobs that do not pay minimum wage or follow health and safety standards, just to keep oneself one step ahead of starvation. Other theories are more foreboding; one has shared with me the idea that there is a policy of "slow genocide", whereby the weakest of society will be forced to slow starve to death or die of many of the diseases the poor are more likely to get, just so we can save a few tax dollars. Well, we all know they cannot directly put us all in the gas chambers anymore, or put us all against a wall and shoot us. That is too humane.
But billions of dollars have been handed to large companies ... people are becoming wary of how the executives are getting paid, even union workers in such industries as the auto sector. People are rightfully concerned that the majority of taxpayers that earn much less than these people collectively should continue to fork over money to keep these relatively wealthy classes alive. In the Toronto Star today, there was a story over "pension envy" where people in the private sector get no defined benefit plan (as these are slowly moving to the status of the dodo bird) are continuing to be forced to pay into secure, relatively high pensions of those in the public sector or even GM workers. Pension reform certainly needs to be on the table. I wouldn't want to be old right now; I would not be able to retire, as what is given to those without a private pension plan is peanuts. Again, we will be forcing our seniors to choose between housing and eating.
People are wanting greater controls over CEO salaries and perks, as well as some control over certain sectors, whereby it seems that wage hikes beyond inflation, plus retention pay, seem to be the order of the day, even when times are tough for everybody else. President Barack Obama has taken a great interest in a story of AIG executives receiving bonuses all of a sudden, right after receiving billions of dollars in taxpayer handouts ... I say, fire them all and make them pay it all back. Never going to happen, of course. But if somebody on welfare got a little more than what they were entitled to, you could bet your life that this individual will be hauled before the courts, charged with fraud and then thrown to the wolves. To me, what is good for the goose is good for the gander. Maybe Barack Obama represents a change in direction. We can hope.
As for seeing our way out of this chaos, I am not sure. Some economists, such as Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of Canada, and Prime Minister Stephen Harper, see this as being a short, sharp dip, whereby Canada will be less scathed than the many. Others are not so optimistic; Don Drummond from the TD Canada Trust, is saying about 500,000 jobs may still be lost ... it is going to get a LOT worse before it gets better.
In the meantime, some communities are getting together and holding rallies. I wish there'd be more of them in Niagara Region, but nevertheless there are more rallies ... politicians need to stop playing Chicken Little, as the sky is truly falling, but they can't simply run, scream and point their fingers at everybody else. They need to take action.
How positive action would certainly help me ... I would stop feeling so much in chaos. It is so bad that our building got its water cut off, then it was followed by a flood and now the plumbing on the second floor washroom (the only "public" washroom in our building) has no water and we can't even flush the toilets ... and we go downtown, walk down the street on my side and then we see construction job after construction job, whereby holes are dug up and filled up again ... I am pleased somebody gets to do the digging and the filling, but they are ensuring people's essentials are getting cut off, people are commuting in chaos and it has become rapidly known there really is no definite street I can walk through in my own neighbourhood ... too many holes, too many tractors, too many excavators, too many shovels ...
Now, if we would only get that shovel in the ground for that hospital we are supposed to build in west St. Catharines. To me, this chaos and crisis was orchestrated; it was certainly not something that would come out in the end to harm the elite ... just put us old runts through yet another rough patch. I just look forward to the day that this is finally over and I can actually talk to people about something else once again, instead of the havoc this world is wrecking on our little world.
Your thoughts?
Saturday, May 12, 2007
Disability Must NOT equal Poverty
People do not ask to become disabled.
They do not wake up one morning and tell themselves, "Hey, today I'm going to get hit by a bus" or "Hey, maybe I will stand in front of that burning refinery and inhale the air and hope to contract lung cancer." Seems silly, right? However, many people in our society like to believe that those of us who are disabled are actually either faking their conditions or were at least in part responsible for them. Hey, uncle Joey ate himself to balloon to four hundred pounds so it is HIS fault he had a heart attack and can no longer work. Aunt Ellie smoked two and a half packs of cigarettes a day, so is it not HER fault she got lung cancer? Maybe I have trouble with these same people suing fast food companies or tobacco industries for their supposed misdeeds of promoting and selling a legal product, but I DO have trouble when the assumption that often follows is that it is the person's own fault ... so in order to provide equitable retribution by our society, it seems that it is alright to force these same people to live in endless and perpetual poverty.
