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Author Topic: Jessica Yee Column on Co-opting & Frustration
TVParkdale
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posted 25 October 2008 11:10 AM      Profile for TVParkdale     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Ahnee/Heya All:

I wanted to reply to Jennifer Yee's column on youth being marginalized in conventions, programs etc.

However, I just kept being re-directed to this forum?

Can someone explain how this works?

I'm used to forums and commenting but I don't understand this system whereby I am shuffled to a forum and can't find the original article to comment on...

Thanks for any help.

[ 25 October 2008: Message edited by: TVParkdale ]

[Edited by Michelle to correct the author's name from "Jennifer" to "Jessica" in the thread title.]

[ 25 October 2008: Message edited by: Michelle ]


From: DaHood | Registered: Oct 2008  |  IP: Logged
oldgoat
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posted 25 October 2008 12:27 PM      Profile for oldgoat     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I assume you are referring to this column, so discuss away.

Many places, you can enter comments just under the column you've read. Here at rabble.ca, we have this wonderful discussion forum where everything in the cosmos is discussed, and people are encouraged to discuss rabble.ca content here by opening threads.

So that being the case, I'll move this thread to the rabble news section under rabble content.

Meanwhile, check out the rest of the site!


From: The 10th circle | Registered: Jul 2001  |  IP: Logged
oldgoat
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posted 25 October 2008 12:31 PM      Profile for oldgoat     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Jennifer covered a lot of ground in that column TVP, I'm looking forward to your observations.
From: The 10th circle | Registered: Jul 2001  |  IP: Logged
TVParkdale
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posted 25 October 2008 12:51 PM      Profile for TVParkdale     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I didn't see a "comment" button underneath the column? Perhaps commentary is turned off?
From: DaHood | Registered: Oct 2008  |  IP: Logged
TVParkdale
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posted 25 October 2008 12:54 PM      Profile for TVParkdale     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by oldgoat:
Jennifer covered a lot of ground in that column TVP, I'm looking forward to your observations.

Oh my I found the "quote" buttons finally

Thanks for responding everyone. I'm still trying to find the "comment" button


From: DaHood | Registered: Oct 2008  |  IP: Logged
oldgoat
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posted 25 October 2008 12:55 PM      Profile for oldgoat     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
There is a "discuss" button below the column. Anyway, here you are.

ETA: now that you are here, you can change the thread title to something related to your discussion if you like.

[ 25 October 2008: Message edited by: oldgoat ]


From: The 10th circle | Registered: Jul 2001  |  IP: Logged
TVParkdale
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posted 25 October 2008 01:08 PM      Profile for TVParkdale     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by oldgoat:
There is a "discuss" button below the column. Anyway, here you are.

ETA: now that you are here, you can change the thread title to something related to your discussion if you like.

[ 25 October 2008: Message edited by: oldgoat ]


Not to be a dolt but we are now discussing it here?

And should I just copy her article here first so we're all [pardon le pun] on the same page?


From: DaHood | Registered: Oct 2008  |  IP: Logged
oldgoat
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posted 25 October 2008 01:25 PM      Profile for oldgoat     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
What would normally be done, is to link to the article, which I already did in my post above. Then you can make quotes from any parts you think relevant by copying and pasting from the article, and inserting bits using our quote feature which you will find beneath the post a reply window.

Generally copying an entire piece isn't done. It's good enough to post a link with a few quotes.


From: The 10th circle | Registered: Jul 2001  |  IP: Logged
TVParkdale
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posted 25 October 2008 01:30 PM      Profile for TVParkdale     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by oldgoat:
What would normally be done, is to link to the article, which I already did in my post above. Then you can make quotes from any parts you think relevant by copying and pasting from the article, and inserting bits using our quote feature which you will find beneath the post a reply window.

Generally copying an entire piece isn't done. It's good enough to post a link with a few quotes.


Thanks for the advice. It was very helpful. So here I go...


From: DaHood | Registered: Oct 2008  |  IP: Logged
TVParkdale
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posted 25 October 2008 01:53 PM      Profile for TVParkdale     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
So I'm getting a little sick and tired (literally - I have a cold right now, and have slept a total of 18 hours this week) of organizations, service providers, academics, institutions, governments, NGOs, and adults in general taking a "vested" interest in working with us as Aboriginal youth, and not actually doing anything to follow through on what they say. Or more to the point: shooting us down at various points when we try and get involved.--Jessica Yee[QUOTE]

Jessica:

Thank you for your honesty.

