Why on earth would the City of Toronto pay people to pretend to be homeless when we have enough legitimately homeless people who could really use $100? Some bureaucratic genius decided that it makes sense to pay 100 people $100 each in the form of a prepaid Visa card, so that they can sit around pretending to be homeless on April 15 when the city tries to count how many street people there are. Now this defies all logic. If they are paying 100 people so that they can be counted as homeless people, why not just add 100 to the count and do something really useful for the homeless? Homeless advocate Michael Shapcott of the Wellesley Institute suggests that the money would be better spent going directly to shelters.

To add true comedy to this pathetic situation, these pretend street people will have to attend a 30 minute training seminar in how to act the part. I wonder if the city has hired trained actors to give the seminar. Talk about stereotyping, but what exactly does a homeless person look like and act like? It’s not one size fits all. These are human beings. If you’ve ever had direct contact with homeless people or volunteered at a program like Out of the Cold, then you would know that there is no “street people look”.

Obviously the City of Toronto has no malevolent intentions, but once again they spend money on projects that are not of any benefit to anyone. All that the city has to do to estimate the amount of homeless in our midst is to communicate with the social service agencies and volunteer organizations who serve them. They would surely be able to produce a reliable estimate at no cost.