I DO think if we are going to assign blame for these people's situations, then we should ALSO assign blame to those who drive motor vehicles, as they have a far greater chance of becoming involved in an accident than those who use public transit or bike their way through town. We should also blame wealthy businessman who have two martini lunches for the eventual damage to their own livers. How about those who vacation to the sunny south a lot or use tanning beds for the eventual spread of melanoma? How about we in general blame anybody who lives in a large city because they inhale pollutants and become sick as a result? This blame game can become perpetual and can and will encompass us all. Nor is it very productive. Those among us who are unfortunate to lose their ability to create their own wealth or earn it become poor - period. This is because our country has made the conscious choice of not providing a meaningful social safety net to protect them from poverty.
You may think poverty isn't so bad. The people next door to you who are getting by on welfare have a television set, their kids have clothes and compared to those underdeveloped fat-bellied children we always see in commercials about poverty in Africa, we actually delude ourselves into believing that poverty is only a state of mind here in America. However, poverty is an insidious and hidden destroyer of community unity and various publicly-funded budgets, such as health care, education, policing, corrections and other services that we ALL pay for through our tax dollars. Think your taxes are too high now? Think again, as the costs of health care triples, the cost of policing and corrections double as we need to build more prisons and hire more police officers to protect the rest of us from desperate people who will try to make money any way they can ... and our education costs go up, because well-documented studies have shown that children from low-income families require substantially more resources just to obtain a basic education than children from middle and upper income families. Mental health and cognitive conditions such as ADHD, depression, learning disabilities and so-called "developmental delays" occur more frequently among children of low and modest means than the children of the so-called middle and upper classes. If you ask any teacher, they can accurately tell who the poor children are in their classrooms just by the prevalence of these issues. We are paying a FORTUNE to keep one in five among us in poverty! Now, we know that accepting and maintaining poverty is everybody's business, let's move on.
Poverty means a whole lot to many people. That usually means they can no longer live in the living accommodations they have, even if they stayed there for years. They will have to find cheaper accommodations if such a thing exists in their communities. A family of four that once earned a comfortable income of $45,000 to $50,000 a year, now makes less than $20,000 a year. They will have to give up the car, which for many in non-metropolitan communities, means not having a job or being stuck in the low-paid job syndrome this causes. They will have to deplete any retirement savings they have created for themselves before they became ill. If they remain on government benefits, they will likely carry nothing to their retirement age and we will be supporting more and more seniors living in poverty as the years pass. For many, poverty means they will not be eating very much and if they do, not very well. Poverty is linked to obesity and malnutrition. I know of people that have less than $50 a month for food for themselves, and while they can supplement this amount by going to a food bank here (which is only possible every two months), it is impossible for them to obtain the types of food that will keep them healthy. Most eat a disproportionate amount of starch and other unhealthy forms of carbohydrates, which for many, only lead to weight gain. I know many people in poverty that are morbidly obese. Four times as many poor people get diabetes than those of middle and upper means. Poverty is a degrading and painful process, which can and will kill, but not without years of expensive debilitation first.
For the children, they often cannot relate with the other children in their schools. Children who have lived most of their lives in poverty do not know what it is like to go on a family vacation, have a family car to take a road trip in, or to even participate in extracurricular activities, such as sports, music, theatre and dance. All this mish-mash about "over-scheduled children" means NOTHING to them. These children cannot go on field trips with their classmates and some have to resort to wearing hand-me-downs from an older sibling or a cousin. These things do not go unnoticed by other children, who often shun and ostracize them. Poverty is just another reason to bully another child. As a result of many of the effects of poverty, many of these children drop out of school or require special educational interventions which cost you and me taxpayer LOTS of money. In the meantime, their parents can't climb out of poverty. For a growing segment of the poor, class mobility is impossible.
Many people think that if people just went and got themselves a job, they would get out of poverty. According to food banks, more and more users are working full-time, all year. Minimum wages have not kept up with the cost of living. It is cited that those in receipt of ODSP, an average of 73% of their monthly income is required to maintain their housing. Many working poor are just one paycheque away from living on the streets. For people with disabilities, the climb out of poverty is much harder. Most employers and even many agencies that work with persons with disabilities assume that disabled people are only capable of performing low-level, repetitive tasks for employment and are incapable of doing work that usually gets better remuneration. There is an assumption that people with disabilities want to remain on their pensions and only to work a few hours a week to supplement what they receive. This assumption costs a LOT of money for you and me in higher taxes, because the longer a person lives with a disability in poverty, the more complex and more expensive medical care they will require. Many people who were previously capable of living independently with the right help are now stuck living in nursing homes or other over-institutionalized facilities because they can no longer remain healthy eating less than a couple of dollars a day worth of food.
