Not In My Backyard, otherwise known as NIMBYism has become a mainstay attitude for many in Western society. Dinner is a decent metaphorical reference for this attitude, in that everyone needs to eat and yet there will always be a consequence to the consumption of food. Regardless of the method of acquiring the meal one will have to deal with washing dishes, disposing of the packaging the food arrived in or a combination of the two. NIMBYism is typically not applied to washing dishes where as the packaging problem is often offloaded to others.
Of course the reader must realize that garbage is a fact and that if it is not in the 'backyard' of person A it will by necessity have to be in the 'backyard' of person B. While NIMBYism is a real thing it stipulates the bigger problem of garbage generation. For example in the city of Toronto people are not allowed to include black plastic containers in their recycling and yet food vendors are allowed to sell their products in black plastic containers. The obvious answer to black container recycling is to halt the containers at the start of the source.
Recently the article, Toronto’s hotel shelter policy is wreaking havoc on residents, emerged on the hotels turned homeless shelters in the city of Toronto. The article features some of the local home owners and residence giving their opinions on the shelter and what impact the shelter's occupants have had on their neighbourhood. Much like the packaging, leftovers and food scraps these occupants of the shelter are not wanted anywhere near by. These people in the shelters are allocated to a social position much like the scraps and the packaging resulting from eating dinner, for this is yet another problem that can not be solved.
While homelessness is the problem that can't be solved the current NIMBYism doesn't stem from homelessness as the people living in the local hotels, which have been converted to shelters, have simply been the homeless as the homed at a much higher density. The reader should consider this idea borrowed from the advertising industry, repeat the presentation of your product often enough and that product stays front of mind for the masses. Due to the concentration of the now homed homeless, the traditional locals have taken note and they don't like what they see day in and day out or even hour in and hour out depending on the day.
The tantalizing conundrum, as with most things in life, is sorting out the balance of what is good and how things are perceived. Consider the perspective of the local property owners who diligently paid their taxes year after as they watched their property value grew; only to have those same tax dollars be used to devalue that same property in which they invested. Another aspect of the conundrum is the pseudo-caste society that is being built; those that produce nothing are being supported by those who do, thus causing an encouragement towards the attitudinal position of - why should anyone bother when the people who don't do and yet still get by, mind you with a lower standard of living. The driving down of the standard of living has now been made manifest and palatable for even more people.
The drop in the standard of living has not been limited to those individuals being housed in the shelter, as their personal attitude of apathy extends beyond their own fingertips. The neighbourhood has suffered an increase in petty theft via shoplifting and broken windows; a local restaurant has a sign on the door asking for a cessation to the window smashing. Also, restaurants and bars have hired security or additional security to ensure the comfort of the patrons in attendance. Between the insurance deductible and the security guard payments, the knock-on effect being that business costs have gone up and those costs need to be passed on the client base else the business will cease to be viable; this author believes that the actions, by the shelter residence, has caused localized inflation.
Recently a number of warnings have been issued by Police providing local residence safety tips within their own buildings. Some of these tips include: check the elevator before entering, be cautious of people following the resident into their building, a resident should lock their own door even if they are simply dropping garbage down the chute on their own floor. The police are by law representatives of the government and so this author is left asking the question; did the government knowingly put the local residence into a position of danger? Additionally, this author would happily take a one thousand dollar cheque as one of the hundreds who are being impacted by the political decision; so long as the resulting total was drained from the endorsing politicians' pockets.
For to long the politicians have hid behind the
public purse and choices should have consequences else the choice becomes flippant.
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