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happy friday nite

What’s the point of counting Toronto’s homeless every few years, and spending $120,000 a pop to do it, if the information just goes down a black hole at City Hall?

Last Wednesday, for the third time — previous counts occurred in 2006 and 2009 — hundreds of volunteers, including Sun City Hall columnist Sue-Ann Levy, conducted a one-night census on the city’s homeless.

The last one in 2009 found the number of hard-core homeless — people actually sleeping on the street the night of the count — decreased by 51%, from 818 in 2006 to 400 in 2009.

But, as Deputy Mayor Doug Holyday and former city budget chief Mike Del Grande told Levy, that hasn’t resulted in any change to the $14 million annually the city pays for social workers and programs designed to get the hard-core homeless off the streets.

And those living on the street are only a small minority of the thousands of homeless people living in the city’s shelter system, on which hundreds of millions of dollars is spent annually.

When these counts first began we supported them, believing that you can’t deal with a problem until you know how big it is.

But we backed the census as part of developing a long-term, effective strategy for dealing with the homeless, none of which has happened at City Hall.

Indeed, seven years after the first count, it’s become clear the city is simply going through the motions of doing a count, so it can say it has done one. That’s useless.

In practical terms, council is going in the opposite direction of what needs to be done, increasing the number of surplus shelter beds in the system instead of reducing them.

Seven years ago, we noted a key part of any effective homeless strategy had to include passing laws making it illegal to live on the street.

Not so the homeless could be sent to jail, but so they could be provided with shelter.

The problem — then as now — is that if a homeless person living on the street refuses to go to a shelter, there’s nothing the city can do.

Nothing that is, other than passing out food and blankets to them which, while well-intentioned, only ends up enabling people to live on the street, the opposite of what we should be doing.

Study after study has shown many of the hard-core homeless are mentally ill, or addicted to booze, or drugs.

Obviously this impairs their ability not only to look after themselves, but to make rational decisions about their own well-being.

But in order to protect their “civil liberties,” city council chooses to leave them on the street to fend for themselves.

Until that changes, counting the homeless every few years will continue to be an exercise in futility.
TORONTO SUN EDITORIAL

The two brothers suspected of [color=rgb(102, 102, 102)] bombing [/color] the Boston Marathon worshiped at the Islamic Society of Boston’s mosque in Cambridge, with the older brother disrupting services and challenging the congregation’s moderate theology, the society confirmed on Monday.
The members of the mosque did not have “any hint that they could perpetrate this horrific attack. What we do know, as the details related below will show, was that one suspect disagreed with the moderate American-Islamic theology of the ISB Cambridge mosque,” the society said in a statement.
“Our mosque is one filled with attendees who are teachers, businessmen, doctors, and lawyers, all of whom are committed to the public good. While these suspects did express views counter to our mosque’s philosophy, they never expressed any hint of violent sentiments or behavior.”

[color=rgb(51, 51, 51)]Illinois shootings: Suspect helped wounded girl after killing 5[/color]

happy thursday nite everyone

Chaguanas West Member of Parliament Jack Warner addressed his constituents at a meeting at the Pierre Road Recreation Ground in Charlieville on Thursday night, as he sought to clear the air on his recent resignation as National Security Minister and chairman of the United National Congress (UNC).

Warner told the audience that he remains loyal to the UNC but he intends to tender his resignation as Chaguanas West MP and contest the subsequent bye-election as a UNC candidate.

Tim Leiweke has been hired as president and chief executive officer of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment Ltd., the sports and real estate group that owns the Toronto Maple Leafs of the National Hockey League and the Raptors professional basketball club.

Leiweke was previously CEO of Anschutz Entertainment Group Inc., a Los Angeles-based entertainment company that owns the NHL’s Los Angeles Kings, Los Angeles Galaxy of MLS, and a stake in the NBA’s Los Angeles Lakers.

“He’s a strong leader and leaders create something new,” Richard Peddie, the previous chief executive officer of MLSE until retiring in 2011, said in a phone interview today. “Looks like MLSE is going back into growth mode. Tim has strong connections to the NFL, and there’s still some interest in the NFL for MLSE.”

Rogers Communications Inc. (RCI/, one of the co-owners of MLSE, has hosted regular season games with the Buffalo Bills of the National Football League at its Rogers Centre venue in Toronto since 2008.

“Tim Leiweke is one of the top sports executives in the world, renowned for his ability to build championship teams, premier entertainment events, and innovative brand and marketing opportunities,” Larry Tanenbaum, chairman of MLSE, said in a statement. Leiweke starts June 30.

MLSE is owned by Rogers and BCE Inc. (BCE), Canada’s two largest telecommunications companies. Rogers rose 0.3 percent to C$50 and Bell fell 0.5 percent to C$46.53 at 2:54 p.m. in Toronto.

MLSE, based in Toronto, also owns Toronto FC of Major League Soccer. Rogers separately owns the Toronto Blue Jays Major League Baseball team.

whats up people

An unnamed woman in Belize has killed her 3 children by drowning them.
The children were aged 1, 2 and 3. 
The woman also attempted to drown her fourth child, aged 5, however that child escaped.
Police are investigating the motive.

good evening