The Agenda did a serious entitled "Why Poverty?".
Normally, The Agenda can present some interesting topics that people want to hear and they do bring in guests that can speak intelligently on these issues. This show is a refreshing change to what is usually found online where people blame the poor for their own circumstances and propose even more rules on them to keep them apart from others. It is somehow believed by the "average Joe" that poor people are more likely, for example, to have addictions, but the research on the issue does not bear this out. Chances are greater that one's colleague at the next desk or their boss is likely to be addicted, when compared to welfare recipients. Why isn't anybody proposing to test these people for drug use?
The Agenda first had Frances Lankin and Munir Sheikh, the authors of the quintessential social assistance review report, to discuss their final report and what they felt it would mean. As you are aware, I am no fan of this report and feel that even if it were fully implemented, not a single person on assistance affected by the report will ever get out of poverty. Unfortunately, I feel that both Lankin and Sheikh swallowed too much of the same Kool Aid that is being distributed among people in coffee shops, people driving stop and go on the Gardiner Expressway and people that feel that "if I work, why should THEY be allowed to sit at home?"
This is so frustrating, as the crux of their report essentially pits the so called working poor against those receiving either Ontario Works (OW) or Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) benefits. Apparently, they think there are too many people on ODSP and want to stem the tide of people getting on. They also want to get some people off it through their own version of workfare that will theoretically cover everyone, including those with severe disabilities and even terminal illnesses (similar to the way they do in the UK). They further want to put more responsibilities and management on the municipalities, which over time will ensure major cuts to programs for the poor because municipalities do not have the same taxing power that the provincial and federal government have. Because most municipalities are loathe to increase property taxes and user fees, they will look to cuts first and benefits for the poor are low hanging fruit.
The current situation with municipalities where people living in some communities can access a rich array of benefits, while others in other communities can only get the bare bones will only be further enhanced with the province's choices of its own priorities, such as: giving rich people tax cuts, giving rich seniors a "healthy home tax credit" to do repairs they will probably do anyways without the tax credit, and pouring more money in corporate welfare to various companies with the hope -- even the faintest hope -- that these companies will hire people off the welfare and disability rolls. Even companies that want to "champion" people with disabilities don't know the first thing about the true potential of people with disabilities. A government office will hire people with disabilities to water plants. An insurance company will hire a few in their mail room. A publisher/newspaper will hire some to deliver their publications. Higher level jobs that involve higher skills and higher pay will still be remote for people with disabilities, even among those that have the required skills for these jobs.
Barriers to employment will persist even with the report's full implementation. As one person told Steve Paikin's producer at The Agenda, "There are no other working people in Ontario that have fifty percent of their wages taken off, even though we pay the same taxes that everybody else does". The report recommends scrapping the $100 work allowance and raising the "earnings exemption" to $200 per month for both OW and ODSP recipients. I bet it cost YOU much more than $200 a month to keep your job, let alone even get one in the first place. Thank about the price of gas, car insurance, work clothing, lunches, coffee breaks, dry cleaning, haircuts, and in some cases, cell phone and internet access if required. The total bill for these basic items exceeds $500 - $600 per month for most people. You might not think so, but for those of you that have retired, you will note that you don't have to drive as much, don't need to dress up, can eat at home and can throw away the cell phone.
If you went to work and paid the normal taxes and deductions you normally do, plus lost fifty percent of what is left over, how much more willing would you be to work more hours, take on a second job, especially if your job does not provide much security and benefits? For those who are self employed, it is worse. Anybody in Ontario can start and run a business of their own. Canada Revenue Agency has rules that allow for certain deductions and tax rates for base levels of income, and depending on how your business is set up, Canada Revenue Agency is fairly permissive around such issues as hiring staff, investing in equipment, work related clothing, mileage and even something called "business meals". That is, if you have to work long hours and need to grab a bite to eat, or you are meeting with a potential client over lunch, the cost of this can be written off by fifty percent. The situation is totally different for self employed also in receipt of OW or ODSP.
Self employed people on OW or ODSP are not permitted to hire staff, so the business owner has to do absolutely everything in their business by themselves, which often means cutting into the time they could have to actually grow the business and make money. The government appears to believe that people with disabilities are only capable of running low skill, low cost home based businesses, such as dog walking, baby sitting, or envelope stuffing. After all, this is what employers would hire them to do anyways. This same thread of ignorance that crosses over for prospective employees with disabilities also affects the kind of businesses one can have. When somebody shows or demonstrates that they can operate a business that has more skill required, as well as a potential to get them completely off benefits altogether, OW and ODSP rules sabotage any attempt on the business owner to get ahead.
They are not allowed to hire staff. If their company is incorporated, the income the corporation receives (as opposed to the individual) is counted as income, which leads to the corporation being unable to retain earnings and keeping a base from which to pay taxes and other bills that only come periodically. The person is not allowed their CRA deductions, such as "business meals", work clothing or transportation beyond what is considered "reasonable". They cannot go to conferences and conventions unless the person is earning an income from this attendance, even if their profession or business requires this attendance. The OW or ODSP recipient has to choose to pay their business taxes or eat each month, or pay their commercial rent or to purchase clothes for their kids. There is no distinction made between the person with the business and the business itself, which leads to loss. Even the monies that are "left over" after approved expenses are ravaged and cannot be set aside to pay taxes later or to save for a large expense, or even contribute to a meaningful retirement plan. Nope. These people are not allowed to retire, unless they are satisfied with the dumpster diving level of income people without a private pension will likely get when they hit 67.
The social assistance review report ignored this issue entirely even though they claimed to be in favour of work incentives. Yet at the same time, I speak to many business owners as well as people on OW and ODSP that have paying jobs that actually quit because it is more financially beneficial for them to sit at home and pick their nose. When I raise the issue of treatment of business income, I get the same runaround that somehow OW and ODSP doesn't cover the business, just the person. Hello? Since when did OW or even ODSP cover all the basic needs of the person? Does ODSP even cover the full cost of one's housing, including utilities? Most people are paying between 70 - 80% of their entire month's income on shelter. To say that a business run out of one's home cannot write off part of the housing costs is ridiculous, as ODSP does not cover all the housing costs. This applies to food too. I am not aware of anybody that works and receives benefits that actually get INCREASED benefits to cover the cost of working, etc. True, they get a $100 "work allowance", but this is soon negated by the 50% claw back of everything else a person earns.
Further, the argument that this is taxpayers' money doesn't sit with me either, especially when governments hand out billions of dollars in corporate welfare and tax breaks to companies year over year that contribute little to the economy, and few have actually used these breaks to create new jobs. If we want to cut welfare, let's start cutting from the rich first. At least, they won't feel it as much. They may have to give up their fourth vacation and cruise to the Carribean or give up one of their Mercedes or rent out one of their five homes they own, but these people are still eating and living somewhere safe -- even without a penny in tax cuts or corporate welfare.