Agencies often ignore the education and career aspirations of those they work with as they attempt to make more low-wage, entry-level placements to contribute to their "success" stats. Government agencies that fund them are complicit in the way that only placements, not quality of placements, count towards success. I know no less than five individuals with disabilities who have been trained and once licensed to practice law as a lawyer. All five are now on ODSP. I know several teachers, social workers, a dental surgeon, a PHd holder, two engineers, a couple of electricians and a former professional mechanical contractor, all of whom are ALSO sitting on ODSP. To me, this is disgusting! One of them was referred to a job at Wal-Mart to stock shelves at a midnight shift; another was referred to work in a scrapyard. Others were simply refused support because the funding formula for agency service providers makes it impossible to help their clients achieve success beyond the minimum call centre type job. Call centre jobs are only a valuable resource for those individuals who are able to keep their eyes on two or three different tasks at the same time, not necessarily good for somebody who is taking a lot of medications for example.
I wrote an Open Letter to Madeleine Meilleur, Minister of Community & Social Services and Minister Responsible for Persons with Disabilities, last March. Among other things, I did ask her if she would -- after she left politics -- accept a job that paid her $8 - $10 an hour, despite the fact she is trained as a labour lawyer and has substantial political and administrative experience. If she wouldn't, why should she expect that persons with disabilities that have similar training and experience accept these types of jobs? The fact of the matter is even if ALL persons with disabilities that can and want to work accepted these types of jobs, not a single one would move out of poverty. They would make the shift from the welfare poor to the working poor, which in my eyes is NOT an improvement. These people would still suffer from all the issues I described above regarding paying high housing costs, and not having money to give their kids a life beyond poverty and stress, etc. They would also not be able to save for retirement and the chances are 100:1 or even 1000:1 that the employer has no retirement pension plan of its own to offer these workers.
Maybe the trained lawyers, social workers and teachers, etc. in my life that are on ODSP or even worse, Ontario Works, may not be able to return to their former professions. However, sending them to Wal-Mart or a call centre is a very poor use of their education and transferable skills. If a person used to make $80,000 a year in their job before they became disabled and now make just over $10,000 a year, this definitely has to hurt a lot more than it does for those who have always been poor and were sort of comfortable that way. It is hard to get stats for this type of thing, but I read that 40% of those on Ontario Works in Toronto are highly educated and the employment supports offered by that program are totally inadequate for this group. Among persons with disabilities, about a third have post-secondary education ... and I am sure this is reflected in the ODSP rolls, although a good FOI request should be able to confirm this. Employment Supports under ODSP, as they are now administered, will not help this group one iota. These people are not interested in working at Wal-Mart, Tim Horton's or at some call centre that will likely fire them once they learn the person has a disability (e.g. yes, call centres are that cruel -- I am aware of numerous successful lawsuits and/or substantial settlements that arose from legal actions that have arisen from these issues). Agencies that wish to work with this group *must* develop the skills and contacts necessary to help make good things happen for this population ...
