Rob Ford's Toronto

[SunriseChampion]

I think it's pretty sad that there are people who are still afraid of mental health patients to the point where they'd deny them decent living in a community. That shows a serious lack of character. I wouldn't waste my spit on their faces.

Thanks for the heartening news though.

 

[TOperson]

I don't think anyone's saying it's not challenging to live next to the group home. Doug says "how would you like it next to your house?"

Well... I probably wouldn't like it. But... so what? Why do I have the right to live in that street and they don't??

We all have to put up with other people in order to live in a society. Maybe someone doesn't like the music you play in your home, which they can hear through the walls. Or the sound of your kids shrieking as they run through the sprinkler in the backyard every weekend, for hours and hours, all summer long.

When you buy a house, you get a house, not the whole street.

Both tenants and owners have a right to peaceful enjoyment of their property. It's not a free-for-all (as much as some people behave like it is). But, a group home is small potatoes, disturbance-wise. Unless the cops/EMS are coming to the house with their sirens blazing every time, which is unlikely, there really isn't much to complain about.

I'd trade a group home for my idiot neighbour who fires up a 50-year-old lawnmower at the crack of dawn every Sunday morning and goes over each bit of lawn 3-4 times because God forbid a blade of grass pokes up a little too high.

 

[newearthling]

The original post mentioned a rooming house. I don't want to be pedantic about it, but I'm going to 'cuz why not.

30 Maynard is not a rooming house, it's a boarding home. It's a bigger difference than you'd think.

That being said, you mentioned that it was a long time ago, so in some regards you might be surprised now. 30 M in particular is actually quite well run, and the operator of that home
is quite a good operator. It's a signatory to the Habitat contract (and has been for about, oh, 15 years maybe? 10?). What that means is that the operator receives a rental subsidy from the city of Toronto. What this does is allow to keep fixed, low rental rates for people with mental disabilities, in addition to providing all meals and toiletries, linens, etc. Also, in exchange for that city subsidy it has to abide by the Habitat Contract, which prescribes minimum standards which are enforced by a 7 person inspection team with scheduled and unscheduled inspections. 30 Maynard is actually pretty well run now. It just has a lot of people in it which can make a difference.

A rooming house is just a standard rental of a room, with none of those safeguards.

Also, there are (and I'm just posting this, not to you specifically), some misunderstandings about the community boarding homes. I remember when it became an issue here on St. Clair, I heard lots of people saying "We're not against the clients, we're saying that the owner doesn't take care of them, he lets them panhandle, there's no curfew, etc". Which means they were against the clients. The owner is just a landlord who has to provide living services, not supportive ones. They cannot by law stop an adult from doing anything anymore than anyone else's landlord can.

The rooming house I was talking about, where the lady was killed, was on the east side of the street, so the number would have been odd. And it was closer to King, so it would have been smaller than 30.
30 must have been the place that I thought was a group home. A former client that I had worked with lived there very briefly, and I saw him walking down the street one day. He had been living with his grandmother before that, but she had fallen ill. This was the first time in his 40+ years of living with schizophrenia that he was on his own, but he seemed to be adjusting ok.
I guess that is the biggest difference between I what perceive to be what it is like living in the burbs to living downtown. Perhaps people aren't as scared of 'difference' downtown. There are people from all over the world, people from different economic backgrounds, different developmental backgrounds all shoved in together in the streetcar (or subway.)
But I could be wrong of course. I haven't lived in the suburbs.
(And to bring it back to Rob Ford. I think this discussion is worthy because this 'division' between downtown and the burbs is how we got into this RoFo mess in the first place. )

 

[tiffer24]

In our Toronto neighbourhood, we actively seek to discourage many kinds of anti-social behaviour, not just limited to mental health issues. As taxpayers, we actively encourage these "kinds" of people to seek a home elsewhere:

Constantly crying babies
Toddlers who are teething
Children who can run out into traffic
Teenagers who have large parties and play loud music
Unemployed young adults who hang around all day
Large families from strange cultures
Same-sex couples who may be sending our children mixed messages
Divorced or single parents who may be more than willing to break up happy marriages
Seniors with dementia or disgusting physical ailments

Of course ours is a small neighbourhood, almost totally sealed off from the outside world. We would like to invite Doug Ford to visit our happy community one day to see how discrimination can work, but unfortunately we have a strict policy barring the overweight from walking on our sidewalks.