Another argument often given is that everybody is assessed on family income and it affects their tax credits. Guess what? Earned income affects the tax credits of OW and ODSP recipients too. The more they earn from employment or self employment, the less that family receives in tax credits, while at the same time, their total household income actually drops that more that they do work. If millionaires had to follow the same rules, they would have moved to Aruba a long time ago!
At the same time, poor people are told to accept charity. I haven't met anybody that has used a charity that was helped to escape poverty through that charity. The charities in question benefit from the poverty of its users. If nobody lived in poverty, the directors of these charities wouldn't have a job, nor would anybody have a reason to go crying to the papers about stocking their shelves with old, sub-nutritious processed foods that to be honest, few would even feed their pets. Charities are also uneven and do not follow any set of rules when determining eligibility for services. Privacy is compromised against its users all the time, while the agency just writes it off as a "mistake" (despite the fact this 'mistake' in question could have cost somebody their job or custody of their children). My advice to the poor -- stay away from charities, unless they allow for anonymity and do not use a means test.
What is needed for people living in poverty is to be included and be supported in this inclusion. Inclusion means different things to different people. For some, it means getting their food at the same places that others get their food. For others, it means being able to get to community events and meetings without having to beg or to depend on others for a ride. Niagara Region is bad for this sort of thing. It recently held a high profile conference on accessibility issues for people with disabilities at yet another location that one has to drive to in order to be included. If you do not drive, or do not own a car, then you are not included, despite the fact this conference was theoretically set up to discuss issues related to accessibility. The less people feel included, the less they feel they are valued as a member of the community.
This feeling of value of oneself, of one's own person, does not come from handouts of aged, rotting food from a food bank, a lice laden homeless shelter or some kind of afterthought given to people that don't drive in arranging rides to a meeting. I've experienced it in Niagara, where even when a ride has been arranged to get to a meeting, one has to find their way back -- usually about another $100 in taxi fares, because most areas of Niagara are not accessible to people with disabilities that do not have their own means of transportation. Niagara's only so called poverty group also meets in an inaccessible location, which again excludes many people that can provide input around that table. As a result, the voices of the non poor and service providers are the only ones that get heard, once again somebody else that gets paid to "help" the poor determining what poor people need.
We have to protest against downloading to the municipalities. Doing this will only encourage future cuts of greater depth with little or nothing that can be done to reverse them. Already the so called program that is going to replace the provincial Community Start Up and Maintenance Benefit in Niagara will only be available to people on OW. I get told to protest this to the region. Many people already have, but our region has its own priorities, which usually involve goods and services that benefit the non poor and the police services (e.g. a $100 million new police palace in Niagara Falls, for one). Our region talks about the GTA Expressway, as though this is going to encourage thousands of new jobs ... even if it does, not one of these jobs will be available to the poor, as most of the poor do not have vehicles. These jobs will likely be located along this new highway, where one would need a car to get to anyways. Why did I have to file a lawsuit against this region just so they can set up some type of starter regional transit between the three main cities (but nowhere else), in order to get them to move on it as opposed to continuing to talk for another forty years? Now, some regional councilors are attempting to sabotage this pilot project by pushing for its discontinuation. It is a safe bet that none of these dinosaurs would be willing to drive me between cities when I need to go outside of my own city to work on different files, etc. if they got their way. It is also a safe bet that not a single one of these regional councilors are without a personal vehicle. Chances are they each have three or four of them in their driveway.
Privilege breeds ignorance. People who live in privilege have no idea what others that live with less privilege or without privilege altogether actually live like, or what they need. Privileged people should not be in a position to make decisions about people without privilege, because of this willful blindness most of them tend to have. I notice that our regional councilors and city councilors cry poor and whine about seniors that cannot pay more property taxes, as a reason for them to cut essential services further. Yet these same seniors are the ones that miraculously can afford to upgrade and renovate their homes and will now, thanks to Dalton McGuinty, receive a tax credit for it too. The so called "poor seniors" or the truly poor seniors are already unable to live in their own homes and have had already moved to subsidized housing, the home of a child or sibling, or even to a nursing home, and very little of this has to do with property taxes ... it has to do with their income in general. With a net retirement income of approximately $1,300 a month for a single senior that no longer has coverage for dental, assistive devices, etc. cannot afford to live in their own home - period! While this is not the fault of the municipalities, I wish our local politicians would stop lying to the people about this, because most of the retirees that are able to live in their own homes have private pensions, thanks the generation before me that actually had job opportunities that meant something.
The province needs to UPLOAD, not to DOWNLOAD. Municipalities should not be in the business of delivering social services of any kind. Municipalities should be only responsible for predictable programs, services and infrastructure that do not ebb and flow wildly with the economy like social services do. Services like libraries, public transit, road maintenance, sewage and water treatment, bridges, community centers, certain recreational programs, police and fire departments, are examples of municipal services that should be run locally. Social assistance of any kind, including OW, ODSP, social housing, employment support services, health and addiction services, senior's support services and so forth, should be run and paid for provincially, even though local offices can operate programs at the local level. This way, expenses that fluctuate can be covered as required without having to raise property taxes, which by the way, impacts on the supply of affordable housing in any local area.
Most of the rules that govern OW and ODSP need to be eliminated if they actually expect people to work, or accept any kind of employment. Stop clawing back half the income of people when they take a job. Stop counting the income and assets of spouses and older children when they take a job or run a business. For those interested in starting a business, they should have no more rules to follow than anybody else that runs a business and in fact, they should be able to hire, fire, incorporate, invest, retire, do whatever they need to do with the business to help them earn an income. Because until the government is ready to do real social assistance reform, which is not going to cost a whole lot more than what it does now, the vast majority of OW and ODSP recipients are better off sitting at home.
Showing posts with label accessibility. Show all posts
Showing posts with label accessibility. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Saturday, September 5, 2009
GETTING THERE IS THREE QUARTERS OF THE WAY THERE
In the recent debate about the new Ontario Photo Card Act, it was revealed by the Minister of Transportation that four million Ontarians of driving age do not have a driver's license. To this end, there is a new enhanced Photo Card that non-drivers can obtain for identification and cross-border purposes, as an alternative to a Passport. At least somebody is thinking about this.
Unfortunately, nobody has sought to dig deeper into the problem. There are over thirteen million people living in Ontario, not all of whom are of driving age. If four million of those who are of driving age will not or cannot acquire a driver's license, we need to start asking deeper and more serious questions. The issue of identity is one issue. People that do not drive are deemed by many agencies and businesses to be non-citizens because they cannot produce the proper identification they require. These same businesses somehow feel non-drivers would somehow have a passport, but then again, non-drivers are even less likely to have one of those than any of the other forms of "acceptable identification". People who don't drive don't cross the border that often anyways, if at all. They cannot open bank accounts, pick up registered mail, identify themselves to the tax people over the counter, rent a video, etc. I had to threaten legal action at some of these places in order to access these services in the past ... but I still know some people who can't even get a bank account because they don't have a driver's license.
