Assisted Browsing
Municipalities have an obligation to serve all of their citizens, those who pay their taxes and those who, through misfortune of one kind or another, struggle to maintain themselves through unconventional means and who require assistance. Assisted housing is meant to offer a reasonable opportunity to the working poor or those on welfare to have decent living accommodations.
Most reasonable taxpayers acknowledge that this, among a plethora of other needed social infrastructures are what they pay their taxes for.
Needless to say there are always problems with people, whether they're in high income brackets and live independently wealthy lives but are a nuisance to their neighbours because of some kind of social incompatibility, or, in the case of a man by the name of Steve Lloyd, taking advantage of assisted housing to develop his habit of rat-packing.
This is a man whose living accommodation, a one-bedroom apartment, has become so packed with items he's picked up there's no room for him or anyone else, under these crammed conditions, to live in the unit. It has become a functioning storage unit, monopolized by this man who seems to feel entitled to its use for that sole purpose. Years of prowling neighbourhoods to pick up discarded items of one kind or another have resulted in this situation.
The housing authorities are attempting to dislodge him from his perch at the top of a highrise, occupying a public-housing unit that is badly needed by thousands of people in need, including families, on a years-long waiting list. This man actually earns his modest living through the sale of objects set out for trash collection which obviously have many more years of use in them.
The apartment, is so stuffed with all manner of objects that it is not even possible to enter it without displacing some of the more immediate objects into the hall outside the door, to gain uncomfortably-packed entry. Access to the bathroom, to the bedroom, impossible. In fact, finding anything in particular in that pack-rat's heaven is well nigh impossible.
The condition of the apartment has become seriously compromised; the fire department has declared it a fire hazard. And two fires have, in fact, broken out in the kitchen of the apartment when it was still habitable, and Mr. Lloyd lived there in his crowded space, and made his meals there. Damage was severe enough to the apartment post-fire, to occasion $40,000 worth of repairs.
None of the other residents appear too exercised about the predicament, perhaps even feeling some neighbourly sympathy for the man. He is, after all, a sociable person, and in fact vice-president of the tenants' association, and the very man whom tenants look to for answers to their questions about the rules and regulations they should follow. And, from time to time, he hauls selected items down to the sidewalk in front of the housing unit.
Items such as computers, vacuum cleaners, birdcages, DVD players, and films; bicycles, popcorn makers, and all manner of furniture. Radios, ice skates, television sets in good working order, complete with remotes. It is, quite simply, amazing what people will discard. And the low-income earners in the unit are only too happy to purchase for a modest price, the clothing he hangs alongside the other goods he has for sale.
He's been in possession of the apartment unit for just about two years. After the two fires set through careless accident, the Ottawa Community Housing authority filed to evict. Hearings were scheduled before the Landlord and Tenant Board, but due to one woe after another the man failed to attend.
What an absurd travesty. Symptomatic of how callous some people become, how cavalierly they use and misuse preferential treatment meant to assist the needy.
There are some times when it seems that legal protocol simply stands in the way of justice.
Most reasonable taxpayers acknowledge that this, among a plethora of other needed social infrastructures are what they pay their taxes for.
Needless to say there are always problems with people, whether they're in high income brackets and live independently wealthy lives but are a nuisance to their neighbours because of some kind of social incompatibility, or, in the case of a man by the name of Steve Lloyd, taking advantage of assisted housing to develop his habit of rat-packing.
This is a man whose living accommodation, a one-bedroom apartment, has become so packed with items he's picked up there's no room for him or anyone else, under these crammed conditions, to live in the unit. It has become a functioning storage unit, monopolized by this man who seems to feel entitled to its use for that sole purpose. Years of prowling neighbourhoods to pick up discarded items of one kind or another have resulted in this situation.
The housing authorities are attempting to dislodge him from his perch at the top of a highrise, occupying a public-housing unit that is badly needed by thousands of people in need, including families, on a years-long waiting list. This man actually earns his modest living through the sale of objects set out for trash collection which obviously have many more years of use in them.
The apartment, is so stuffed with all manner of objects that it is not even possible to enter it without displacing some of the more immediate objects into the hall outside the door, to gain uncomfortably-packed entry. Access to the bathroom, to the bedroom, impossible. In fact, finding anything in particular in that pack-rat's heaven is well nigh impossible.
The condition of the apartment has become seriously compromised; the fire department has declared it a fire hazard. And two fires have, in fact, broken out in the kitchen of the apartment when it was still habitable, and Mr. Lloyd lived there in his crowded space, and made his meals there. Damage was severe enough to the apartment post-fire, to occasion $40,000 worth of repairs.
None of the other residents appear too exercised about the predicament, perhaps even feeling some neighbourly sympathy for the man. He is, after all, a sociable person, and in fact vice-president of the tenants' association, and the very man whom tenants look to for answers to their questions about the rules and regulations they should follow. And, from time to time, he hauls selected items down to the sidewalk in front of the housing unit.
Items such as computers, vacuum cleaners, birdcages, DVD players, and films; bicycles, popcorn makers, and all manner of furniture. Radios, ice skates, television sets in good working order, complete with remotes. It is, quite simply, amazing what people will discard. And the low-income earners in the unit are only too happy to purchase for a modest price, the clothing he hangs alongside the other goods he has for sale.
He's been in possession of the apartment unit for just about two years. After the two fires set through careless accident, the Ottawa Community Housing authority filed to evict. Hearings were scheduled before the Landlord and Tenant Board, but due to one woe after another the man failed to attend.
What an absurd travesty. Symptomatic of how callous some people become, how cavalierly they use and misuse preferential treatment meant to assist the needy.
There are some times when it seems that legal protocol simply stands in the way of justice.
Labels: Human Relations, Realities
posted by Pieface @ 5:49 PM
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