I certainly understand your frustration. It's not just youth--it's standard operating procedure of the co-opting class.

I went through this working everything from Harm Reduction to Homelessness and yes, Aboriginal issues.

I can't tell you how many of these idiotic conferences I sat through for the purpose of actually doing nothing. Millions of dollars spent to discuss the same tired old solutions that cost too much, funnelling money into the same poverty pimping organizations that have nothing creative to add to the debate.

Meanwhile, those from the inside of the struggle were shoved to the sidelines as radical, or unrealistic or treated so poorly they would not return. Often, they would be ganged up on by the professionals to agree to "programs" that they knew were bound to be unsuccessful. Then the "clients" of these programs are blamed for being "unmotivated."

I now tell anyone who asks me to attend such events some simple questions:

"Who are you sending these recommendations to?"
"Do they have the power to change it within one year?"
"Are these conference attendees willing to make executable plans or is this just another gabfest?
"If the attendees are willing to DO something--are we going to walk out of the conference and commit those solutions?"
"What are you [the person who called me] willing to SACRIFICE in order to 'make it happen'?"

If they can't answer those questions, they are wasting my time.

I'm no longer willing to talk. I'm only willing to plan and execute action.

If the amount of money spent on yapping about problems had actually been spent on solutions to Aboriginal struggles, housing, poverty etc., you wouldn't need to write that article because the problems you are trying to solve would no longer exist.

Talk without action is how they keep us running in circles, wasting our time so we will think something useful is actually happening. A small portion of what is said, might be put into some Mickey Mouse dollop of social services to appease guilty consciences.

Jennifer, if you have a creative solution you're willing to offer that is not being acted upon, find yourself a group to move on *that*.

Don't let anyone waste your youthful exhuberance on their tired agendas.

Best of Luck.

[ 25 October 2008: Message edited by: TVParkdale ]


From: DaHood | Registered: Oct 2008  |  IP: Logged
TVParkdale
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posted 25 October 2008 02:04 PM      Profile for TVParkdale     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by oldgoat:
What would normally be done, is to link to the article, which I already did in my post above. Then you can make quotes from any parts you think relevant by copying and pasting from the article, and inserting bits using our quote feature which you will find beneath the post a reply window.

Generally copying an entire piece isn't done. It's good enough to post a link with a few quotes.


Uh, how do I change the title of the thread for discussion though...?


From: DaHood | Registered: Oct 2008  |  IP: Logged
remind
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posted 25 October 2008 03:54 PM      Profile for remind     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by TVParkdale:
Uh, how do I change the title of the thread for discussion though...?

Go back to your very post and click the edit function and when the post comes up to be edited, so does the title, and then you can change the title.


From: "watching the tide roll away" | Registered: Jun 2004  |  IP: Logged
pogge
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posted 25 October 2008 04:07 PM      Profile for pogge   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by remind:
... click the edit function ...

Which is the one showing a pencil and paper.


From: Why is this a required field? | Registered: Mar 2002  |  IP: Logged
janfromthebruce
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posted 25 October 2008 04:22 PM      Profile for janfromthebruce     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Welcome TVParkdale. I understand your frustration. There are mounds of great policy documents and practical solutions to everyday problems of homelessness, poverty, aboriginal issues, youth issues, unemployment, and continually get talked about.
They continually remain at the endless "gathering" stage of endless development cycle to never end of being "hunted" cause that is not the end of game.

After working in mental health for years, I came to the conclusion that if you actually gave more money to folks with serious mental health issues they would be less of need of expensive hospital beds (and guess what a small pilot project actually showed that). Giving these folks, for example, a small amount of no strings attached addition founds in their disability cheque, showed they made less visits to doctors, hospitals and so on.
My analogy is used to to show that sometimes the solution to the problem is exactly what the "patient" wanted and needed and not what the "doctor" needed to keep his business going, so to speak.
My code of action is to follow the money.


