Toronto 'takes the cake' for wasting tax
Homeless Survey
Toronto's 2009 homeless audit beat out three municipal contenders to earn top public censure from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation yesterday.
In announcing the Teddy Waste Awards on Parliament Hill, the federation's Colin Craig called the audit a "slap in the face" to homeless people in Toronto.
"The reaction among Torontonians was that it was a very bizarre use of tax dollars, one that had them up in arms," Mr. Craig said in an interview after the tongue-in-cheek awards ceremony.
Last year's homeless audit, a program designed to assess the needs of street people, involved sending out about 50 planted decoys who were paid $100 each to pretend to be homeless. Then, volunteers, some of whom also received payment, ventured out to survey the homeless.
The city said the decoys were an important mechanism to ensure statistical reliability, because if one was missed, it would logically follow that some actual homeless people were also missed, and overall results would be adjusted accordingly. But the program drew criticism as some councillors questioned why the city would pay the decoys, rather than the street people.
The audit earned a Teddy because of "the lunacy of paying people $100 to dress up as homeless people and act like them on the streets, combined with the fact that homeless people couldn't apply for the work," Mr. Craig said.
Patricia Anderson, a spokeswoman for Toronto's department of shelter, support and housing, quipped that the award was "a great addition to our many awards for Streets to Homes work," noting great efforts were made to recruit people who were previously homeless.
"Since the survey was of homeless people, those who were homeless at the time of the survey were not recruited," she explained. The $100 honorarium was paid to compensate volunteers for four to five hours of work.
A recent assessment determined there are more than 5,000 homeless people on the streets of Toronto and living in shelters, health-care facilities and prisons. In 2009, about $161-million was spent on housing and homelessness supports in the city, the majority coming from other government levels, Ms. Anderson said.
Toronto beat out three other cities to take the Teddy award in the municipal category. Calgary was nominated after councillors spent $6,700 on dry-cleaning bills; Winnipeg earned a nod for a councillor who expensed a $739 satellite radio and subscription; and Edmonton was targeted for a $1.4-million promotional website that has failed to garner much attention outside of the city.
"It was a competitive category, I'll put it that way," Mr. Craig said, noting the goal of the awards is to educate the public about wasteful government spending. "But at the end of the day, we were pretty sure the homeless audit took the cake."
The Teddies, named after former federal bureaucrat Ted Weatherhill, who was fired a decade ago amid an expense controversy, have been running for 12 years.
In announcing the Teddy Waste Awards on Parliament Hill, the federation's Colin Craig called the audit a "slap in the face" to homeless people in Toronto.
"The reaction among Torontonians was that it was a very bizarre use of tax dollars, one that had them up in arms," Mr. Craig said in an interview after the tongue-in-cheek awards ceremony.
Last year's homeless audit, a program designed to assess the needs of street people, involved sending out about 50 planted decoys who were paid $100 each to pretend to be homeless. Then, volunteers, some of whom also received payment, ventured out to survey the homeless.
The city said the decoys were an important mechanism to ensure statistical reliability, because if one was missed, it would logically follow that some actual homeless people were also missed, and overall results would be adjusted accordingly. But the program drew criticism as some councillors questioned why the city would pay the decoys, rather than the street people.
The audit earned a Teddy because of "the lunacy of paying people $100 to dress up as homeless people and act like them on the streets, combined with the fact that homeless people couldn't apply for the work," Mr. Craig said.
Patricia Anderson, a spokeswoman for Toronto's department of shelter, support and housing, quipped that the award was "a great addition to our many awards for Streets to Homes work," noting great efforts were made to recruit people who were previously homeless.
"Since the survey was of homeless people, those who were homeless at the time of the survey were not recruited," she explained. The $100 honorarium was paid to compensate volunteers for four to five hours of work.
A recent assessment determined there are more than 5,000 homeless people on the streets of Toronto and living in shelters, health-care facilities and prisons. In 2009, about $161-million was spent on housing and homelessness supports in the city, the majority coming from other government levels, Ms. Anderson said.
Toronto beat out three other cities to take the Teddy award in the municipal category. Calgary was nominated after councillors spent $6,700 on dry-cleaning bills; Winnipeg earned a nod for a councillor who expensed a $739 satellite radio and subscription; and Edmonton was targeted for a $1.4-million promotional website that has failed to garner much attention outside of the city.
"It was a competitive category, I'll put it that way," Mr. Craig said, noting the goal of the awards is to educate the public about wasteful government spending. "But at the end of the day, we were pretty sure the homeless audit took the cake."
The Teddies, named after former federal bureaucrat Ted Weatherhill, who was fired a decade ago amid an expense controversy, have been running for 12 years.
No comments:
Post a Comment