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Home My WebLink AboutTimes Advocate, 1999-12-08, Page 66 A.02k `15 Exeter Times—Advocate Wednesday,December 8, 1999 Editorial&Qpinion T1M1S-A1)VOCATE PUBUCATIONS MAIL REGISTRATION NUMBER 07511 Jim Beckett Publisher and Editor Don Smith General Manager Production Manager Deb Lord Published by J.W. Eedy Publications Limited 424 Main Street South, P.O. Box 850 Exeter. Ontario NOM 1S6 • (519) 235-1331 EDITORIAL Homelessness not just a city problem en one thinks of homeless people, an Wen picture comes to mind of a grubby drunk, sleeping under a pile of newspapers in a city park, or a ragged woman pushing her worldly possessions around in a shopping cart. The picture might include images of men trying to get a bit of sleep in crowded, smoke filled hostels, or outreach volunteers handing out hot soup to street peo- ple on icy nights, or a group of derelicts huddled around a garbage can fire in an abandoned rail yard. It is largely an urban picture, perhaps because a city's homeless are visible. Social services people can count those who seek beds in shelters, and who visit soup kitchens. The , homeless person in wool hat and grubby parka, ratty beard and unwashed skin, stands out in a crowd of business suits. The overall impression is homelessness is an urban problem. Yet rural areas have their homeless people. They are simply less visible, tending to drift from place to place, picking up a few hours' work where they can, sleeping in abandoned farm buildings sometimes but more often staying with various friends, and never real- ly becoming part of any single community's population. One might see a homeless man hitching a ride in the rain, or wandering along the road picking up empty beer bottles. The grubby coat and unshaven face do not stand out nearly as much in a rural area as they do in a city. With few soup kitchens and fewer hostels, it is diffi- cult ifficult to count the rural homeless, but they are out there, make no mistake. They include the kid who shows up around mealtime and who never seems to go home or even call home; the guy who chucks a brick through the post office window when the first storm of winter hits, trading a few weeks of freedom for three square meals a day and a warm place to sleep; and whoever it is who fixed up the old shed back in the woods (cardboard nailed on the walls, candle stubs in cat food tins, and a table made from a stolen recycling bin). Also numbered among the rural homeless is the elderly man in the chronic care ward at the Local hospi- tal; reasonably healthy apart from being undernour- ished and somewhat confused, he could be cared for at home, if he had a home to go to. Homeless people fall through the cracks in the cities, despite the presence of hostels and social services, despite the general recognition there is a problem with the urban homeless. Every winter some poor soul is found frozen to death in a store doorway or on the grating outside an office building. The news stories follow, with photos of some- one sipping an unknown substance from a paper bag, and an interview or two with some official bemoaning the lack of beds in hostels. Sometimes the stories hit a nerve, and a group donates a shipment of Arctic sleep- ing bags to hand out to the street people, or a bit of funding trickles through the red tape to the front lines. The rural homeless slip through the cracks, too. They have many of the same problems as their urban counterparts, including lack of low cost apartments, and difficulty accessing social assistance. The rural homeless have the added problem of distance. Social services offices and medical care facilities are usually located in urban areas, and that can be a very long way away on a rainy autumn night. The major problem faced by the rural homeless is the general perception they do not exist. They do. OMAFRA gutting at expense of neral Ontario Last Thursday's announcement of the gutting of the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs is bad for rural Ontario on several counts. OMAFRA Minister Ernie Hardeman made the announcement with the usual Tory rhetoric that the changes will allow the government to "better support the kind of expertise and technology that will give our agri food industry and rural communities a more com- petitive edge." Were we born yesterday? The restructuring closes 32 field service offices and replaces them with 13 Agriculture Technology Resource Centres for all of southern Ontario and seven Business Enterprise Centres to encourage growth of rural businesses. Co -locations will have a small contingent of staff who will, as far as I can see, try to get other rural organizations to do the work. Always beware when the government says it is "partnering." It really means they want you to do their work for free. The streamlining also includes the formation of Government Information Centres and an Agricultural Information Call Centre. Nowhere in all the information does it men- tion anything about OMAFRA staff coming to your farm to give you a straight, unbiased solution to your problem. You can phone them and they'll send you a brochure. You and 50 other farmers can attend a seminar even by someone in a suit who hasn't seen the light of day since his vacation. Or you can look up OMAFRA information on the Internet unless you're the 60 per cent of farmers who don't have access to the Internet either for economic reasons or because their rural phone systems won't support Internet access. I'm not saying OMAFRA staff or the unwieldy hierar- chy were perfect. But this move throws the baby out with the bath water. The current .government has been notorious for slashing rural services. A few years ago it was Ontario's conservation authorities, known for their expertise in delivering services to the people who were the target. A little later, the axman came to the Ministry of Natural Resources. About the same time, Ministry of the Environment water testing and enforce- ment resources were annihilated. The government has been making all these changes in the name of eliminating duplication in the public sector. The only problem is, they've downsized the ser- vices or downloaded the responsibilities to municipali- ties. It's not improving the way services are being delivered. It's eliminating the service, espe- cially to anyone living outside the bright lights of the GTA. In Huron, Perth and Middlesex, . farmers are fortunate for each county will have a resource centre. But.. there will be no professional min- istry agriculture staff in Grey, Bruce, Dufferin and Stirlen ^ counties. So who will farmers be forced to turn to for inform- ► .1? : iivate businesses. You can bet agri-bus, ssses will be willing to send a staffer out to the farm. But can they be counted on to give an unbiased answer? Of course not! They may be the best people at heart but their job is to push their product. If a service rep is selling Brand A, he's not going to tell you Brand B is better suited to your situation. In all the shuffling, many good OMAFRA staff will be lost and those who remain will be tied to their desks. Field trips costs way too much money! Agri -businesses will hire the good staff who used to come to your farm to give you a straight answer. Private businesses will take advantage of all the exper- tise the OMAFRA staff gained while working for us and use the knowledge and skills to make more money at your expense. KATE MONK KATE'S TAKES This restructuring is just another urban solution at the expense of rural Ontario. About the Times -Advocate Address & Office Hours Times -Advocate, 424 Main Street South, P.O. Box 850, Exeter, Ontario NOM 1S6. Our office is open Monday to Friday, 8:30 am to 5:00 pm. Contact Us By Phone or Fax Classified ad & subscription sales ....(519) 235-1331 24-hour automated attendant (519) 235-1336 Fax number for all departments (519) 235-0766 Subscription Rates One year rate for addresses in Canada: $35+GST Two year rate for addresses in Canada: $63+GST One year rate for addresses outside Canada: $1O2 Call (519) 235-1331 to order a subscription. Classified Rates Word ads: $9.00 for 20 words, 15* for each additional word+ GST. Notices (births, deaths, announcements, coming events, memoriams, cards of thanks): $11.00 + GST for up to 30 words, All ads must be pre -paid. 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