From: cow country | Registered: Apr 2007  |  IP: Logged
Michelle
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posted 25 October 2008 04:26 PM      Profile for Michelle   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
By the way, folks, it's Jessica Yee, not Jennifer. I corrected the thread title.
From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
TVParkdale
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posted 25 October 2008 04:27 PM      Profile for TVParkdale     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Michelle:
By the way, folks, it's Jessica Yee, not Jennifer. I corrected the thread title.

Thank you--names are not my strong suit


From: DaHood | Registered: Oct 2008  |  IP: Logged
TVParkdale
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posted 25 October 2008 07:27 PM      Profile for TVParkdale     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by janfromthebruce:
Welcome TVParkdale. I understand your frustration. There are mounds of great policy documents and practical solutions to everyday problems of homelessness, poverty, aboriginal issues, youth issues, unemployment, and continually get talked about.
They continually remain at the endless "gathering" stage of endless development cycle to never end of being "hunted" cause that is not the end of game.

After working in mental health for years, I came to the conclusion that if you actually gave more money to folks with serious mental health issues they would be less of need of expensive hospital beds (and guess what a small pilot project actually showed that). Giving these folks, for example, a small amount of no strings attached addition founds in their disability cheque, showed they made less visits to doctors, hospitals and so on.
My analogy is used to to show that sometimes the solution to the problem is exactly what the "patient" wanted and needed and not what the "doctor" needed to keep his business going, so to speak.
My code of action is to follow the money.


Greetings Ann:

Absolutely.

Here's four quick solutions and homelessness [and accruing mental health struggles] would be over in ONE YEAR:

1) Make squatting legal.
2) All developments must include 10% rent-geared-to income or they cannot have a building permit
3) Stop the tax deductions for empty units. If the residential unit remains empty the tax goes up exponentially for 3 years until the tax is equal to the cost of the property. This money buys housing, if the tax is not paid, the property reverts to the city for rent-geared-to-income.
4) Revert to the 1950's homesteading laws on crown land.

That's off the top of my head.

Too many people are making too much money for this game to stop. TCHC is the *worst* landlord in the city yet the province is about to dump millions more into their incompetent pockets.

OHIP is pumping money into "mental health housing" that requires a psychiatric diagnosis to qualify. Some of them get more buildings even after there are numerous legitimate grievances about their first building[s].

I'd prefer that money went into restoring proper healthcare.


Think tanks aren't about thinking on these issues--they're about maintaining the status quo and not upsetting anyone.

Referring to what you said about mental health...

I once wrote an article explaining that "lunacy" did not increase when the moon was full--difficult behaviour increases during the week the cheques are due.
1) Everyone is broke and stressed.
2) Every once in a while, the cheque is cut off. It only takes *once* and the service user is going experience anxiety monthly *every time* until the money is directly in their hands.

Right now, to access social service funds, most people require a lawyer and a social worker to muddle through the mountain of paper. I wish I could say that's a joke--but it isn't.

The cost of 1 in 10,000 people committing fraud in the system doesn't begin to account for having a second $30 per hour worker and legal aid for someone to maneuver those systems.

"Client led" is an oxymoron. "Peer worker" is another. In neither case is the person treated as an equal partner/union employee in any proceedings.

Historical solution to housing?
EG: Squatting and building communal villages and farms

Historical solution to unemployment?
Allowing people to make money without jumping through heaps of bureaucratic paperwork and unfathomable tax systems.

EG: Street vending, selling personal skills and creativity

And for many solutions to dozens of problems facing the environment?
Start with growing hemp, windmills, legalizing Zenn vehicles, solar panels...

This is not rocket science here people


From: DaHood | Registered: Oct 2008  |  IP: Logged
janfromthebruce
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posted 25 October 2008 09:49 PM      Profile for janfromthebruce     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by TVParkdale:

Greetings Ann:

Absolutely.

Here's four quick solutions and homelessness [and accruing mental health struggles] would be over in ONE YEAR:

1) Make squatting legal.
2) All developments must include 10% rent-geared-to income or they cannot have a building permit
3) Stop the tax deductions for empty units. If the residential unit remains empty the tax goes up exponentially for 3 years until the tax is equal to the cost of the property. This money buys housing, if the tax is not paid, the property reverts to the city for rent-geared-to-income.
4) Revert to the 1950's homesteading laws on crown land.

That's off the top of my head.

Too many people are making too much money for this game to stop. TCHC is the *worst* landlord in the city yet the province is about to dump millions more into their incompetent pockets.

