Monday, March 19, 2007

Does anybody else see anything wrong with this picture?

"Tasty tips for dumpster dining" shouts the headline, "FEEDING THE HOMELESS: Pamphlet offers advice to binners on how to find the best meal" article by Elaine O'Connor and Peter Severinson (Staff Reporters)



This newspaper article appeared in The Province on Thursday, July 6, 2006 and got buried in my office. I have been meaning to Post about it since then. In part the article reports: "A support organization for the homeless is giving out tips on how to dumpster-dive for food. Dumpster-diving is an "important way for people to access food in Grandview-Woodlands." the Grandview-Woodlands Food Connection coalition says in a pamphlet funded in part by the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority. [HEALTH Authority - can you believe it]
It continues: "James Brookes (pictured above) agrees. He gets most of his meals out of the garbage and says it's better than the free food at most shelters. The sheer number of binners is the biggest challenge, Brooks said. Yesterday morning he got lucky, spotting a store worker throwing out a bag of day-old doughnuts. He also found a box of Pop-Tarts past their expiry date and two yogurt cups. ... 'You more or less have to smell-test it,' Brooks said, stuffing the plastic cups into his vest pocket... For Brooks, dumpster-diving is a choice, not a necessity. 'I won't eat at the Salvation Army', he said. 'Too many people going through the line, [portions] aren't all that big, and it usually tastes like shit.'
hmmmm....last week i was driving my daughter home and we saw a huge rat running accross the road, and last summer we had to get the Pest Control guy in to get rid of a swarm of rats living behind our building. We also had to plug up the bins to keep the rats out. Almost on a daily basis we have dumpster divers rummaging around in our bins, even tho' we have posted "no trespassing" signs and on one or two occasions phoned the police to come and chase them away. I once saw a man eating right out of a bag as he and his buddy undid the big black plastic bags to root around in them and remove what they wanted, leaving the rest strewn all over the place. I told them to get out, but they just hurled obsenties at me. I just shook my head and sighed, recalling that the bag i had just thrown in the trash was filled with my cat's used Kitty Litter that i had just cleaned out of her box! Not to mention all the other used bathroom items and moldy kitchen stuff that had probably been sitting there for the past few days.
So when i read that "The coalition's Connecting the Dots brochure lists food banks and sources of free meals, and offers advice on the best ways to salvage from dumpsters." i was furious! AND further, "About 1,000 brochures - targetting low-income, immigrant and homeless resiidents - were printed in English and Spanish and distributed last week to centres such as the Multicultural Family Place, MOSAIC and Britannia. The project received $15,000 from the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority as well as funding from VanCity, The Vancouver Foundation and Simon Fraser University." Tring Tring....answer the Clue Line fellas, IT'S GARBAGE! ...sheesh!
In a time when we are seeing the comeback of polio and tuberculosis, not to mention new and unknown viruses that mystify health authorities, this is the best solution that an intelligent group of individuals can come up with to solve the problem of feeding the poor.
It is DISGRACEFUL that $15,000 + has been spent to encourage people to engage in such a shameful and potentially dangerous activity. People who for the most part already have compromized immune systems should not be rummaging around in garbage bins, for the most obvious of reasons.
Even as i write this, i sit and shake my head...and i think about the rate and how they were exterminated, using rat poison, causing a horribly slow and painful death, and i wonder if they had contaminated the food in our bin before they died, and then i realize i have not seen one or two of "our regulars"... and in particular the one thin, dirty man who i saw sitting in the bin, stuffing a handful of something from one of the ripped-open bags into his mouth. I have not seen him since the summer, and i wonder if he is alive or dead, or lying sick somewhere, and i wonder what we can do, in this nation of extreme wealth, to make sure that people don't feel compelled to rummage in the garbage bins of the nation to meet a basic need that most of us take for granted.

19 comments:

Meow (aka Connie) said...

