You look human . . . can you spare 70 cents

Yesterday my bro and I were walking around the bay-front coridoor, on our way to pick up jays tickets. We were celebrating mothers day/seans b-day/toronto has sars . . . on our way to the redeem our tickets we say several homeless men dealing with the harsh wind. Which is such an improvment from the bitter cold winter we had. Anyways this one guy came up to us and said " You two look human, not trendy or suits, do you think you can spare 70 cents, if I get ten people to give me that I have $10 adn can get food and a place to stay" We handed over a loonie. Sean and I were talking and he said that he has a $3 a week buget to hand out on the streets. Its so hard to have to say no to some and yes to other, but sean is right we would be broke (not that we arn't already) if we gave money or food to everyone who asked for it. This guy was charming and we gave him money . . . i feel that it should be based on need and not charm. But really the problem with poverty and homlessness is so server, the people who make the funny signs tend to get part of my few dollar buget for the week.

What amazed me about this particular guy was four hours later, when I was walking on Spadina with my mom I say him again, he nodded and said "thank you" . . . so impressed
this city is so unfriendly to homeless people it makes me sick. The instituional structures to rid the visibility of this population is discusting. They have changed ttc benches so no one can sleep on them, they have removed ttc shleter compleately or partial walls so no one will stay there for pertection from the elements. banks have locked their doors after hours so no one can hang out inside. tent city was evicted, homeless peoples property is removed to avoid "eye soars". Shelters are not getting enough funding and the list goes on. Our city would rather push this already margnialized community further in to the margins in order to avoid having to look at them then deal the the problem of poverty in our city.

Imagine instead of having "toronto has sars" campaign to get poeple to spend money on the theater, restaurants and sporting events they had "toronto has povery problems" campaign to create affordable housing and safer shelters. It coudl be . . .join a protest for afforable housing, hand out food, blankets, medication etc to those who need it, give money to organizations that are trying to make a difference. We could have thousand of tickets for sale to an event to illiminate poverty . .. a limited time offer . . . Saddly the people who have money do not see poverty as something that directly effects their lives and therefore the campaign would be falling on deaf ears and preaching to the converted.