OHIP is pumping money into "mental health housing" that requires a psychiatric diagnosis to qualify. Some of them get more buildings even after there are numerous legitimate grievances about their first building[s].

I'd prefer that money went into restoring proper healthcare.


Think tanks aren't about thinking on these issues--they're about maintaining the status quo and not upsetting anyone.

Referring to what you said about mental health...

I once wrote an article explaining that "lunacy" did not increase when the moon was full--difficult behaviour increases during the week the cheques are due.
1) Everyone is broke and stressed.
2) Every once in a while, the cheque is cut off. It only takes *once* and the service user is going experience anxiety monthly *every time* until the money is directly in their hands.

Right now, to access social service funds, most people require a lawyer and a social worker to muddle through the mountain of paper. I wish I could say that's a joke--but it isn't.

The cost of 1 in 10,000 people committing fraud in the system doesn't begin to account for having a second $30 per hour worker and legal aid for someone to maneuver those systems.

"Client led" is an oxymoron. "Peer worker" is another. In neither case is the person treated as an equal partner/union employee in any proceedings.

Historical solution to housing?
EG: Squatting and building communal villages and farms

Historical solution to unemployment?
Allowing people to make money without jumping through heaps of bureaucratic paperwork and unfathomable tax systems.

EG: Street vending, selling personal skills and creativity

And for many solutions to dozens of problems facing the environment?
Start with growing hemp, windmills, legalizing Zenn vehicles, solar panels...

This is not rocket science here people


My name is Jan. Yes, to most of the things you said. I laughed when you talked about peer or client led (no kidding). The worker has money and the "client" does not. The worker has power/status and the "client" does not. One knows how to navigate the system and the "client" does not. And even for workers the system isn't easy to navigate (as it is always changing and requires "new training") but the difference is, one gets paid to navigate and other goes "crazy" waiting, waiting, waiting, I am slowly going crazy 5, 6, 7, 8.


From: cow country | Registered: Apr 2007  |  IP: Logged
TVParkdale
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posted 26 October 2008 07:43 AM      Profile for TVParkdale     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by janfromthebruce:

My name is Jan. Yes, to most of the things you said. I laughed when you talked about peer or client led (no kidding). The worker has money and the "client" does not. The worker has power/status and the "client" does not. One knows how to navigate the system and the "client" does not. And even for workers the system isn't easy to navigate (as it is always changing and requires "new training") but the difference is, one gets paid to navigate and other goes "crazy" waiting, waiting, waiting, I am slowly going crazy 5, 6, 7, 8.


Pleasure to meet you Jan.

I know this feeling from both sides.

It's also that out-of-control sensation and it turns reasonably sane people into frootbats very quickly. Waiting for a worker to call welfare, odsp, housing etc. and *hoping* they will be a strong advocate builds dependence that shouldn't be there. It decompensates one's mental health quickly, often to the point of blathering idiocy or explosions of frustration. Then, the client is not taken seriously because--well, they're crazy, right?

You aren't alone.

Then there's the "treated as a number" syndrome. Bureaucratic bumbling is depersonalized.

Letters are sent that *blame* the client and threaten to cut off THEIR entitlements when the system has screwed up. I have yet to see ONE SINGLE letter where TCHC, Housing Connections, Ontario Works or ODSP take responsibility for *their* errors.

If a worker screws up, there is no accountability to the client. Workers have to "play the game" because a pitbull reputation means lack of job opportunities or retribution when one's main concern is the client. The system eats the young and/or strong.

The college/university ideology of "client led" is
utter crap.

The only "client led" organization in Toronto I've ever seen where everyone gets a say and workers are barely paid--is OCAP. Note how much social service agencies despise them. Why? Because they won't play poker at a rigged table. They overturn the table and demand their legitimate chips. The media has trashed them deliberately to keep the poverty pimp money rolling into the usual suspects.

Many agencies are downright corrupt and guilty of malfeasance. Good luck getting a forensic audit done.

For anyone out there who wants to know what de-housed, unemployed and some mentally ill people can REALLY do, look this up:

web page
Permanent housing not run by agencies, self-created jobs, respect, green, etc.