OMG, that is just so wrong, promoting Dumpster Diving. Understandably there are hungry people out there, but to do something like this is just taking your life into your own hands. The germs and filth that are found in the bins is just yuck. I am horrified that this is being promoted. The money spent on this advertising should be spent on setting up soup kitchens, or the like, to help those poor people that cannot help themselves. It must makes my skin crawl, to think about someone rummaging through my rubbish. Like you, there is kitty litter, and bathroom items ... eeewww !!
Sorry, don't know what else to say.
Take care, Meow

dragonflyfilly said...

thanks for your comment Meow - a very distasteful Post i know, but it just infuriates me when i see so many people going hungry around here, and that is how felt, the money should have been spent in a better way, and i cannot believe that the HEALTH authority are stupid enough to admit to such a deplorable action. Anyway, i am so mad about it, i don't know what else to do, so i am hoping that someone who has some power see this and is able to help do something to help in some way.

Jean-Luc Picard said...

That's amazing that this sort of thing is being encouraged; who knows what diseases could come up from this?

Summer Dawn O'Ciardha said...

I tend to agree. We've degenerated to little better then the Dark Ages. We don't care for the people of lower classes, and eventually, our whole existance as a country will fall because the support beams are gone.

dragonflyfilly said...

hi Mon Kapitano, thanks for stopping by - yes indeed - it is amazing that this is someone's idea of philanthropy. my concern is that the two guys i saw sitting in the bin eating may have come in contact with something that one of the poisoned rats had touched, and that is why i have not seen them since!

hi summer dawn - kool moniker! i totally agree with you, we cannot call ourselves civilized anymore, we are merely "sophiscated", and the stupid thing is that by looking after our poor we in the long run look after ourselves, i don't know why "people in charge" don't understand this?

Anyway, after the budget speech yesterday, when the Minister of Finance said: "we are a prosperous and compasionate nation" i am inspired to send the information to Cross Country Checkup or someone at CBC and ask them to do some investigation into this matter.

Thanks for stopping by, i will drop by your Blog soon to check you out, if you don't mind.

kimber said...

ooooh, vile vile vile....

There's an organization called Lush Valley that promotes the use and distribution of unused fruits & vegetables from people's gardens, with all produce going to feed the homeless. I look at what Lush Valley has done, and think, that money could have been used to create a better system of distribution!

Godwhacker said...

Wrong? Yes, absolutely! It's still not as bad as an article I read in a British newspaper this week, the gist of which was "we should send old people to do dangerous jobs like clearing land-mind because they have less to loose.

I'm not making that up.

dragonflyfilly said...

thanks!!! wolfgrrrl, i will look up Lush Valley, and send the infot along to the Health Authority and VanCity and the Vancouver Foundation, and maybe i can at last do something pro-active.

oh my gawd, old people clearing land mines, how stupid, considering their delayed reaction time and lack of balance...mind you in one of my weaker moments i was thinking just that, that we should send repeat sex offenders to do that job, i know, not very progressive of me, *sigh*

well, this old girl is going to get in the shower to try to losen up these stiff bones.

Thanks for stopping by.

Spider Girl said...

Yes, as Wolfgrrl said, Lush Valley is a very good organization that helps food not go to waste. Anybody can use it (you don't have to be destitiute), it's just good sense to not let good food go to waste.

That said, there has been a growing movement called Free-ganism that has gained a lot of media attention lately. They (the Freegans) are a group that ARE promoting dumpster diving. Of a sort.

While personally I find the concept rather stomach-churning and would certainly not resort to such a thing unless I was pretty desperate, the group's point is that a LOT of food that ends up in dumpsters does NOT belong there.

Food does not necessarily turn into rotten crap the instant it hits the expiry dates (those dates tend to err on the safe side). The trick is to make sure that the GOOD food does not end up IN the dumpsters and instead is made accessible to people who truly need it.

That way, nobody has to climb in the garbage ever.

dragonflyfilly said...

exactly, spider girl, that is how i feel, that the food that can still be used by someone NOT go into the garbage.

About 8 years ago i was at a conference that was not filled to capacity and there were a lot of plates of food, cold cuts of meat, cheeses, fruit and breat (at least 100), that were not used. I watched in amazement as i saw the clean up crew scrape all the plates, dumping perfectly good food into the big black garbage bags. I went directly to the management and asked them why all that food was being tossed out and mentioned that i worked at a shelter and that there were people who would be very grateful for that food. They told me that it was not cost efficient to try to salvage the food, as the staff had to work quickly because they had to set up the hall for the next meeting.

