2000-
03-25
I'm a flaming, bleeding-heart liberal, so, for you redneck conservatives out there, that I means I am in favor of the government spending our hard-earned tax dollars (why is it that people who always use that phrase rarely work hard for anything at all?) to make life better for everyone.
One of these programs that is supposed to make life better is this program that takes squeegee kids off the streets and trains them to find jobs.
The program cost $600,000 for one year. In that year, more than 110 kids were helped. The organizers of the program spent some of that hard-earned money to have some genius come in and "assess" the program. This means, he or she sat around and chatted with people and then wrote something up on the computer and put his or her credentials beside it. The assessment always recommends that the program be continued. I don't know of any consultant who, when hired by a social service agency to evaluate their services, miraculously came to the conclusion that the public needed less of that particular service. Actually, I do know of one. A consultant from Windsor informed a Children's Mental Health agency that their "catchments" area was over serviced and under-utilized. He returned to Windsor and was never heard from again.
If you took the $600,000 and gave the cash to the squeegee kids, you would have about $6,000 per kid. I always wonder if it wouldn't be better to just give them the money. But then, I suppose they wouldn't spend it very wisely, and then soon they'd all be back on the streets squeegeeing cars again.
If I had $600,000, I think I'd hire about 15 Squeegee Kids part-time (maybe one day a week) for a year, provide them with decent apartments downtown, train them myself, and send them back on to the streets to watch out for the other Squeegee Kids, and young girls running away from home, and homeless alcoholics, and all the other people down on their luck. They could see that they stay safe, out of the cold, and get a bowl of soup once in a while.
Copyright © 2000 Bill Van Dyk All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2000 Bill Van Dyk All rights reserved.