To the editor:
Re: "Explosion of disability 'welfare' crippling the Downtown Eastside," Nov. 30.
Mark Hasiuk confuses cause and symptoms when he argues for tightening access to disability benefits, which he blames for promoting poverty.
For a start, having just helped a youth with autism through the nightmarish application process, I can't imagine a more rigorous screening process. And the reality without those benefits is not prosperity but abject dependence on charity or far worse.
Disability benefits don't cause poverty, they reflect greater societal failures. We're manufacturing disability and dependence through reduced access to early intervention, special education, social housing, Community Living B.C., supported employment, drug treatment/ detox and mental health.
More youths are leaving high school ill-equipped to weather life's growing challenges. Post-secondary institutions don't want students with learning handicaps. When they inevitably stumble, there's little to stop them falling all the When is the last time a premier made poverty a priority issue and demanded accountability for real success (versus simply cutting welfare rolls)? With no unifying vision or commitment to help people overcome challenges, billions go into stopgap programs and fiefdoms that overlap, work at cross-purposes or lose people in enormous gaps.
But Hasiuk is right: most seem content with the status quo as long as the misery is contained.
Dawn Steele, Vancouver