In Niagara Region, the powers that be have no trouble excluding members of this group, simply by ignoring their needs. They do not only use the same criteria for establishing citizenship, they deny non-drivers access to employment, recreation, access to low-cost shopping, education and other things. We are supposed to just accept that. We are supposed to accept our lot as minimum wage workers, or people who cannot access cost savings on life's necessities such as cheaper housing and discounts on the grocery bill. We are supposed to accept our lot as inferior workers, just because employers in the Niagara Region think we have no skills because we do not drive or do not have access to a car.
There are innovators here. It is not that everybody has their heads in the sand, although in my humble view, the leaders of this region do ... as most of them, like most drivers in this region, take this privilege for granted. They take the act of hopping in their car and going wherever they like in record time for granted, especially at the relative low cost per kilometer for costs. They do not even think about the fact that if they did not have the right to drive or access to their vehicle, they probably would not be holding the jobs that they do. They don't want to think about this, as it is people who don't drive who somehow "deserve" to work in the low-wage, unstable employment sector.
The message that non-drivers are low skilled or no skilled is obvious because even when the innovators act, they develop initiatives that connect more people to low-wage jobs than with middle and higher range levels of employment. The Job Bus that operated in our region until the recent bankruptcy of Opportunities Niagara connected workers in one city to another to low-wage hotel cleaning and dish washing jobs, while at the same time, the Canada Border Services Agency was seeking university educated workers to become Customs Officers at the border. No Job Bus was ever offered to take prospective workers there. Of course, anybody with skills above minimum wage has a driver's license, so we don't bother to worry about sending people to better paid and more stable employment.
The other message that non-drivers receive is that their time is worth nothing or very little when compared to that of drivers. There is some fractional inter-city transit operational within Niagara, but it takes too long to travel this way, and it is way too complicated for the average commuter to use. In order for me to travel a total of 12 km from my house to the Welland courthouse, which is about a 20 minute car ride, I have to: (a) board a city bus which is ten minutes from home (and takes twenty minutes to get downtown); (b) arrive downtown and transfer to the Brock bus (which takes another fifteen minutes to get to Brock); (c) once at Brock, sit around and wait for another twenty minutes until the Welland Transit bus arrives and transfer to it (and travel for another twenty-five to thirty minutes as it meanders across the region); and (d) arrive at Niagara College and wait another ten to fifteen minutes to get the downtown terminal bus to travel another five to ten minutes to the terminal, whereby the court is only a two minute walk. I tried it one time. With all the traveling, transferring and waiting, it took me nearly two hours to arrive to my destination, and I was in certainly no shape to do any work as I was completely exhausted! I can go to Toronto faster. The message to me from the region's fathers was that my time is worth nothing, so my efforts must be worth the same. And then, they wonder why nobody uses this route as a commuter option.
The only other option one has is taxi, which is anywhere from $60 - $70 for a round trip to the same place. Again, my money and time is worth nothing and I am certainly not welcome in some parts of the Region unless I pay to join the "club". I know of no driver that pays $60 - $70 for ONE trip back and forth between a single city within the Niagara Region. If this were the case, there would be a Third World War for sure, and maybe there should be ... as why should I be treated as an inferior entity simply because I do not drive and worse so, because of a disability? The most my colleagues pay to hop in their cars and take that trip to Welland is perhaps five to seven dollars, including parking. How does that make me even nearly competitive, if I actually charged for travel time (which I don't and I am forced to swallow)?
That means my colleagues that do the same work I do can take on almost twice as much work as I can for less cost. It is no small wonder that they have staff of their own, live in nice houses and most will retire with more than nothing.
One such person with an attitude commented on whether or not I should determine whether it would be worth it to remain in business. Okay, maybe that same person can point to me other job opportunities that exist within the Region where one is not required to have a driver's license and a vehicle and pays well enough for me to consider it worth my time and expense going to post-secondary education and other senior work experience I had prior to losing my license. There are many job boards if one wants to find work in Niagara Region. There is the HRDC Job Bank, the Job Gym, various company sites, public service site (although few of those jobs are for people living in Niagara), and the various classified ads. There is also word of mouth, but people who don't drive can't get to the events where word of mouth job information is shared.
Anybody reading this can certainly check this out for themselves. Almost every job that appears available to non-drivers is minimum wage or slightly above it, requires little to no skill at all (so why bother graduating high school if I wanted to work at any of these places) and usually has minimum to no benefits. My husband was given one of those jobs. It lasted exactly three days, not because my husband is a poor worker, but because they were looking for somebody to sell whatever it was they were selling to people that obviously do not want to buy. There are "good jobs" available, but they are usually only for those of upper middle to upper class standing in Niagara Region, as they usually ask for at least five to ten years experience doing the exact same thing elsewhere, or they want you to have a license and a car. Some of these jobs may not specify this, but they say they want you to work all shifts, which means you will be spending half your salary on cab fare to get either to the job or home, or the job is located in another community that you can't get to unless you have a car.
I had interviews for some of the "good jobs" I referred to above, some of them paying close to or even more than I used to make when I did drive. Unfortunately, they did not accommodate people that do not drive, even if the candidate can do everything else on the job. If you try to tell them how you can do the job without having to drive or own a car (and there are many workarounds for this), they just hire the next person that does drive, even if they have less experience or qualifications than you do. One has to live this in order to understand this.
I knew a PHd that spent five years on Ontario Works unable to find a decent job, until he came into some money through an inheritance after his father died. He naturally purchased a vehicle and within two to three weeks, he was employed. I know several other individuals who are professionals, such as teachers, social workers or technicians, that currently sit on Ontario Works or even Ontario Disability Support Program whose disabilities prevent them from driving, but not from working ... and they are punished for being in that position. They cannot earn and save enough money to escape from this area to go elsewhere where their skills would be wanted and appreciated, while at the same time this region does not want them if they cannot get behind the wheel of a vehicle to contribute to the increasing smog problem of the area. I actually count the number of vehicles that pass on busy streets with only the drivers in them, and vehicles of this type comprise over ninety percent of the traffic that is pumping out smog for me to breathe and pay for, while there is considerably more car-pooling, taxi and transit use in other communities I worked in.
My theories were confirmed when I spoke to some key people in Niagara Region, most of whom were employers themselves, or worked in human resources departments. In a non-consequential survey (and completed anonymously over the telephone), I asked the employer respondents if they ever considered a man or a woman for a job in their company that did not drive ... and if this was an issue at the interview, what did that person think was the reason these people did not drive ... For males, it was thought that if they did not drive or own a car, it was believed they likely lost their license as a result of drinking and driving or some related offense. For women in the same position, it was assumed they didn't really have to work and that they had a husband that was a primary earner and they did not really have a lot of skills, and sought basically low-skilled work. When asking if they would consider hiring a non-driver, most of these employers felt that having a driver's license was "necessary" for the job, when in fact a job analysis revealed most jobs could be done without a driver's license.
When I ask others who worked with people with disabilities or those who were unemployed, I learned that in one survey 93% of those who used the generic employment agency in Niagara (Employment Help Centre, September 2008) did not have both a driver's license and a car. Those familiar with people with disabilities know that transportation is a barrier, but unfortunately nobody does anything about it around here, and too many of these workers leave it up to the job seeker to negotiated these accommodations, which nine times out of ten doesn't work.