There are many reasons why people with disabilities are disproportionately poor, some of which has already been raised in this tome, but here is a summary in my view -- all a result of policy choices that were made by successive governments at a federal and provincial and to some extent, municipal levels, over the years:
1. Job discrimination/employers unwilling to accommodate various
disabilities
2. Lack of a social safety net -- people coming into my office were
often forced to access Ontario Works assistance of first resort, not
last ... and as a result, by the time they get to my office, they have
lost their homes, cars, savings and in many cases, their families
3. Lack of a social safety net for people who cannot work at all or
only a little
4. A shift in the economy towards low-paying, no-benefits, unstable
jobs ... many of which will not or cannot accommodate persons
with disabilities (e.g. some have told me they don't have to adhere
to human rights laws and the employee can only fight this if they
had the resources to start legal action)
5. A mean streak in the social service system, which allows
bullies to operate unchecked (e.g. I am aware of a number of
employers that people are still being sent to that have abused
employees on OW or spouses of ODSPrecipients, only to be
told if an employee reports them or quits, the employer will
report to OW or ODSP theyhave been fired with cause to
enforce the "quit/ fire" rule that may lead to a loss of benefits
for 3 - 6 months)
6. Employers that continue to ignore the Human Rights Code
with abandon, by requiring all candidates to have a driver's
license and reliable vehicle (something most people on OW/
ODSP don't have and many people with disabilities are medically
restricted from driving)
7. The lack of a coordinated effort to assist people with
disabilities with varying levels of education and transferable
skills to get jobs that better reflect their skills and work histories
8. Professional regulatory bodies that impose huge fees for licenses
to practice, or standards of conduct that may infringe upon the
abilities of a person with a disability that is otherwise qualified,
from registering and qualifying
9. Attitudes/stereotypes exist in anybody from employers to licensing
bodies to employment agencies to even some peers with disabilities
that people with certain types of disabilities are only able to do low-
level, repetitive boring work and that people with these kinds of
disabilities are less responsible than able-bodied
10. Government policies that prevent people from having incentives
to take jobs, particularly for those thatlive in low-rental housing
There are lots of solutions attached to the above problems, but whenever these solutions are played out before the powers that be, we are told the government is doing SO much to help people with disabilities ... like a 2% increase is really going to help when inflation this year is pegged at 2.6% and we're already on average spending 73% of our incomes on housing costs.
Until my country begins to see these problems for what they are and starts to address them in an intelligent way, I will be embarrassed to carry a Canadian passport if I ever get to travel to any of the Western European countries, in particular, whose economies are worse off than ours, yet they manage to take care of their people and maintain a much lower unemployment rate.
Comments?
They do not wake up one morning and tell themselves, "Hey, today I'm going to get hit by a bus" or "Hey, maybe I will stand in front of that burning refinery and inhale the air and hope to contract lung cancer." Seems silly, right? However, many people in our society like to believe that those of us who are disabled are actually either faking their conditions or were at least in part responsible for them. Hey, uncle Joey ate himself to balloon to four hundred pounds so it is HIS fault he had a heart attack and can no longer work. Aunt Ellie smoked two and a half packs of cigarettes a day, so is it not HER fault she got lung cancer? Maybe I have trouble with these same people suing fast food companies or tobacco industries for their supposed misdeeds of promoting and selling a legal product, but I DO have trouble when the assumption that often follows is that it is the person's own fault ... so in order to provide equitable retribution by our society, it seems that it is alright to force these same people to live in endless and perpetual poverty.
I DO think if we are going to assign blame for these people's situations, then we should ALSO assign blame to those who drive motor vehicles, as they have a far greater chance of becoming involved in an accident than those who use public transit or bike their way through town. We should also blame wealthy businessman who have two martini lunches for the eventual damage to their own livers. How about those who vacation to the sunny south a lot or use tanning beds for the eventual spread of melanoma? How about we in general blame anybody who lives in a large city because they inhale pollutants and become sick as a result? This blame game can become perpetual and can and will encompass us all. Nor is it very productive. Those among us who are unfortunate to lose their ability to create their own wealth or earn it become poor - period. This is because our country has made the conscious choice of not providing a meaningful social safety net to protect them from poverty.
You may think poverty isn't so bad. The people next door to you who are getting by on welfare have a television set, their kids have clothes and compared to those underdeveloped fat-bellied children we always see in commercials about poverty in Africa, we actually delude ourselves into believing that poverty is only a state of mind here in America. However, poverty is an insidious and hidden destroyer of community unity and various publicly-funded budgets, such as health care, education, policing, corrections and other services that we ALL pay for through our tax dollars. Think your taxes are too high now? Think again, as the costs of health care triples, the cost of policing and corrections double as we need to build more prisons and hire more police officers to protect the rest of us from desperate people who will try to make money any way they can ... and our education costs go up, because well-documented studies have shown that children from low-income families require substantially more resources just to obtain a basic education than children from middle and upper income families. Mental health and cognitive conditions such as ADHD, depression, learning disabilities and so-called "developmental delays" occur more frequently among children of low and modest means than the children of the so-called middle and upper classes. If you ask any teacher, they can accurately tell who the poor children are in their classrooms just by the prevalence of these issues. We are paying a FORTUNE to keep one in five among us in poverty! Now, we know that accepting and maintaining poverty is everybody's business, let's move on.
