Pathways to Freedom

So the "Harper Government" is offering Pathways to Education $20 million worth of funding over four years.

Frankly, this is one of the best investments this government has made. Now I'm not a big fan of throwing government money around. After all, that government money comes from somewhere, namely your pockets and mine. But, when you have a worthwhile initiative that invests in growth, and makes us a stronger nation, I think you make that investment, as the benefits will far outweigh the cost in the end.

Pathways to Education is a program that was started in Regent Park. Their niche is recruiting Grade 9 students in the particular community of their focus, and working with that group of students from when they enter high school, through till they're in post-secondary education.

The program works for a number of reasons. Because they target all the 14 year olds in the community, the youth tend to want to partake, as if their peers are involved, they must be involved as well. So why would anyone want to be involved? Pathways provides a place to not only hangout after school for youth (keeping them off the streets), but it essentially provides an incentive for youth to stay in school.

Social workers follow-up on student grades and check-in with their schools, and so long as students stay in school, they receive some token financial support from Pathways. This token financial support can culminate in the youth's first year of post-secondary with a $4000 scholarship towards tuition, as well as small honorariums for living expenses.

So why should any organization do this? Shouldn't these youth be motivated to go to school, work hard, and achieve things just like youth in any other community? Sure, they should. The more the odds are stacked against you, the more resilience you should show. However, finding the positive role models, especially where broken homes are quite prevalent, is a monumental task.

By providing the support system that the youth lack at home, Pathways is providing an opportunity for these youth to secure their freedoms and liberties.

Should we be giving people handouts? No... But frankly, since there seems to be no other answer to end poverty, the least we can do is give the youngest of our vulnerable members of society a chance to escape. If they work hard, prioritize their education, and finish school, the odds are that these Pathways kids will become productive, contributing members of society. And frankly, the less people that draw on the system, the better for you and me.

So here's to hoping that if our government spends money, we invest it in the future, and not on frivolous things which will add no value to our society.

Kudos to you Mr. Harper, on recognizing success and throwing good money behind good money.

See y'all on the other side.

- Mack

Memo to Rob Ford: How To Fix Toronto Community Housing

So Toronto Community Housing Corporation got booked for wasting taxpayer dollars.

The findings are scary. $1850 for a boat cruise, $1900+ for a spa day for staff recognition, a $6000 planning session in Muskoka, $90 000 spent on "holiday" parties for two seasons...

Want to know what's scarier? They didn't even find all the waste.

It's kind of sad. I truly believe that TCHC does good work. Why? Let's just say I'm very familiar with the inner workings. The organization has done lots for the tenants in their buildings in the time I've observed them. I think they provide a vital service, which if it were to cease to exist, would turn Toronto into Detroit or some other hell hole of an American city. By this I mean rampant homelessness, poverty, hopelessness, and all the crime and violence that come with that type of situation. This is to say I'd much rather have a TCHC where we can support the vulnerable, instead of letting them suffer all over the city.

However, having fiscally conservative values, I cannot stand to see the abuses of this institution, and I don't just mean from the management side. Part of the problem are the tenants themselves. TCHC, or any social housing for that matter, is supposed to be a temporary solution for people till they can get back on their feet and do well for themselves. That's often not the case. There are third and fourth generation tenants living in TCHC buildings. What's the excuse?... In fact, I've been in communities where this is a source of pride. Tenants brag about how they are raising their kids in the same home that their grandparents raised their parent in.

So why is this a problem?

TCHC currently has a ridiculous waiting list that could be the population of a rural village in northern Ontario. There are people amongst those on that waiting list who aren't simply looking to mooch off the backs of taxpayers. The truly vulnerable do exist, but for every one of those, there are a plethora of other tenants in TCHC abusing the system.

As taxpayers, we need to ask ourselves whether we want to fund a shit show such as this, or whether we should take that money and re-invest it into education for all those tenants in TCHC young enough to go to school or to go back to school. Let's give them all the adequate training they need, and find them all jobs. The sooner we get these dead weights out of the system, the sooner the system will become sustainable, and they'll become productive members of society.

In addition, TCHC communities are shitty because no one living in the community takes pride in it. Why don't they take pride in their community? Well, it looks like shit. You can't blame them. So what can we do to rectify it? As a stipulation for living in TAXPAYER SUBSIDIZED HOMES, if you are under the age of 30, you should be required to commit to a specific number of community service hours every year. You can set it up so your tenants beginning at the age of 14 would do 50 hours of community service, and with every year of age, your community service hours would decrease. Why would we do this? If someone is helping to mop the floor of an elevator, do you think that's the same person that's going to be pissing on it? Do you think if someone had to scrub graffiti off the walls, they're going to be the one defacing the wall to begin with?

I've seen communities where people have come together to work on building playgrounds, creating community spaces, planting flowers, and generally beautifying their community. What's the effect? Pride. People are PROUD of the fact that they contributed to the improvement. What are the trickle down effects? If they're proud of it, they tend to protect and take care of it.

Why hasn't someone thought of this yet? I'm sure someone has. Why has nothing been done to make it a reality then? Equality. It's a two-fold issue of equity. All the special interest groups would start crying that we're forcing hardship upon the most vulnerable in our society. Well, if you're missing a leg, am I going to send you to war? No. Likewise, if you're unable to do physical labour, you're exempt (or maybe you start a book club for your community instead -- anything to make it more attractive to live). The other issue of equity, which I will go into sometime in another post, is the power of the labour unions. TCHC has two separate union affiliations, and if tenants were to start doing the work the unionized workers with their cozy benefits and fat salaries currently do, the unions would be pissed. And let's be honest, every politician in Canada turns into chicken shit when they have to battle a union.

Here's to hoping Rob Ford changes this, and I hope he adapts some of these ideas.

I'm a believer in the government lending a helping hand to the most vulnerable in our society, but we need to do it better, and show some seriousness in wanting to fix the problem.

Name Change

After a good amount of thought and consideration, I think we're going to change the name.

Indeed, it is a new era. But there will always be a newer era. An era will begin and end. You cannot document multiple eras in one space.

There will however, always be another side. If you say black, I say white. If you say up, I say down. There's always going to be an opposite side, view, or stance on anything I can say here.

So... with great caution...

Welcome to From the Other Side.

I'll share about work, school, and life through my lens, and hopefully provide a glimpse of where my day takes me.

See you on the other side!

- Mack

I'm Back!

Finally back on Blogspot, which isn't even Blogspot anymore. I went through a lot of my old posts today, and realized that I was a very open blogger back in the day. Those days are no more.

I like the concept of blogging. It's therapeutic, and you get your voice out there. There are no rules for this blog, except there are no rules for this blog. On any given day you'll see raves, rants, snapshots of my daily grind, and interesting, weird, or peculiar things that I will highlight from the information highway.

We're moving forward, not looking back, and that's why we're going to call this one New Era... It's the dawn of a new era...

Success is the only mothaf_____' option, failure's not.