I took this picture yesterday and the guy told me that he was surprised that he wasn't arrested by the Fredericton Police Force.
It's About Poverty - Not Panhandling
Public Forum June 28, 2006 - 7 - 9 pm
(June 19, 2006 - Fredericton, NB) - The recent crackdown on panhandlers in Fredericton's downtown core will be the topic of discussion at a public forum organized by the Fredericton
Anti-Poverty Organization (FAPO). The event will be held on Wednesday, June 28, from 7-9 pm at the Monsignor Boyd Family Center, 120 Regent Street, Fredericton.
Guest speakers include Pat Carlson, Executive Director of the Fredericton Emergency Shelters and George Piers, Administrator of the Fredericton Community Kitchen.
Dan Weston, FAPO Coordinator, says the panhandling issue is a lightening rod for the underlying issues facing the poor in Fredericton and throughout New Brunswick.
"The province of New Brunswick has the lowest welfare rates in the country and an affordable housing crisis sparked by soaring energy costs," Weston said. "Single welfare recipients who get $270 a month cannot afford decent housing or food: consequently, they're out begging on the street to make ends meet."
Weston says it was bad enough before the price of oil "went through the roof" but he predicts it's just going to get worse over the next few months as expected rent increases take effect.
"Expect to see more people begging in the streets and getting arrested. At least they'll have a roof over their heads and three square meals a day courtesy of the taxpayer," says Weston.
Weston believes that it's in everybody's interest to come up with better ways to get people off the streets. He suggests "jobs and affordable housing are a very good place to start and if we can't
give them jobs, then the provincial government has to raise welfare rates to accommodate rent increases."
Both Pat Carlson and George Piers have worked for many years with the city's poor and homeless and view the rising tide of poverty with alarm.
"Understanding the root causes of social issues means examining poverty," says Carlson, whose men's and women's emergency shelters provide housing for the city’s poor. Calling panhandling "a by-product of poverty," she invites everyone, including the city's poor and homeless, to attend the public meeting.
Refreshments and sandwiches will be served and all are welcome.
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For further information, please contact:
Dan Weston / Melynda Jarratt, FAPO, 458-9102 / 474-3476 (cel)
Pat Carlson, Fredericton Emergency Shelters 462-9806
George Piers, Fredericton Community Kitchen, 457-1788
Saturday, June 24, 2006
FAPO HAS A MEETING ABOUT PANHANDING WEDNESDAY!!!
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5 comments:
Yes,we are definitly in for terribly hard times down the road as far as the poor goes in New Brunswick and the cracks are already starting to appear long before this winter gets here.
Rents in rooming houses (SLUMS) here in Saint John have already started going up from an average of 275.00 to as high as 350.00 per month which in turn will empty out a lot of them throughout the warm months but come this winter these people will not be able to get back in unless a desperately needed raise to cover these increases comes with the cold months.
I think this is a very sad step backwords for this province as we may once again hear about a frozen body here and a frozen body there.
And this doesn't even cover the working poor who may have to go back to searching yards and work sites for old cuttings of wood and cardboard to start burning which in turn will also mean more delapitated building fires and deaths here in this province come winter.
God help us on the issue of the poor because we know this Government has no intentions of stepping in!!!!!!???????.
I don't know if they are 'more than happy'. Keep in mind, police are like military, they are soldiers who simply do what they are told. In the spring and summer they are told to keep things empty for the tourists. That's because city administrators and officials are idiots. Tourists don't want to see empty streets and guys with suits, they want to see life. The city would be a great place if they even offered instruments and lessons for people, or canvases, or artwork for the poor to work on. In Barcelona, people can 'adopt' a city sidewalk square and paint or chalk it any way they like (within reason). This makes the downtown area spectacular, compare that to the dull boring Fredericton cityscape which is usually just empty. Of course in europe they actually want to live life, not just work through it.
I think that it is good that there is a format to collectively try to figure out what the problems are for the poor and low-income residents of this Province.
My concern is how much longer is it going to take before the low-income and the poor are treated the same as everyone else. I have personally attended about four of these open house forums that Fapo has hosted and I have heard the speakers get up and comment on what needs to be done to speak to the issue of homelessness, poverty, and low-income issues of the people of this province. We all have been through this before, so when is there going to be some real substantive committment on the part of these agencies who are supposedly working on the behlf of the less fortunate and others who ae have a difficult time to make ends meet.
the time for chatter is long since passed, we need to act now. too many people are dying on our streets and in our alleys how many more have to die or lose eveything they have before this province smartins up and addresses the real issue of poverty and homelessness.
I am going to be there this wednesday and I will have a few questins myself.
People are dying here everyday in New Brunswick. We don't read about it in the news papers because their not important enough to talk about, their just poor people so who cares. We don't hear about all the people that have gone to hospitals that are so weak from starving to death and are in such poor health they just don't make it, people that commit suicide because they are so depressed and can't take it any longer, going without food and a place to live so they kill themselves. They have the lowest rate of assistance here, people just can't live with what they receive each month. New Brunswick should be ashamed of the way they treat the poor people. It sure doesn't look good for New Brunswick, now does it?
well,i think something should be done for the poor.just forbidding is not a
good way.
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