A shift from Victorian thinking

I have mentioned to people here a number of times that I find the Victorian model of caring for the poor that is played out in Nova Scotia quite stunning in its dinosaurosity. I usually get the Nova Scotia huh stare for that, and it's not just my unacceptable use of the non-word dinosaurosity.

Poverty is usually structurally-based, I explain.

More staring.

People who are poor are generally poor because there's some flaw in the design of the society's structures, not because they are lazy or bad, I explain.

Shift to polite staring.

For example, the best way to get a job here is through networking, yeah... so, if you're poor and you don't know any working people/ golf people/ can't join a gym/ drive to a volunteering event, then your chances of getting a job go down, yeah... and that's a structural issue in society....

Extreme polite staring with added uncomfortable shuffle.

Sheesh.... I never know if they think I'm wrong, or they think I'm insane, or if they just don't know what the hell I'm talking about.

Then today, I get this in an email from some social policy institute in Canada (the Caledon Instititue I think.... I get so many).

How I chuckled... hahahaha.... they just think I'm a bleedin' socialist, that's what!!!!

Community Roles in Policy Sherri Torjman, January 2009

There has been growing interest in recent years in place-based interventions and their unique contribution to tackling complex issues, such as poverty. While communities are pursuing a range of direct interventions, they are recognizing increasingly that the problems faced by individuals and households living with low income result not from their own weaknesses but rather from problems and barriers in the broader economic and social system. This paper discusses the following activities in which communities can engage with respect to policy:

· monitoring policy developments
· building an evidence base
· enabling access to existing benefits
· improving programs and services
· creating new programs or services
· reducing basic costs
· designing appropriate environments
· creating contextual change
· reducing barriers and disincentives
· assessing policy impact.

ISBN - 1-55382-328-1
29 pages

Read away, boys and girls.

Now, I wonder if the wonderful Irish policy-makers who gave us the national anti-poverty strategy and the partnerships approach to urban regeneration, etc, have figured out the structural causes of the latest kerfuffle in the nation's finances.

Or do they give a crap about some rich blokes who've got caught with their billions exposed?

Prob'ly not.