I can understand not hiring somebody without a driver's license for a job as a cab driver, a delivery person, a limousine chauffeur, a bus driver or even a residential contractor (that must provide their own tools). However, when I speak to people that do not drive, they are not applying for these jobs ... they are applying for jobs in offices, in stores, on computers, etc. that require skills that do not include chauffeuring people or goods to different places. They are still excluded. As far as I am concerned, if a person is working as a support worker, a social worker, employment counselor, therapist, or any other "people job", if somebody needs to be driven somewhere, there are plenty of taxi services available in the community which would cost less than paying a staff person at unionized wages to do this.
While not having access to most jobs is a major problem for non-drivers, governments at all levels at the same time do not mind extracting money from non-drivers for taxes to pay for highway expansions, road repairs, traffic conversions, parking lots, GM bailouts, and the list goes on ... and private retailers don't mind hiking the prices for drivers and non-drivers alike for the privileges only enjoyed by drivers for "free parking" at their premises. In one letter to the editor of the St. Catharines Standard, one of our frustrated taxpayer activists provided some useful information, as follows (Wednesday, September 2, 2009):
Niagara can also be considered an ableist and ageist society, as it is generally disabled and very young adults or older adults that are the least likely to drive. I read one study one time that estimate approximately 50% of people with disabilities did not drive. Older people tend to give up on their licenses as they begin to lose their reflexes or visual acuity, but do they have less rights to access visits to family, recreational and shopping facilities than those that do drive? Do they have to be now put in nursing homes because they can no longer get around and do these things for themselves cost-effectively? Try to tell THEM that and see what they say. How about people with disabilities? Almost all of them want to live independently. They do not want some damned charity to send volunteers to pick them up and drop them off places. They want to find and catch a bus to go wherever they want within reason and within a reasonable period of time and as few transfers as possible.
How about if somebody passed a law and said that drivers will only have access to the road between the hours of 7:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. but only on a half hourly basis and after six, on an hourly basis only? If you have to go somewhere in between, you have to wait until the roads re-open an hour later. What if drivers were told they were not allowed to go to certain communities because there were no usable roads in and out? They would be stamping their feet, throwing a fit and complaining about how much taxes they pay and why can't THEY get the service they pay for? How about non-drivers who pay the SAME taxes, but are getting LITTLE to NO service for what they pay?
I personally don't think transit options will improve until somebody important in Niagara loses their license due to disability or medical reasons and then finds themselves unable to do their job because of lack of transportation. I don't wish ill on people, but sometimes it might take personal experience with this form of discrimination before anything changes here and people start to realize they need to stop propping up General Motors and other aspects of the auto industry and just start to consider various ways of getting around so everybody can access the community and all the jobs it supposedly has to offer. Until then, this current recession will NEVER end for people with disabilities and for others that don't drive either for medical or financial reasons.
Your thoughts?
Unfortunately, nobody has sought to dig deeper into the problem. There are over thirteen million people living in Ontario, not all of whom are of driving age. If four million of those who are of driving age will not or cannot acquire a driver's license, we need to start asking deeper and more serious questions. The issue of identity is one issue. People that do not drive are deemed by many agencies and businesses to be non-citizens because they cannot produce the proper identification they require. These same businesses somehow feel non-drivers would somehow have a passport, but then again, non-drivers are even less likely to have one of those than any of the other forms of "acceptable identification". People who don't drive don't cross the border that often anyways, if at all. They cannot open bank accounts, pick up registered mail, identify themselves to the tax people over the counter, rent a video, etc. I had to threaten legal action at some of these places in order to access these services in the past ... but I still know some people who can't even get a bank account because they don't have a driver's license.
In Niagara Region, the powers that be have no trouble excluding members of this group, simply by ignoring their needs. They do not only use the same criteria for establishing citizenship, they deny non-drivers access to employment, recreation, access to low-cost shopping, education and other things. We are supposed to just accept that. We are supposed to accept our lot as minimum wage workers, or people who cannot access cost savings on life's necessities such as cheaper housing and discounts on the grocery bill. We are supposed to accept our lot as inferior workers, just because employers in the Niagara Region think we have no skills because we do not drive or do not have access to a car.
There are innovators here. It is not that everybody has their heads in the sand, although in my humble view, the leaders of this region do ... as most of them, like most drivers in this region, take this privilege for granted. They take the act of hopping in their car and going wherever they like in record time for granted, especially at the relative low cost per kilometer for costs. They do not even think about the fact that if they did not have the right to drive or access to their vehicle, they probably would not be holding the jobs that they do. They don't want to think about this, as it is people who don't drive who somehow "deserve" to work in the low-wage, unstable employment sector.
The message that non-drivers are low skilled or no skilled is obvious because even when the innovators act, they develop initiatives that connect more people to low-wage jobs than with middle and higher range levels of employment. The Job Bus that operated in our region until the recent bankruptcy of Opportunities Niagara connected workers in one city to another to low-wage hotel cleaning and dish washing jobs, while at the same time, the Canada Border Services Agency was seeking university educated workers to become Customs Officers at the border. No Job Bus was ever offered to take prospective workers there. Of course, anybody with skills above minimum wage has a driver's license, so we don't bother to worry about sending people to better paid and more stable employment.
The other message that non-drivers receive is that their time is worth nothing or very little when compared to that of drivers. There is some fractional inter-city transit operational within Niagara, but it takes too long to travel this way, and it is way too complicated for the average commuter to use. In order for me to travel a total of 12 km from my house to the Welland courthouse, which is about a 20 minute car ride, I have to: (a) board a city bus which is ten minutes from home (and takes twenty minutes to get downtown); (b) arrive downtown and transfer to the Brock bus (which takes another fifteen minutes to get to Brock); (c) once at Brock, sit around and wait for another twenty minutes until the Welland Transit bus arrives and transfer to it (and travel for another twenty-five to thirty minutes as it meanders across the region); and (d) arrive at Niagara College and wait another ten to fifteen minutes to get the downtown terminal bus to travel another five to ten minutes to the terminal, whereby the court is only a two minute walk. I tried it one time. With all the traveling, transferring and waiting, it took me nearly two hours to arrive to my destination, and I was in certainly no shape to do any work as I was completely exhausted! I can go to Toronto faster. The message to me from the region's fathers was that my time is worth nothing, so my efforts must be worth the same. And then, they wonder why nobody uses this route as a commuter option.
The only other option one has is taxi, which is anywhere from $60 - $70 for a round trip to the same place. Again, my money and time is worth nothing and I am certainly not welcome in some parts of the Region unless I pay to join the "club". I know of no driver that pays $60 - $70 for ONE trip back and forth between a single city within the Niagara Region. If this were the case, there would be a Third World War for sure, and maybe there should be ... as why should I be treated as an inferior entity simply because I do not drive and worse so, because of a disability? The most my colleagues pay to hop in their cars and take that trip to Welland is perhaps five to seven dollars, including parking. How does that make me even nearly competitive, if I actually charged for travel time (which I don't and I am forced to swallow)?