 

[SunriseChampion]

Hahaaaa......thanks for that, tiffer!

 

[casita]

Even if cops and EMS are there every day, why is that a bother? Be happy they're not at your place and carry on, like a normal person.

The day they find a cure for poverty, homelessness, mental illness, substance abuse, domestic abuse, lack of primary care and education a lot of cops and EMS will be out of a job.

 

[ParkdalePetunia]

The day they find a cure for poverty, homelessness, mental illness, substance abuse, domestic abuse, lack of primary care and education a lot of cops and EMS will be out of a job.

But Doug has found the cure for all of that, hitting a gym! Shouldn't he be pressuring the government to provide free gym memberships for everyone so that all of those things can be cured and we can cut tax dollars to emergency services, mental health facilities and addiction resources?

 

[SunriseChampion]

Actually, Doug's cure would seem to be denying it exists.

 

[casita]

But Doug has found the cure for all of that, hitting a gym! Shouldn't he be pressuring the government to provide free gym memberships for everyone so that all of those things can be cured and we can cut tax dollars to emergency services, mental health facilities and addiction resources?

Doug's type of strategic thinking was way above my pay grade, Parkdale Petunia. I thought the man we elected as our mayor would have a solution to fix the problems. Maybe we'll have better luck with the next one. ( Assuming of course that it won't be the same guy again. )

I was just a button man in the big machine.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

I wonder if a) facility charges 100K/client and b) it's AMAZING!

AoD

 

[SunriseChampion]

I wonder if a) facility charges 100K/client and b) it's AMAZING!

AoD

What, like football camp? Hmm, good question.

 

[adma]

I think it's pretty sad that there are people who are still afraid of mental health patients to the point where they'd deny them decent living in a community. That shows a serious lack of character.

As does the simple use of epithets like "mental people", or statements like "This is a community for people, not for that". Which is no different from referring to "n*ggers", "d*gos", "k*kes", etc.

It ain't just the NIMBY protest, it's the ways in which it's verbalized, too.

 

[thereverend]

This whole "what if it were your street" stuff is driving me mental I live nestled between CAMH and St. Christopher house. We have tenants/users of these services on our street constantly. Sometimes there is even yelling or other disruptive stuff. AND I DON'T CARE! The mentally ill/maladjusted folks in our city have as much right to be here as anyone else. What would drive me crazy would be living in a neighbourhood full of bigots and selfish, small-minded Asshats. Living in a community requires accommodating everyone, rich/poor, sick/well, loud/quiet. This idea that just because you bought a house you are entitled to total lack of disruption, without any obligations to those in your community, is, frankly, a pile of horse shit. Where is Hudak's commentary on this? He has a child with disabilities. Shouldn't he have some defense for these poor kids? End of rant.

 

[PinkLucy]

I still say they should compare the number of times EMS has had to show up at Ford family homes to the number of times they've shown up to this group home and then discuss who the undesirable neighbour is.

I've lived in a neighbourhood with group homes in a small town. It was fine. People need to get over themselves.

 

[casita]

I'm not a mental health expert ( they all seem to be on Twitter for some reason ) but remembering back to Thistletown, it really wasn't such a bad place. At least, not what I saw of it. They had acres where a guy could wander to his heart's

content. "Livin' off the fat of the land."

Cue: "The Happy Wanderer".

On Jeffcoat, the neighbours seem to prefer they remain inside.

Ever read, "Of Mice and Men"? That's sort of what the situation on Jeffcoat reminds me of. They are being made to feel unwelcome in their new neighbourhood.

Sort of like guys just drifting from one ranch boss to the next.