I knew the founders at the beginning when they were having "shopping cart parades". Everyone told them they didn't have a prayer. Be good kiddies and go sleep at the shelters and eat out of garbage cans. Just don't demand control of a piece of land where poor people ARE the pillars of the community.

******

Jan, it's not YOU. It's a system that corrodes what it claims to be helping.

It's a system of exclusion not assistance. The more people that can be turned away, the more effective the worker. Keep that in mind. It will keep you saner.

The odd reasonable worker keeps one forever hoping--and such unfounded hope is the enemy.

Talk to a room full of underprivileged people with NO workers and you will get a whole other viewpoint on what they think can really be done. They can tell you many creative solutions they've used to survive.

It's time to stop supporting this sick game.


From: DaHood | Registered: Oct 2008  |  IP: Logged
janfromthebruce
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posted 26 October 2008 12:23 PM      Profile for janfromthebruce     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by TVParkdale:

Pleasure to meet you Jan.

I know this feeling from both sides.

It's also that out-of-control sensation and it turns reasonably sane people into frootbats very quickly. Waiting for a worker to call welfare, odsp, housing etc. and *hoping* they will be a strong advocate builds dependence that shouldn't be there. It decompensates one's mental health quickly, often to the point of blathering idiocy or explosions of frustration. Then, the client is not taken seriously because--well, they're crazy, right?

You aren't alone.

Then there's the "treated as a number" syndrome. Bureaucratic bumbling is depersonalized.

Letters are sent that *blame* the client and threaten to cut off THEIR entitlements when the system has screwed up. I have yet to see ONE SINGLE letter where TCHC, Housing Connections, Ontario Works or ODSP take responsibility for *their* errors.

If a worker screws up, there is no accountability to the client. Workers have to "play the game" because a pitbull reputation means lack of job opportunities or retribution when one's main concern is the client. The system eats the young and/or strong.

The college/university ideology of "client led" is
utter crap.

The only "client led" organization in Toronto I've ever seen where everyone gets a say and workers are barely paid--is OCAP. Note how much social service agencies despise them. Why? Because they won't play poker at a rigged table. They overturn the table and demand their legitimate chips. The media has trashed them deliberately to keep the poverty pimp money rolling into the usual suspects.

Many agencies are downright corrupt and guilty of malfeasance. Good luck getting a forensic audit done.

For anyone out there who wants to know what de-housed, unemployed and some mentally ill people can REALLY do, look this up:

web page
Permanent housing not run by agencies, self-created jobs, respect, green, etc.

I knew the founders at the beginning when they were having "shopping cart parades". Everyone told them they didn't have a prayer. Be good kiddies and go sleep at the shelters and eat out of garbage cans. Just don't demand control of a piece of land where poor people ARE the pillars of the community.

******

Jan, it's not YOU. It's a system that corrodes what it claims to be helping.

It's a system of exclusion not assistance. The more people that can be turned away, the more effective the worker. Keep that in mind. It will keep you saner.

The odd reasonable worker keeps one forever hoping--and such unfounded hope is the enemy.

Talk to a room full of underprivileged people with NO workers and you will get a whole other viewpoint on what they think can really be done. They can tell you many creative solutions they've used to survive.

It's time to stop supporting this sick game.


Don't worry TVParkdale, I am very much a structural and critical thinker who sees the system for what it is. Heads-up, my MSW thesis in 2001 included John Clarke as one of my "key informants."

For front-line workers trying to make the system work, it sometimes seems to be that most energy has to be expended on "fighting" your own organization rather than what one should be doing. After many years of that crap, it's best to just not gives a heads up on where your real effort is going, get things done (the real intent), knowing that one is really working in partnership in a more subversive way. Also prevents one from going crazy.

[ 26 October 2008: Message edited by: janfromthebruce ]


From: cow country | Registered: Apr 2007  |  IP: Logged
TVParkdale
rabble-rouser
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posted 26 October 2008 12:55 PM      Profile for TVParkdale     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
[QUOTE]Originally posted by janfromthebruce:
[QB]

Don't worry TVParkdale, I am very much a structural and critical thinker who sees the system for what it is. Heads-up, my MSW thesis in 2001 included John Clarke as one of my "key informants."

Any further in this discussion and I'd prefer email.

Joke is, I probably know you?


From: DaHood | Registered: Oct 2008  |  IP: Logged

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