By arthur Weinreb
January 28, 2005
although Toronto City Council has come up with tougher measures to "attempt to encourage" the homeless off of the streets, they have yet to go far enough to actually prevent people from sleeping on sidewalks and in other public places. The city is blessed with a socialist mayor and leftist councillors who feel that people have the right to sleep outside no matter how cold it is. a city the protects its citizens from second hand smoke and the effects of pesticide use, refuses to absolutely prohibit a person from sleeping outside in sub zero temperatures. The homeless, unlike the rest of us, apparently have rights.
and the city is aided in its view of the rights of the homeless by the lib left Toronto media. Weather reports on television and on radio are inevitable linked to the homeless. Reports of freezing temperatures are almost always followed by some mention of the homeless on the streets and providing telephone numbers for people to call who see a homeless person on the street when the temperature is below freezing. During the winter it is as if the temperature and the homeless are one issue; inevitable intertwined.
Now the people who are actually out in the streets are in all probability, not listening to or watching these media reports. Even if some of them are listening to the radio, they do not need someone to tell them that it is cold outside. What the media is actually doing is pushing the agenda of those who are in the homeless business and whose livelihoods depend upon keeping significant numbers of people on the streets. The media is pushing the city government’s line that the homeless should be left on the street and that encourages the so-called "outreach" programs to deliver coffee, soup, clothing and sleeping bags to those who refuse to come in from the cold.
The media should stop linking the cold weather to the homeless unless there is something particularly newsworthy concerning a particular person. all the media is accomplishing is entrenching the notion that those who refuse to go to a shelter and prefer to brave the elements have the right to do so. The constant references to the homeless on the street makes sleeping and living outdoors respectable and does nothing to help Toronto’s image as a desirable place to work, live and visit. and more importantly, it does nothing for the homeless to legitimize the way that they are living.