The Latest From Silly Hall Makes Perfect Sense Unless.....

....you are an uncaring neocon individual without a hint of compassion or charity for your fellow man/women struggling to make ends meet and pay increased property taxes, increased utility, transportation and food costs working two jobs survive and you don't have a social assistance cheque from the city waiting for you each month.

Can you spare $2.5 million? Proposal calls for hiring 48 more street workers to help -- not eliminate -- Toronto's panhandlers

By SUE-ANN LEVY

After spending nearly a year studying Toronto's pesky street begging issue, officials at Socialist Silly Hall have concluded more scarce city money must be spent to address the "needs" of people who panhandle.

In an almost absurd 50-page report to tomorrow's executive committee, the city's homeless bureaucrats propose that instead of putting in place an anti-panhandling bylaw (as they are able to do under the City of Toronto Act), $2.5 million and a new team of 48 street workers be added immediately to their Streets to Homes fiefdom to assist those who panhandle to get services, housing (if they need it) and "where possible" employment.

That amount is on top of the $8.7 million already being spent this year on the Streets to Homes program, which officials boast has been responsible for housing 1,600 homeless people since 2005. Officials propose that the funding top-up increase by $4.9 million next year.

The bulk of the money, it would seem, will be spent on two mobile teams who will provide a "social service response" seven days a week from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. to legal panhandlers plying their trade both in the downtown core (from Yorkville down to Lake Ontario) and in other parts of the city.

"We are taking the successful Streets to Homes program to the next level," Phil Brown, general manager of shelter, support and housing told me last week. "We are investing more to make sure we end street homelessness and the number of people who need to panhandle."

Asked what they mean by "legal" panhandlers, he said those are people pursuing any begging actions not defined as illegal and a police matter under the Safe Streets Act -- for instance begging in front of ATMs or in the middle of the road.

I wondered if obstructing the sidewalk or blocking the doorway of a doughnut shop while panhandling was considered legal or illegal. "I think it's legal," Brown said.

In fact the report suggests at least eight managers of businesses in the downtown core described beggars who opened doors for their customers as "service providers" rather than panhandlers. "The business community is very supportive of the social service approach," Brown added.

When I asked Brown who those business people might be -- considering that I've talked to many who want some tough love applied to the problem -- he couldn't say.

As if the panhandling plan isn't wacky enough, a survey conducted last July of 233 panhandlers (who were also subjected to an "intensive" social service response for 12 weeks) borders on an insult to our intelligence, not to mention surreal.

YEARS OF EXPERIENCE

For instance, the report indicates 66% of beggars surveyed "sit" while panhandling, that people who panhandle are on average 37.9 years of age and they beg nearly seven hours a day, 5.7 days a week.

The survey also found that on average people had been panhandling for 14 years, with some 11% begging for as much as 20 years or more.

The top reasons given for panhandling included acquiring extra money for food they want or for cigarettes, alcohol and drugs.

In a focus group(!) conducted with a select group of 12 panhandlers, the participants indicated they could not stop begging because they wanted to earn money without their social assistance cheques being affected.

I have a hard time believing, given these findings, that any of the panhandlers surveyed really want to get a job. This only reinforces my feeling panhandling is a lifestyle.

Nevertheless, the report's recommendations -- which come almost a year after dozens of downtown business owners appeared before the mayor and his executive committee begging for something to be done about the increasingly aggressive beggars impacting their shops and hotels -- were a foregone conclusion.

After all, Coun. Case Ootes had been trying since January of 2007 (and former councillor Jane Pitfield for a year before that) to convince the mayor and his minions to consider an anti-panhandling bylaw similar to Vancouver and more than a dozen other Canadian cities. Such a request has continually fallen on deaf ears.

Coun. Doug Holyday, a proponent of the "zero tolerance" approach to begging, said this plan will "feed the industry.

"Every time the public shows concern about homelessness, the plan always involves us hiring dozens of new staff," he said. "No panhandling should be permitted."