That means my colleagues that do the same work I do can take on almost twice as much work as I can for less cost. It is no small wonder that they have staff of their own, live in nice houses and most will retire with more than nothing.
One such person with an attitude commented on whether or not I should determine whether it would be worth it to remain in business. Okay, maybe that same person can point to me other job opportunities that exist within the Region where one is not required to have a driver's license and a vehicle and pays well enough for me to consider it worth my time and expense going to post-secondary education and other senior work experience I had prior to losing my license. There are many job boards if one wants to find work in Niagara Region. There is the HRDC Job Bank, the Job Gym, various company sites, public service site (although few of those jobs are for people living in Niagara), and the various classified ads. There is also word of mouth, but people who don't drive can't get to the events where word of mouth job information is shared.
Anybody reading this can certainly check this out for themselves. Almost every job that appears available to non-drivers is minimum wage or slightly above it, requires little to no skill at all (so why bother graduating high school if I wanted to work at any of these places) and usually has minimum to no benefits. My husband was given one of those jobs. It lasted exactly three days, not because my husband is a poor worker, but because they were looking for somebody to sell whatever it was they were selling to people that obviously do not want to buy. There are "good jobs" available, but they are usually only for those of upper middle to upper class standing in Niagara Region, as they usually ask for at least five to ten years experience doing the exact same thing elsewhere, or they want you to have a license and a car. Some of these jobs may not specify this, but they say they want you to work all shifts, which means you will be spending half your salary on cab fare to get either to the job or home, or the job is located in another community that you can't get to unless you have a car.
I had interviews for some of the "good jobs" I referred to above, some of them paying close to or even more than I used to make when I did drive. Unfortunately, they did not accommodate people that do not drive, even if the candidate can do everything else on the job. If you try to tell them how you can do the job without having to drive or own a car (and there are many workarounds for this), they just hire the next person that does drive, even if they have less experience or qualifications than you do. One has to live this in order to understand this.
I knew a PHd that spent five years on Ontario Works unable to find a decent job, until he came into some money through an inheritance after his father died. He naturally purchased a vehicle and within two to three weeks, he was employed. I know several other individuals who are professionals, such as teachers, social workers or technicians, that currently sit on Ontario Works or even Ontario Disability Support Program whose disabilities prevent them from driving, but not from working ... and they are punished for being in that position. They cannot earn and save enough money to escape from this area to go elsewhere where their skills would be wanted and appreciated, while at the same time this region does not want them if they cannot get behind the wheel of a vehicle to contribute to the increasing smog problem of the area. I actually count the number of vehicles that pass on busy streets with only the drivers in them, and vehicles of this type comprise over ninety percent of the traffic that is pumping out smog for me to breathe and pay for, while there is considerably more car-pooling, taxi and transit use in other communities I worked in.
My theories were confirmed when I spoke to some key people in Niagara Region, most of whom were employers themselves, or worked in human resources departments. In a non-consequential survey (and completed anonymously over the telephone), I asked the employer respondents if they ever considered a man or a woman for a job in their company that did not drive ... and if this was an issue at the interview, what did that person think was the reason these people did not drive ... For males, it was thought that if they did not drive or own a car, it was believed they likely lost their license as a result of drinking and driving or some related offense. For women in the same position, it was assumed they didn't really have to work and that they had a husband that was a primary earner and they did not really have a lot of skills, and sought basically low-skilled work. When asking if they would consider hiring a non-driver, most of these employers felt that having a driver's license was "necessary" for the job, when in fact a job analysis revealed most jobs could be done without a driver's license.
When I ask others who worked with people with disabilities or those who were unemployed, I learned that in one survey 93% of those who used the generic employment agency in Niagara (Employment Help Centre, September 2008) did not have both a driver's license and a car. Those familiar with people with disabilities know that transportation is a barrier, but unfortunately nobody does anything about it around here, and too many of these workers leave it up to the job seeker to negotiated these accommodations, which nine times out of ten doesn't work.
I can understand not hiring somebody without a driver's license for a job as a cab driver, a delivery person, a limousine chauffeur, a bus driver or even a residential contractor (that must provide their own tools). However, when I speak to people that do not drive, they are not applying for these jobs ... they are applying for jobs in offices, in stores, on computers, etc. that require skills that do not include chauffeuring people or goods to different places. They are still excluded. As far as I am concerned, if a person is working as a support worker, a social worker, employment counselor, therapist, or any other "people job", if somebody needs to be driven somewhere, there are plenty of taxi services available in the community which would cost less than paying a staff person at unionized wages to do this.
While not having access to most jobs is a major problem for non-drivers, governments at all levels at the same time do not mind extracting money from non-drivers for taxes to pay for highway expansions, road repairs, traffic conversions, parking lots, GM bailouts, and the list goes on ... and private retailers don't mind hiking the prices for drivers and non-drivers alike for the privileges only enjoyed by drivers for "free parking" at their premises. In one letter to the editor of the St. Catharines Standard, one of our frustrated taxpayer activists provided some useful information, as follows (Wednesday, September 2, 2009):
City spending and taxes are not 'moderate'
There is no end in sight to increased taxes with approval of the City of St. Catharines 2009 capital budget.
Unfortunately, 2008 financial performance results are still not published and we are almost through 2009 so we must rely on 2007 data that are available from the BMA survey of 87 regions/cities representing 85 per cent of this province's population.
In St. Catharines, the tax levy per $100,000 assessment is $1,615, 26 per cent higher than the survey average of $1,282.
The tax on an average bungalow in St. Catharines is $3,257, 16 per cent higher than the survey average of $2,819.
An average "executive" residence in St. Catharines pays $5,410 in taxes, compared to the survey average of $5,184 -- we are four per cent higher.
Why?
Look at our spending per capita.
We pay $145 for fire services, compared to $113 average. Cost of roads is $8,784 compared to $2,161.
Transit costs are $10; the average is $57.
Cultural enterprises cost $17, $6 more than the average.
Regional police costs $255 compared to $202.
Region roads: $1,407 to the average of $1,127.
Debt charges as a percentage of total expenditures is 6.5 per cent; the survey average is 4.1 per cent.
The average debt per capita is $608 and ours is $691 or 14 per cent higher.
The controller may claim our debt is moderate, but city spending is not and neither are our taxes.