I thought about devising a special kind of container that would make it easy to simply place on the plate, invert it and then put a lid on it, but then you would have to figure out how to pack it on trollies then one would have to have volunteers willing to pick the food etc. I'm not sure that the hotels would be willing to accommodate anyone to this extent.

I should add that the same hotel, did, in later years, provide our seasonal part time wet weather shelter with a full Christmas Dinner, packed in styro boxes and delivered on Christmas Day by people on their staff.

alan said...

Grrrr...I know I left a comment yesterday yet it's not here...again!

A lot of businesses here have started locking their dumpsters, not only to keep people out but to keep them from being used by people who don't want to pay to get rid of construction material, etc..

There was a man that got picked up in one a few weeks ago and survied the compactor because it was warm enough the driver had the windows down and heard him screaming.

So wrong on so many levels!

alan

Anonymous said...

I love the blog that you have. I was wondering if you would link my blog to yours and in return I would do the same for your blog. If you want to, my site name is American Legends and the URL is:

www.americanlegends.info

If you want to do this just go to my blog and in one of the comments just write your blog name and the URL and I will add it to my site.

Thanks,
David

dragonflyfilly said...

hi alan, yep, i don't know what is going on with BlogSpot - it is driving me crazy too.

In the downtown area there was a woman who sustained quite serious injuries when she was dumped into the compactor, people did hear her screaming too. She was really angry, as tho' it was the fault of the guy driving the dumpster. But if the drivers have to check every single dumpster they would never get anything done. Also, before that a man was killed because he fell asleep in the bin. Imagine how the poor driver of the dumpster truck must have felt when he made that awful discovery.

Hi David,
Thanks for coming over. Yes i wouldn't mind doing that. It will take me awhile as i don't know how to do it. I tried to put Jean Picard on as a link, you can see the result in my sidebar, and i have not tried again. So bear with me, i don't have time right now to figure it out but in a week or so i will give it a shot, ok?

dragonflyfilly said...

hi alan, yep, i don't know what is going on with BlogSpot - it is driving me crazy too.

In the downtown area there was a woman who sustained quite serious injuries when she was dumped into the compactor, people did hear her screaming too. She was really angry, as tho' it was the fault of the guy driving the dumpster. But if the drivers have to check every single dumpster they would never get anything done. Also, before that a man was killed because he fell asleep in the bin. Imagine how the poor driver of the dumpster truck must have felt when he made that awful discovery.

Hi David,
Thanks for coming over. Yes i wouldn't mind doing that. It will take me awhile as i don't know how to do it. I tried to put Jean Picard on as a link, you can see the result in my sidebar, and i have not tried again. So bear with me, i don't have time right now to figure it out but in a week or so i will give it a shot, ok?

jumpinginpuddles said...

ok not only dangerous but,,,, whose goign to help this homeless person when they jump in get stuck with a needle and ends up HIV yeh good have food but no stamoch to put it in cause they are too siclk and too poor to get treatment.
At least over here even the homeless can get medical attention.

dragonflyfilly said...

Hi JIP,
yes you are right. But in our so called "civilized" society, i have to ask "why do we even have people who are without homes?"

hope you are well and happy,

cheers for now,
pj

Meow (aka Connie) said...

Off the subject of this post ....
Just wanted to say thank you for the postcard .. it arrived during the week, meant to let you know earlier, but promptly forgot !!
Thank you so much, it is great.
HOpe you are well.
Take care, Meow

Anonymous said...

Hello!! Good for you for being proactive!! Very informative post. I see so much wasted money.....in a materialistic society....so frustrating that people are having to dumpster dive. There needs to be more proactive things happening, like with the garden fruits and vegetables....what a great great progam!!

Wanted to wish you "Hoppy April"

Peg and Bun-Bun

dragonflyfilly said...

Hi Peg and Bun Bun

...and a happy April to you too...thanks for stopping by.