Raise the Hammer

Meredith: Well I am glad that you have moved forward in your life. There are no psychological barriers only attitudes. People are snobs, they see themselves as being better because they have money but that is not always true. How many in the upper echelons of society are sociopaths, meaning, they have no conscience. It is a mental illness.

Face facts honey, this is a blue collar town, down home people.

Look I honestly do not think that, they, these developers should be allowed tax payers dollars, these people are the elites of our society and they have been the voice behind the scenes which have thrown many of our fellow citizen into dire poverty. If these same people blabbing in the spec do not come downtown and mix with the people, well, that says it all. They are hypocrits.

The focus should be on why so many are struggling, welfare amounts are not enough to live on, if you get sick it takes around three years, sometimes longer just to get on disability if you are lucky. There is a report put out by the Ombudsmen's office "Losing the Waiting Game", it clearly defines what people go through trying to gain access to ODSP. These workers have no medical background. In the meantime as a single person you are left to find shelter, food, clothes, personal items on $572.00 per month. The cut off letters come without warning, throwing people who are already stressed into a tailspin. Never mind the fact of having to go to a foodbank to get crappy food, that is not nutricious at all, you get food for three days but what about the rest of the month. Many of the foodbanks are now using MEANS testing and people are being denied access. Foodbanks are not regulated, people get rotten, expired food, no labels, so if you have food allergies, well you are out of luck, they discriminate, people have to stand outside in inclement weather for hours, there is no tranportation so many who are disabled have trouble getting food. If you ask me, some of these social agencies need to be investigated to their practices.

How about the fact the many are pushed into low wage job, temp work, they have no protection of labour rights, it is an continual cycle of despair.

In fact at a poverty and health forum, a health provider made the statement the Hamilton has an unusally high amount of "BAD SOCIAL WORKERS". It is the system that is bad and that is what needs to change.

If people had living wages, liveable amounts of social assistance, better job protection, like those who have union contracts, to grievance and arbritration process, access to legal aid for employment issues. If I belonged to a union I would not be sitting here unemployed because I worked for an abusive person who was hitting their own family member the day before I was terminated for standing up for myself.

Like I said before, they are now clawing back the Ontario Child Benefits off both welfare and ODSP cheques, meanwhile spinning it in the news that they are better off.

But then those who are in charge of the bureaucracy of the city social services have no answers and they would not stand up and speak out against the system, they have no morals or ethics, it is only about their jobs, their $200,000 salaries, benefits, pensions, their high income lifestyles.

where are all the whistleblowers?