As if it weren't galling enough to know that some politicians exploit the homeless for newspaper headlines, now we have the exploitation-by-activist tactics of the Toronto Disaster Relief Committee.
Letter writer Robert De Bartolo writes that he was 'appalled' by the Toronto Disaster Relief Committee's March to End Homelessness on May 6.
'There were about 150 marchers and almost all of them were from the agencies who would be receiving the money this group is demanding go towards fighting homelessness,' De Bartolo wrote.
'They even tried to bribe the homeless out to the event with claims of food when there was none, and then tried to get donations out of them!'
'And then they thought they could inflame the situation by putting up posters telling people to 'ACT THEIR RAGE'.'
Where in latter day history has any march to end homelessness ever ended it?
Committee activists are right up their with crass politicians who try to milk homelessness for their own agendas. Some politicians even try to make the importance of homelessness as an issue seasonal. Count on seeing the same politicians every year in clips from quick-hit television newscasts when the weather turns cold.
All the rhetoric from election-bound politicians at Toronto City Hall; the noble sounding but empty words from politicians at Queen's Park and Parliament Hill have done nothing to put rooves over the heads of the genuine homeless.
Now that the buds are on the trees, the same street people who were sleeping over grates last winter, are on the grass at College Park, near Bay and Elm where Toronto Free Press maintains offices--Ontario's booming economy notwithstanding. Some, who truly prefer to live on the streets, prove that homelessness is an issue too complex to be solved by conventional political brains. Some street people, who eke out an existence through the refuse of trash cans, tell us that they not only recognize local politicians who monopolize the homelessness soap box, they are consistently turned down for pocket change by the same speech-making politicoes.
TFP staffers were less than impressed when they attended last summer's takeover of Allen Gardens by members of the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP), viewing it as a media event. While activists at the park strummed their guitars, heard speeches and fried up fish, we couldn�t help being aware of the abject hopelessness portrayed by genuine homeless people, mulling about in city blocks surrounding the park.
Most of the homeless we know have too much pride and self respect to attend protests held by activists in the name of the homeless.
We lost our naivety about homelessness some years back when a waitress showed us the restaurant bills of a well known self-proclaimed advocate for the homeless with a penchant for lobster and Mum's Champagne. The advocate of princely tastes frequented the same restaurant after the latest anti-poverty protest.
The era of the poverty pimp has long been upon us, Mr. De Bartolo.
Activists who use the homeless to justify the need for their taxpayer subsidized salaries fall into the category of hypocritical leeches.
It's time for politicians who have seized the leadership as sworn advocates of the homeless and who draw on voting power from homelessness activists, to replace flowery rhetoric with action.
In this country, no one who does not want to be on the streets should be homeless.
Political rhetoric and grandstanding will never feed empty bellies.
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