The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
By Jonathon Naylor We've got a food bank, free lunch programs and cheap apartments,' said the reader on the other end of my conversation some time ago. 'We're just asking for trouble.' By 'we' he meant Flin Flon, which certainly has its share of low-income residents as well as charities and accommodations that cater to them. By 'trouble' I suppose he meant the portion of these residents whom he suspects of committing various misdeeds. The implication being that by trying to help the least among us, Flin Flon is not helping itself. Unless I'm on a tight deadline, I always like to engage in these little debates. I like hearing what people have to say about local happenings, whether I agree or not. It helps me understand all the different perspectives. But what irritates me are generalizations, and this particular conversation was full of them. There was the generalization that we better not give food to someone who says they are hungry because it only helps them buy cigarettes and booze. There was the generalization that we better not have cheap apartments because people who can't afford something better, well, there must be some sinister reason they don't have money, right? Basically, in this reader's mind, not having money, or at least much of it, is such a reliable predictor of crime and substance abuse that we must cut off all forms of help. But that's not the way we do things in Flin Flon. I still like to think of this as a community where we help each other, or at least try to, regardless of social class or the potential for our generosity to be abused. Road to hell But I know the reader to whom I spoke that day is not alone. Many other residents have enrolled themselves in the 'the road to hell is paved with good intentions' school of thought. It's not that they are totally 100 per cent wrong. There are some people who play the system, who accept forms of assistance they don't really need, who would live up to their potential if only they took more responsibility for themselves. And yes, there are some people whose addictions, be it alcohol, tobacco or something else, are fuelled in part by the money they are able to save by claiming help from well-meaning folks. I'm sure some of them commit crimes, too. But there are also the legitimately down and out, the people who stretch their dollars as far as they can and still come up short. There are the single moms fleeing abuse, the young adults with no supports and the elderly on fixed incomes. There are the disabled, both mentally and physically, who receive obscenely little aid from the government. There are people who aren't blessed with a good job or education, who work for a pittance. Flin Flon has people who fall into all of these categories, and more. They may not make the pages of The Reminder or the airwaves of CFAR. You may not know who they are. But they are there. So how can we possibly screen out those who really need help from those who don't when so much of this is subjective? There are some obvious steps. The Lord's Bounty Food Bank, for instance, requires clients to provide proof of their low income before receiving groceries. But even with those types of measures in place, there is no foolproof way to help people. No matter what you do, a percentage will always take advantage. That doesn't mean you devise a 'survival of the fittest' society where you simply terminate services aimed at the less fortunate, as my reader friend would apparently prefer. It just means we live in an imperfect world where a small amount of bad can accompany a large amount of good. Local Angle runs Fridays.