Dave Bedwell St. Catharines
Pay attention to what this gentleman just said: The cost of roads (per capita) is $8,784, compared to the average municipality as $2,161. The regional road cost is $1,407 compared to an average of $1,127. and the cost of transit is $10, when the average is $57. In other words, Niagara cares only about drivers and certainly less about transit users. Their excuse is that "nobody uses transit", but the truth of the matter is if it was offered in a convenient and accessible format, people would ... people don't use transit like the convoluted commuter route I described above because it is too time-consuming, complicated and exhausting. I had a discussion with one woman a couple of weeks ago that didn't want to see "her tax dollars" to to get "five people back and forth to Welland". I just said none of those five people want to continue to subsidize her access to the roads either. It might well be nigh to see more non-drivers speak up and force the issue into the courts perhaps, as to why we are paying all this money to prop up people that drive, while people that drive pay little or nothing towards those of us that need another way to get around. Maybe malls should stop subsidizing drivers as well by making me and other non-drivers pay more for our grocery and other consumer items we buy there. It might well be nigh that non-drivers stop shopping at these stores in droves until they lower their prices and start making drivers pay for their own damn parking!Niagara can also be considered an ableist and ageist society, as it is generally disabled and very young adults or older adults that are the least likely to drive. I read one study one time that estimate approximately 50% of people with disabilities did not drive. Older people tend to give up on their licenses as they begin to lose their reflexes or visual acuity, but do they have less rights to access visits to family, recreational and shopping facilities than those that do drive? Do they have to be now put in nursing homes because they can no longer get around and do these things for themselves cost-effectively? Try to tell THEM that and see what they say. How about people with disabilities? Almost all of them want to live independently. They do not want some damned charity to send volunteers to pick them up and drop them off places. They want to find and catch a bus to go wherever they want within reason and within a reasonable period of time and as few transfers as possible.
How about if somebody passed a law and said that drivers will only have access to the road between the hours of 7:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. but only on a half hourly basis and after six, on an hourly basis only? If you have to go somewhere in between, you have to wait until the roads re-open an hour later. What if drivers were told they were not allowed to go to certain communities because there were no usable roads in and out? They would be stamping their feet, throwing a fit and complaining about how much taxes they pay and why can't THEY get the service they pay for? How about non-drivers who pay the SAME taxes, but are getting LITTLE to NO service for what they pay?
I personally don't think transit options will improve until somebody important in Niagara loses their license due to disability or medical reasons and then finds themselves unable to do their job because of lack of transportation. I don't wish ill on people, but sometimes it might take personal experience with this form of discrimination before anything changes here and people start to realize they need to stop propping up General Motors and other aspects of the auto industry and just start to consider various ways of getting around so everybody can access the community and all the jobs it supposedly has to offer. Until then, this current recession will NEVER end for people with disabilities and for others that don't drive either for medical or financial reasons.
Your thoughts?
Monday, November 10, 2008
CHANGE YOUR VALUES, CHANGE YOUR OUTCOMES
One of my areas of expertise is ethics and knowledge-based analysis. One of my earlier projects (almost eighteen years ago) focused on the underpinning values that eventually erupted into the Holocaust. If you ask people today what led to the Holocaust, people will argue it was Hitler's rise to power. However, my project's research has shown the underpinnings of society's value system at the time resulted in Hitler's rise to power, as opposed to the other way around.
Society's values, often reflected in so-called scientific 'achievements' and measures to back them up, were used to assign values, as opposed to determine hypothesis. The fact so-called western culture has evolved through many cultural and counter-cultural periods can aid in one's understanding of how such values and beliefs determine how the society will address its problems. Instead of being viewed as challenges, such 'problems' were defined as societal nuisances, tragedies and other negative values assigned, and the instruments of science and policy were utilized to eradicate, as opposed to accommodate, such challenges.
I don't want to go into great detail as to how the social psychological theorum developed around these ideas, the founding of eugenic-based thinking and its gradual acceptance and implementation took place, but to demonstrate how the same social psychology and its structure exist in our society today and how it is impacting on our most vulnerable populations. As one speaker series I attended recently demonstrated, how society "defines" its problems and their "causes" results in what policy instruments are used to tackle them.
This particular speaker was part of our International Day to Eradicate Poverty forum held at the region. The interesting aspect of this speaker's discussion was something I always knew to be true. She simplified this scenario in how people view the economy and as a result, what solutions are available for reducing poverty in society. She separated her presentation in three parts.
The first part demonstrated a belief that our economy provides equal access to opportunities for everybody and anybody can achieve what they want by tackling their challenges and "working hard". The corollary to this thinking of course means that those that do not find success in the existing economy are not "trying hard enough" or are "not taking advantage of opportunities afforded to them". Policy solutions imposed by this thinking relate to creating "incentives" for people to work and get off social assistance, for example. The idea here is that if we prod people hard enough, they will pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Assistance should be minimal, temporary and difficult to get, or such thinking would go, "it becomes a system that can be abused".
The second part showed a different scenario whereas one believes that usually the economy works well, but there are periodic issues that need to be addressed. One such issue could be the current banking crisis and upcoming global recession. Thinkers in this category believe that the economy is not a structural barrier in itself, but periodic shifts and changes make it necessary to develop policies to assist affected individuals in "adjusting". Policy initiatives brought about by this manner of thinking tend to focus on strengthening the individual through re-training programs, labour adjustment opportunities, job finding clubs and resume upgrades. If people learn how to find work and upgrade their skills for the "new market", everything will be fine.
The third part showed even a more different perspective. The belief system here demonstrates that opportunity is not shared equally among all people in society and that some people benefit more from the status quo than others for a variety of reasons and regardless of how "good" the economy is, there are always people who are left behind. The thinking here is that the people left behind are not at fault, but do deserve not to be left behind ... so the solution to this scenario is more structural, as opposed to individual or laissez-faire. Policy options would include infrastructure projects, improved urban planning, consideration of a minimum citizen's income, as well as support for broad-based community services, such as education, health care, daycare, transit, etc.
The reason I bring up these scenarios and am reminded of this presentation is from a recent article published in the Toronto Star about how today's welfare rates are probably set for 1988 levels. The article exemplifies a young man that had once experienced the "Canadian dream" of a middle-class job, a successful business and a happy marriage, only to see it ruined by addiction ... and several years later, he is clean, but unemployed and living in poverty. With these feature articles, the Star has a comments section where any reader can contribute their thoughts. Almost 200 comments were printed, many of them exposing the vicious prejudices of the writers, beliefs they held about poor people, why they were poor and they would only solve their problems if they just "got a job". It is interesting if life were that simple.
Readers in this category pointed out how there are so many 'help wanted' ads in store windows, how one can easily get a minimum wage job and so forth ... well, these readers would love to see a law passed to force people who are not working to take a job, any job. However, would these same readers be willing to have the same law applied to employers, to force them to hire whoever showed up at their door - regardless of their skills, training and aptitude? Of course not! If this were ever imposed, there'd be a civil war of sorts started by the business and employer community about the state's will being imposed on their businesses. The reason I ask this is because very few people on social assistance want to be there; survey after survey shows that almost everybody wants to work, but most that don't work experience major barriers to doing so.
So, until these barriers are removed, we have to do something about people that are unable to find work or perhaps, either temporarily or permanently, are unable to work ... some argue we should just let them starve. Surely, if we do so, they will suddenly find it in their "interests" to take any job. Right? Sadly, this will not likely work. Would you want to live next door to one of these people, who perhaps you believe should "starve" who through no fault of their own is having trouble securing a job? You better lock your doors! How about your taxes? You think your taxes are high now? Just wait until our medicare system takes in these "starving people" for malnutrition, self-harm, exposure, addictions, fatigue, infections, etc. Or our local jails take them in for petty theft, vandalism, causing a disturbance, assault, etc.
