by Rod_Cloutier » Fri 14 Aug 2009, 11:10:13
I have noticed in my home city of Winnipeg recently, that the number of homeless people has decreased substancially.
Typically Winnipeg has a stable number of homeless/ destitute people because of its climate. The summers can reach 39 Celcius with high humidities making the summers too hot to remain outside during the day.
While the winters literally can stay at or near -40 Celcius for days at a time, meaning anyone without a home or potentially living in a tent or under a bridge would freeze to death. As a consequence there seems to be a transient migration away from the city each winter as the destitute seek warmer climates to inhabit.
A teenager cousin of mine who works at a downtown gas bar was recently given heck by his dad (my uncle) for trying to stop bums from stealing the squegies from the gas bar he works at. In my uncles own words 'Your risking your life to get back a 2 or 3 dollar squegie, who knows if these bums will pull a knife on you or what'. My uncle then went on to say, to the rest of the people at his barbeque party, that 'You really didn't think that these bums who come up to your car when your stopped at red lights -actually pay for the squegies that they use to mop down your windshield with!'.
I hear the city of Vancouver has a major problem with homeless people. When I lived in Vancouver in 1993-1994 there were about 100,000 homeless people living there. My dad, (who is currently living in Vancouver), says that number has now tripled to about 300,000 homeless people. Vancouver has a moderate climate. The summers don't pass 30 degrees Celcius, the winters are no colder than -15 degrees Celcius, making the city a migratory draw for the homeless.
During the severe 1991-1994 recession in Canada, the draconian conservative government of Alberta was giving the poor and the homeless 'free one way bus tickets to Vancouver' for anyone they considered 'undesirable', such as anybody living on public welfare. A unique way to deal with domestic problems of poverty- send them all somewhere else and forget about them.
Yesterday I was approached (while I was in my car at red lights) by two bums each with his own gimmick to get money. The first one held up a sign that said 'Ninga's killed all of my family, I need money to take Kung Fu lessons'. The second one actually stood in front of my car blocking traffic, with a sign that read 'I wanted to be a cowboy, but an indian stole my horse'.
When I see a young teenager with a sign like 'hungry and travelling', or someone old and handicapped with a sign like 'will work for food', that is something that would make me pause and see how much spare cash I can part with. Bums, who will likely use any money donated to them for drugs, alcohol, or whatever, such as the men I was confronted with yesterday, get a wave 'goodbye' and no hand out.
Things like this makes me wonder, how long till I myself will be so desperate that I'll be outside holding a 'will work for food sign'. Or how bad the current situation will get worldwide with the recent economic collapse. I would bet that Southern US states where the climate is moderate, would they have a proportunatly higher number of homeless, and destitute people?? I wonder about other temperate megacities in the 1st world, that have already have large 'tent cities'- will all major 1st world cities follow the path of 3rd world cities like Rio, Mexico city, and Cairo that all have hopeless and permanent slum shanty towns build around their outskirts??