Poverty means a whole lot to many people. That usually means they can no longer live in the living accommodations they have, even if they stayed there for years. They will have to find cheaper accommodations if such a thing exists in their communities. A family of four that once earned a comfortable income of $45,000 to $50,000 a year, now makes less than $20,000 a year. They will have to give up the car, which for many in non-metropolitan communities, means not having a job or being stuck in the low-paid job syndrome this causes. They will have to deplete any retirement savings they have created for themselves before they became ill. If they remain on government benefits, they will likely carry nothing to their retirement age and we will be supporting more and more seniors living in poverty as the years pass. For many, poverty means they will not be eating very much and if they do, not very well. Poverty is linked to obesity and malnutrition. I know of people that have less than $50 a month for food for themselves, and while they can supplement this amount by going to a food bank here (which is only possible every two months), it is impossible for them to obtain the types of food that will keep them healthy. Most eat a disproportionate amount of starch and other unhealthy forms of carbohydrates, which for many, only lead to weight gain. I know many people in poverty that are morbidly obese. Four times as many poor people get diabetes than those of middle and upper means. Poverty is a degrading and painful process, which can and will kill, but not without years of expensive debilitation first.
For the children, they often cannot relate with the other children in their schools. Children who have lived most of their lives in poverty do not know what it is like to go on a family vacation, have a family car to take a road trip in, or to even participate in extracurricular activities, such as sports, music, theatre and dance. All this mish-mash about "over-scheduled children" means NOTHING to them. These children cannot go on field trips with their classmates and some have to resort to wearing hand-me-downs from an older sibling or a cousin. These things do not go unnoticed by other children, who often shun and ostracize them. Poverty is just another reason to bully another child. As a result of many of the effects of poverty, many of these children drop out of school or require special educational interventions which cost you and me taxpayer LOTS of money. In the meantime, their parents can't climb out of poverty. For a growing segment of the poor, class mobility is impossible.
Many people think that if people just went and got themselves a job, they would get out of poverty. According to food banks, more and more users are working full-time, all year. Minimum wages have not kept up with the cost of living. It is cited that those in receipt of ODSP, an average of 73% of their monthly income is required to maintain their housing. Many working poor are just one paycheque away from living on the streets. For people with disabilities, the climb out of poverty is much harder. Most employers and even many agencies that work with persons with disabilities assume that disabled people are only capable of performing low-level, repetitive tasks for employment and are incapable of doing work that usually gets better remuneration. There is an assumption that people with disabilities want to remain on their pensions and only to work a few hours a week to supplement what they receive. This assumption costs a LOT of money for you and me in higher taxes, because the longer a person lives with a disability in poverty, the more complex and more expensive medical care they will require. Many people who were previously capable of living independently with the right help are now stuck living in nursing homes or other over-institutionalized facilities because they can no longer remain healthy eating less than a couple of dollars a day worth of food.
Agencies often ignore the education and career aspirations of those they work with as they attempt to make more low-wage, entry-level placements to contribute to their "success" stats. Government agencies that fund them are complicit in the way that only placements, not quality of placements, count towards success. I know no less than five individuals with disabilities who have been trained and once licensed to practice law as a lawyer. All five are now on ODSP. I know several teachers, social workers, a dental surgeon, a PHd holder, two engineers, a couple of electricians and a former professional mechanical contractor, all of whom are ALSO sitting on ODSP. To me, this is disgusting! One of them was referred to a job at Wal-Mart to stock shelves at a midnight shift; another was referred to work in a scrapyard. Others were simply refused support because the funding formula for agency service providers makes it impossible to help their clients achieve success beyond the minimum call centre type job. Call centre jobs are only a valuable resource for those individuals who are able to keep their eyes on two or three different tasks at the same time, not necessarily good for somebody who is taking a lot of medications for example.