A shocking statistic shows that 75% of people in our prisons are illiterate and more than 80% of them come from low-income backgrounds. Natives and visible minorities are disproportionately represented in prisons. A study overlaying Toronto's 13 poorest postal codes with the residential locations of the shooters during the notorious Summer of the Gun showed almost all of them came from poor and desperate neighbourhoods. I don't even need to tell you how much it costs on an annual basis to keep each of these people in prison, particularly now that there is a public appetite to keep people locked up longer.
While we expect a percentage of prisoners to leave our prisons eventually to live in the community, none of us wants them in "our neighbourhoods" or in "our schools". A prison record almost guarantees lifelong unemployment and thus, the vicious cycle returns with greater force the next time around, which may expand the seriousness of the crime and increase the take. Life becomes cheap when your own life is not valued by the society you are living in. These people simply will not go away, despite the simplistic answers of many of the people who signed their comments in the Toronto Star that day. It is interesting that such comments could be registered anonymously or under a pseudonym, which certainly allows one to distance oneself from their comments and not have to take personal responsibility for saying them.
It is hard to say what the solution is for resolving issues like entrenched poverty, but it definitely revolves much broader than around the individual. If you expect somebody to "take a job", the employment market must be ready and prepared to hire that person. If employers do not want to hire that person, then employers (and other that don't want "those" people around) should pay more taxes to support the person until they are able to find work.
For individuals with disabilities, employers must be proactive in identifying and removing barriers to persons with disabilities. This must be done by reviewing all steps of the engagement process, starting out with the development of the job description or what the position would involve. Then, the next step would be to ensure that persons with disabilities have access to information about the job and the means to apply. People with disabilities will apply for jobs they feel they are qualified to do, as in the case of anybody else.
Employers like other people hold certain prejudices about people with disabilities, which need to be overcome in order for them to facilitate the participation in the paid labour force of more disabled persons. Hiring persons with disabilities helps all of us, not just the person with the disability. The employer has somebody to fill their position; the person with the disability has a job; and taxpayers no longer support the person with the disability by paying out their pittance of a disability income. It is also likely that the person with the disability will enjoy greater health and on an aggregate level, with more people hired, there will be more money in the economy spent on small businesses, which in turn, leads to the creation of other jobs.
Unfortunately, myths continue to prevail about people with disabilities. It is assumed that people with disabilities do not have as many qualifications as other workers. Many people with disabilities have advanced education and professional credentials, as well as substantial work experience. Further, there is no evidence that the work ethic of the person with a disability is any less than it is for anybody else. Their performance is either equal to or exceeds others as a rule. Further, some employer believe that people with disabilities should get paid less because they receive ODSP, which they assume is a "subsidy" ... when in fact, most people seeking work while on it, want to get OFF ODSP. Paying people less than minimum wage or even less than other workers is not only illegal, but is counter-productive as well.
This is just one area where there is shared responsibility for poverty reduction. Of course, there are people that cannot work due to health issues, or caregiving issues, or other reasons. Society needs to re-examine its current beliefs about the need to "punish" these people for being unable to contribute for either a temporary or permanent period of time to the paid labour force. Ontario Works is now the assistance of "first resort" for most people, as other forms of benefits get cut back and more difficult to get ... and as a result of getting on Ontario Works, one unfortunately has to strip themselves of all assets and virtually lose any financial cushion they once had, leaving them very vulnerable to long-term reliance on assistance.
Maybe we should take a look at the other benefits that are being cut and should be easier to get? It is said that less than 35% of people in Ontario who are unemployed could access Employment Insurance. People in receipt of long term disability insurance or worker's compensation are vulnerable to setbacks in adjudication cycles, which often can leave workers cut off with no financial security at all. Insurers suddenly decide your two years are up and you should be able to return to work, or WSIB believes your employer's "modified work" is truly adaptable for you (even though you will be essentially doing the same job you did that you got injured in). Forcing all of these people onto Ontario Works, which does not cover one's basic shelter, let alone their basic living costs, is certainly not good for the economy.
Is it really that good to have these people not shopping in your store, ordering a coffee in your cafe, or not buying clothing from the local merchant downtown, and more and more people ending up in this position? What does this do to the likelihood of jobs being created in your community? What does this do to the health of your local businesses, ranging from the butcher shop to the dry cleaner to the movie house? What about people who can no longer afford to stay in their homes? Where do they go?
Simplistic policy solutions do very little to either: (a) get people involved in the labour force; or (b) get the economy moving. Perhaps, we may need to re-think our ideas before spouting them off on the web, thinking we have all the answers. These issues are way more complex than they usually appear and solutions can only start when we end the blame game.
Thoughts?
Society's values, often reflected in so-called scientific 'achievements' and measures to back them up, were used to assign values, as opposed to determine hypothesis. The fact so-called western culture has evolved through many cultural and counter-cultural periods can aid in one's understanding of how such values and beliefs determine how the society will address its problems. Instead of being viewed as challenges, such 'problems' were defined as societal nuisances, tragedies and other negative values assigned, and the instruments of science and policy were utilized to eradicate, as opposed to accommodate, such challenges.
I don't want to go into great detail as to how the social psychological theorum developed around these ideas, the founding of eugenic-based thinking and its gradual acceptance and implementation took place, but to demonstrate how the same social psychology and its structure exist in our society today and how it is impacting on our most vulnerable populations. As one speaker series I attended recently demonstrated, how society "defines" its problems and their "causes" results in what policy instruments are used to tackle them.
This particular speaker was part of our International Day to Eradicate Poverty forum held at the region. The interesting aspect of this speaker's discussion was something I always knew to be true. She simplified this scenario in how people view the economy and as a result, what solutions are available for reducing poverty in society. She separated her presentation in three parts.
The first part demonstrated a belief that our economy provides equal access to opportunities for everybody and anybody can achieve what they want by tackling their challenges and "working hard". The corollary to this thinking of course means that those that do not find success in the existing economy are not "trying hard enough" or are "not taking advantage of opportunities afforded to them". Policy solutions imposed by this thinking relate to creating "incentives" for people to work and get off social assistance, for example. The idea here is that if we prod people hard enough, they will pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Assistance should be minimal, temporary and difficult to get, or such thinking would go, "it becomes a system that can be abused".
The second part showed a different scenario whereas one believes that usually the economy works well, but there are periodic issues that need to be addressed. One such issue could be the current banking crisis and upcoming global recession. Thinkers in this category believe that the economy is not a structural barrier in itself, but periodic shifts and changes make it necessary to develop policies to assist affected individuals in "adjusting". Policy initiatives brought about by this manner of thinking tend to focus on strengthening the individual through re-training programs, labour adjustment opportunities, job finding clubs and resume upgrades. If people learn how to find work and upgrade their skills for the "new market", everything will be fine.
