Toronto: Homeless Man Frozen to Death

Shelter is not an option. It is a matter of life and death, especially on long Canadian winter nights.

OCAP:

Wednesday night an Aboriginal man who was homeless was found frozen to death in a stairwell around Yonge and Charles St. Another man was found in Chinatown with serious injury from exposure.

Just six days ago the City heard 12 deputations from agencies and community members about the current crisis. After the loss of over 300 shelter spaces and basic needs such as food, we have been left in a dangerous situation. Demands were made for only the most basic need -shelter. The City's response was to leave people in danger and to risk injury and death. The death of this man and the injury and suffering of other homeless people is on the hands of the City.

On Tuesday will be going to City Hall to face Miller and demand an immediate response to this crisis. This is aserious situation and we ask that you make all efforts to join us. For more info contact OCAP.

Meanwhile, here's a new publication on the shelter crisis in Toronto (PDF). It looks at some of the results of the cuts to the shelter system, including the 5 downtown shelters that the city recently shut down. The $4 million dollar saving comes at a cost of increasing overcrowding at other shelters. People are walking and waiting for hours, only to be turned away. The lucky ones get to sleep on chairs inside. The not so lucky... well, they might freeze to death.

Taking a look at the current shelter crisis in Toronto, this issue includes writing on the $4 million cuts to the shelter system, the new police cameras at Dundas and Sherbourne, the illusion of the City's "Streets to Homes" policy and crumbling public housing.

Read more on homelessness -especially this

I Hate to say I Told You So...

But I told you so. Or to be more accurate, everyone who cares more about people than profit told you so.

From a post in 2005 about biofuels:

Not only inefficient, but "a humanitarian and environmental disaster", says George Monbiot, presenting a chilling vision, in which "most of the arable surface of the planet will be deployed to produce food for cars, not people." He reminds us that markets respond to profit, not hunger. Those who need food the most are exactly the ones with the least amount of money to buy it, and so the monied person's car will always win out. He reminds us that even today, those who buy meat products have more purchasing power, so grain is fed to animals instead of to starving kids.

In 2006, when I blogged about the Global Food Supply Near the Breaking Point, the problem was overproduction and low commodity prices driving smaller farmers out.

"Many Canadian and U.S. farmers are going out of business because crop prices are at their lowest in nearly 100 years," Qualman said in an interview. "Farmers are told overproduction is to blame for the low prices they've been forced to accept in recent years."

However, most North American agribusiness corporations posted record profits in 2004. With only five major companies controlling the global grain market, there is a massive imbalance of power, he said.

Now, here we are in 2008, and the UN's food aid programme is in serious trouble, due to the astronomical increase in the price of food.

What is the problem?

In the three decades to 2005, world food prices fell by about three-quarters in inflation-adjusted terms, according to the Economist food prices index. Since then they have risen by 75%, with much of that coming in the past year. Wheat prices have doubled, while maize, soya and oilseeds are at record highs.

Why are food prices rising?

The booming world economy has driven up prices for all commodities. Changes in diets have also played a big part. Meat consumption in many countries has soared, pushing up demand for the grain needed by cattle. Demand for biofuels has also risen strongly. This year, for example, one third of the US maize crop will go to make biofuels*. Moreover, the gradual reform and liberalisation of agricultural subsidy programmes in the US and Europe have reduced the butter and grain mountains of yesteryear by eliminating overproduction.

*Note, because of the high cost of food, the "US, the biggest single food aid contributor, will radically cut the amount it gives away."

Again, I recognize that there are many problems with the food aid system, because it does nothing to help the economic structural problems that are to blame for hunger and malnutrition (food aid can in some cases even harm local food producers, say by undercutting them) but this is certainly not the answer.

One person, one body, one count

Who has fought hardest to prevent violence against women, if not feminists? And it is advocates for women, like the beleaguered Status of Women Canada, who have been working to alert the public to the prevalence of violence against pregnant women.

From the SWC publication, Assessing Violence Against Women: A Statistical Profile:

Women are particularly vulnerable when they are pregnant and when they take steps to leave their violent partners. With regard to pregnancy, the Violence Against Women Survey found that 21% of abused women were assaulted during their pregnancy, and in 40% of these cases, this episode was the beginning of the abuse.
[...]
The public also has relatively low awareness levels of prenatal violence with 20% [of a survey taken in New Brunswick] undecided on whether physical abuse of a woman often starts during pregnancy and 44% who disagree that violence often starts at this time.

Without the constant hard work of feminists and organizations like the SWC, domestic violence - including violence against pregnant women - would likely drop off the public radar. Who researches reports, creates policy recommendations, organizes programs for abused women, and builds women's shelters? I'll give you a hint: it isn't the anti-abortion movement.

So for them to claim that opposing the Unborn Victims of Crime Bill (Bill C-484) is somehow demonstrating a lack of care for these women is pretty ridiculous. One could note that being so keen to abolish the SWC displays a callous disregard for all the women, including the pregnant sort, that it works so hard to help.

A woman who has chosen to give birth, who wants and welcomes her baby, has invested the fetus with her hopes and dreams. Indeed she comes to think of the fetus as a baby before it is born. Nobody denies this. It doesn't follow that the fetus should be enshrined in law as an unborn child, and a human being with the same status as the mother. Harm to the fetus that she has come to care for is a tragedy, particularly when it is caused by violence to her own body. If we want to protect pregnant women, then let's enact effective policy and write meaningful laws to protect pregnant women, not disingenuous laws for fetal rights.

Other comments on here, here, here, and here, and especially here - among many others today