I wrote an Open Letter to Madeleine Meilleur, Minister of Community & Social Services and Minister Responsible for Persons with Disabilities, last March. Among other things, I did ask her if she would -- after she left politics -- accept a job that paid her $8 - $10 an hour, despite the fact she is trained as a labour lawyer and has substantial political and administrative experience. If she wouldn't, why should she expect that persons with disabilities that have similar training and experience accept these types of jobs? The fact of the matter is even if ALL persons with disabilities that can and want to work accepted these types of jobs, not a single one would move out of poverty. They would make the shift from the welfare poor to the working poor, which in my eyes is NOT an improvement. These people would still suffer from all the issues I described above regarding paying high housing costs, and not having money to give their kids a life beyond poverty and stress, etc. They would also not be able to save for retirement and the chances are 100:1 or even 1000:1 that the employer has no retirement pension plan of its own to offer these workers.
Maybe the trained lawyers, social workers and teachers, etc. in my life that are on ODSP or even worse, Ontario Works, may not be able to return to their former professions. However, sending them to Wal-Mart or a call centre is a very poor use of their education and transferable skills. If a person used to make $80,000 a year in their job before they became disabled and now make just over $10,000 a year, this definitely has to hurt a lot more than it does for those who have always been poor and were sort of comfortable that way. It is hard to get stats for this type of thing, but I read that 40% of those on Ontario Works in Toronto are highly educated and the employment supports offered by that program are totally inadequate for this group. Among persons with disabilities, about a third have post-secondary education ... and I am sure this is reflected in the ODSP rolls, although a good FOI request should be able to confirm this. Employment Supports under ODSP, as they are now administered, will not help this group one iota. These people are not interested in working at Wal-Mart, Tim Horton's or at some call centre that will likely fire them once they learn the person has a disability (e.g. yes, call centres are that cruel -- I am aware of numerous successful lawsuits and/or substantial settlements that arose from legal actions that have arisen from these issues). Agencies that wish to work with this group *must* develop the skills and contacts necessary to help make good things happen for this population ...
There are many reasons why people with disabilities are disproportionately poor, some of which has already been raised in this tome, but here is a summary in my view -- all a result of policy choices that were made by successive governments at a federal and provincial and to some extent, municipal levels, over the years:
1. Job discrimination/employers unwilling to accommodate various
disabilities
2. Lack of a social safety net -- people coming into my office were
often forced to access Ontario Works assistance of first resort, not
last ... and as a result, by the time they get to my office, they have
lost their homes, cars, savings and in many cases, their families
3. Lack of a social safety net for people who cannot work at all or
only a little
4. A shift in the economy towards low-paying, no-benefits, unstable
jobs ... many of which will not or cannot accommodate persons
with disabilities (e.g. some have told me they don't have to adhere
to human rights laws and the employee can only fight this if they
had the resources to start legal action)
5. A mean streak in the social service system, which allows
bullies to operate unchecked (e.g. I am aware of a number of
employers that people are still being sent to that have abused
employees on OW or spouses of ODSPrecipients, only to be
told if an employee reports them or quits, the employer will
report to OW or ODSP theyhave been fired with cause to
enforce the "quit/ fire" rule that may lead to a loss of benefits
for 3 - 6 months)
6. Employers that continue to ignore the Human Rights Code
with abandon, by requiring all candidates to have a driver's
license and reliable vehicle (something most people on OW/
ODSP don't have and many people with disabilities are medically
restricted from driving)
7. The lack of a coordinated effort to assist people with
disabilities with varying levels of education and transferable
skills to get jobs that better reflect their skills and work histories
8. Professional regulatory bodies that impose huge fees for licenses
to practice, or standards of conduct that may infringe upon the
abilities of a person with a disability that is otherwise qualified,
from registering and qualifying
9. Attitudes/stereotypes exist in anybody from employers to licensing
bodies to employment agencies to even some peers with disabilities
that people with certain types of disabilities are only able to do low-
level, repetitive boring work and that people with these kinds of
disabilities are less responsible than able-bodied
10. Government policies that prevent people from having incentives
to take jobs, particularly for those thatlive in low-rental housing
There are lots of solutions attached to the above problems, but whenever these solutions are played out before the powers that be, we are told the government is doing SO much to help people with disabilities ... like a 2% increase is really going to help when inflation this year is pegged at 2.6% and we're already on average spending 73% of our incomes on housing costs.
Until my country begins to see these problems for what they are and starts to address them in an intelligent way, I will be embarrassed to carry a Canadian passport if I ever get to travel to any of the Western European countries, in particular, whose economies are worse off than ours, yet they manage to take care of their people and maintain a much lower unemployment rate.
Comments?
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