The third part showed even a more different perspective. The belief system here demonstrates that opportunity is not shared equally among all people in society and that some people benefit more from the status quo than others for a variety of reasons and regardless of how "good" the economy is, there are always people who are left behind. The thinking here is that the people left behind are not at fault, but do deserve not to be left behind ... so the solution to this scenario is more structural, as opposed to individual or laissez-faire. Policy options would include infrastructure projects, improved urban planning, consideration of a minimum citizen's income, as well as support for broad-based community services, such as education, health care, daycare, transit, etc.
The reason I bring up these scenarios and am reminded of this presentation is from a recent article published in the Toronto Star about how today's welfare rates are probably set for 1988 levels. The article exemplifies a young man that had once experienced the "Canadian dream" of a middle-class job, a successful business and a happy marriage, only to see it ruined by addiction ... and several years later, he is clean, but unemployed and living in poverty. With these feature articles, the Star has a comments section where any reader can contribute their thoughts. Almost 200 comments were printed, many of them exposing the vicious prejudices of the writers, beliefs they held about poor people, why they were poor and they would only solve their problems if they just "got a job". It is interesting if life were that simple.
Readers in this category pointed out how there are so many 'help wanted' ads in store windows, how one can easily get a minimum wage job and so forth ... well, these readers would love to see a law passed to force people who are not working to take a job, any job. However, would these same readers be willing to have the same law applied to employers, to force them to hire whoever showed up at their door - regardless of their skills, training and aptitude? Of course not! If this were ever imposed, there'd be a civil war of sorts started by the business and employer community about the state's will being imposed on their businesses. The reason I ask this is because very few people on social assistance want to be there; survey after survey shows that almost everybody wants to work, but most that don't work experience major barriers to doing so.
So, until these barriers are removed, we have to do something about people that are unable to find work or perhaps, either temporarily or permanently, are unable to work ... some argue we should just let them starve. Surely, if we do so, they will suddenly find it in their "interests" to take any job. Right? Sadly, this will not likely work. Would you want to live next door to one of these people, who perhaps you believe should "starve" who through no fault of their own is having trouble securing a job? You better lock your doors! How about your taxes? You think your taxes are high now? Just wait until our medicare system takes in these "starving people" for malnutrition, self-harm, exposure, addictions, fatigue, infections, etc. Or our local jails take them in for petty theft, vandalism, causing a disturbance, assault, etc.
A shocking statistic shows that 75% of people in our prisons are illiterate and more than 80% of them come from low-income backgrounds. Natives and visible minorities are disproportionately represented in prisons. A study overlaying Toronto's 13 poorest postal codes with the residential locations of the shooters during the notorious Summer of the Gun showed almost all of them came from poor and desperate neighbourhoods. I don't even need to tell you how much it costs on an annual basis to keep each of these people in prison, particularly now that there is a public appetite to keep people locked up longer.
While we expect a percentage of prisoners to leave our prisons eventually to live in the community, none of us wants them in "our neighbourhoods" or in "our schools". A prison record almost guarantees lifelong unemployment and thus, the vicious cycle returns with greater force the next time around, which may expand the seriousness of the crime and increase the take. Life becomes cheap when your own life is not valued by the society you are living in. These people simply will not go away, despite the simplistic answers of many of the people who signed their comments in the Toronto Star that day. It is interesting that such comments could be registered anonymously or under a pseudonym, which certainly allows one to distance oneself from their comments and not have to take personal responsibility for saying them.
It is hard to say what the solution is for resolving issues like entrenched poverty, but it definitely revolves much broader than around the individual. If you expect somebody to "take a job", the employment market must be ready and prepared to hire that person. If employers do not want to hire that person, then employers (and other that don't want "those" people around) should pay more taxes to support the person until they are able to find work.
For individuals with disabilities, employers must be proactive in identifying and removing barriers to persons with disabilities. This must be done by reviewing all steps of the engagement process, starting out with the development of the job description or what the position would involve. Then, the next step would be to ensure that persons with disabilities have access to information about the job and the means to apply. People with disabilities will apply for jobs they feel they are qualified to do, as in the case of anybody else.
Employers like other people hold certain prejudices about people with disabilities, which need to be overcome in order for them to facilitate the participation in the paid labour force of more disabled persons. Hiring persons with disabilities helps all of us, not just the person with the disability. The employer has somebody to fill their position; the person with the disability has a job; and taxpayers no longer support the person with the disability by paying out their pittance of a disability income. It is also likely that the person with the disability will enjoy greater health and on an aggregate level, with more people hired, there will be more money in the economy spent on small businesses, which in turn, leads to the creation of other jobs.
Unfortunately, myths continue to prevail about people with disabilities. It is assumed that people with disabilities do not have as many qualifications as other workers. Many people with disabilities have advanced education and professional credentials, as well as substantial work experience. Further, there is no evidence that the work ethic of the person with a disability is any less than it is for anybody else. Their performance is either equal to or exceeds others as a rule. Further, some employer believe that people with disabilities should get paid less because they receive ODSP, which they assume is a "subsidy" ... when in fact, most people seeking work while on it, want to get OFF ODSP. Paying people less than minimum wage or even less than other workers is not only illegal, but is counter-productive as well.
This is just one area where there is shared responsibility for poverty reduction. Of course, there are people that cannot work due to health issues, or caregiving issues, or other reasons. Society needs to re-examine its current beliefs about the need to "punish" these people for being unable to contribute for either a temporary or permanent period of time to the paid labour force. Ontario Works is now the assistance of "first resort" for most people, as other forms of benefits get cut back and more difficult to get ... and as a result of getting on Ontario Works, one unfortunately has to strip themselves of all assets and virtually lose any financial cushion they once had, leaving them very vulnerable to long-term reliance on assistance.
Maybe we should take a look at the other benefits that are being cut and should be easier to get? It is said that less than 35% of people in Ontario who are unemployed could access Employment Insurance. People in receipt of long term disability insurance or worker's compensation are vulnerable to setbacks in adjudication cycles, which often can leave workers cut off with no financial security at all. Insurers suddenly decide your two years are up and you should be able to return to work, or WSIB believes your employer's "modified work" is truly adaptable for you (even though you will be essentially doing the same job you did that you got injured in). Forcing all of these people onto Ontario Works, which does not cover one's basic shelter, let alone their basic living costs, is certainly not good for the economy.
Is it really that good to have these people not shopping in your store, ordering a coffee in your cafe, or not buying clothing from the local merchant downtown, and more and more people ending up in this position? What does this do to the likelihood of jobs being created in your community? What does this do to the health of your local businesses, ranging from the butcher shop to the dry cleaner to the movie house? What about people who can no longer afford to stay in their homes? Where do they go?
Simplistic policy solutions do very little to either: (a) get people involved in the labour force; or (b) get the economy moving. Perhaps, we may need to re-think our ideas before spouting them off on the web, thinking we have all the answers. These issues are way more complex than they usually appear and solutions can only start when we end the blame game.
Thoughts?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
