Raise the Hammer

Call me cynical, but when there's only six rich white guys (albeit excellent, outstanding members of the community) who are offering solutions in Section 7 of this thing about how to end poverty in this city, I get a little frustrated.

And on the other hand, when I talk about how poverty doesn't mean helplessness, I get flak from people who think that I'm rich, privileged, upper-class.. blah blah blah. Yeah, right... I come from an elite family of farmers and truck drivers :P

I guess what frustrates me in these pieces is that they create this giant chasm between the "wealthy" and the "poor" with sweeping generalizations about each. There's many who don't fit those stereotypes.

I think it was Chris Spence (no disrespect to him) who asked how a family living on a meagre income can afford to send their kids to McMaster. Well.. that's why OSAP exists, so they don't have to. Money isn't the barrier keeping their kids from school. Money alone isn't in the way of getting an education in Ontario - especially not at any of our public colleges or universities. But that fact was never mentioned. It's a way of thinking and a mindset. Why can't we surpass York University and make McMaster full of the most people who are getting OSAP and being the first generation of their families to go to school?

In the same vein, I got really frustrated last year to hear the recommended grocery budget of $700+ for a family of four last year as the minimum to buy nutritious foods. That's not the magic bullet. Don't tell me people who "can't afford" anything besides chicken fingers and fries will magically switch to the (cheaper) chicken drummies and rice once they get a grocery budget. I always shop at same ghetto Tisdale No Frills that most people turn their noses up at... and the last thing you see most people loading up on is nutritious food. But when those welfare cheques come out, the overpriced junk and fat and sugar and salt that's I see piles of sold is absolutely criminal. I come out of the same place with cheap, nutritious food that takes minutes to make. It's possible. I don't think more money will fix the norms of junk food around poverty or the lack of skill or education around nutrition or food prep. I see no indication that's going to change with more money.

And then we get this kind of reverse education-based privilege where sometimes the "rich" in the city are the ones who do the cheapest, healthiest things. Richer people do a lot of biking (with the accompanying bike culture), not poor people. Rich people have the norm of going out to jog and walk. Rich people have a norm of eating oatmeal and bran. Rich people stop smoking... but the poor keep smoking, eating junk, and sitting on the couch.... because this idea of being thrifty, of saving, of being careful with our bodies and money and food and activities is totally absent from most people's thinking, and only introduced as some minor self-improvement curative for the wealthy ones looking to "simplify" or reduce their carbon emissions.

A minimum guaranteed income may be the best solution we have... but funny how nothing really changed with the guaranteed minimum wage, either. No one's thinking that income is enough now, but I don't like solutions that are as simplistic as "give everyone more money" however well they may work.

Because the underlying problems of a convenience culture and entitlement are still there. Nutrition won't go up just because people have more money if they still have neighbourhoods full of KFCs and Money Marts and pizza shacks, or have never learned to make any kind of food besides frozen entrees. Education won't necessarily go up - OSAP's always been there, people just don't know about it or think they can achieve it. Sure, it may do a better job of taking care of those who already REALLY need it.. but for my money, I'd rather see guaranteed, paid daycare for everyone's kids as long as they were guaranteed to be working full-time or back in school full-time, because then people would have a shot at breaking the cycle.

But when people who have never made a welfare budget work or made a disability budget work or made an OSAP budget work or made a minimum-wage budget work want to find solutions for "the poor" perhaps they should be asking those who DO succeed on those limited budgets what their strategies are - and how to transfer them to others.

Comment edited by Meredith on 2010-04-19 20:58:21