In need of food' Just knock – Edmonton restaurant offers free meals

Maybe it's different in Edmonton, but in Vancouver he'd be broke in no time. I think there's a program where restaurants donate unused food they would throw away anyway to agencies that distribute it - probably works out better than a mob showing up at the restaurant every day.

But gotta give him props. Hope it works out, maybe spreads to the other restaurants. Although most restaurateurs here seem to spend their time whining about how hard it is to make it, and they can't find people to work at their places and want the foreign worker program reinstated. "Our business model relies on paying people poverty wages and who can't complain if we abuse them because we ship them right back to where they came from."

He does pretty well. It's a decent curry house, if not a traditional one. But the food is good, well priced and there is usually a crowd.

Giving a free meal or two away every day won't hurt his business. On the contrary, it may increase it.

http://globalnews.ca/news/2609590/small ... nair-shop/

A meal or two, of course won't hurt. But how come he doesn't have a lineup at his backdoor? The homeless don't like Indian food.

He doesn't have a lineup because there are a lot of agencies in Edmonton that provide a lot of services for the homeless. The restaurant is right across the street from a Timmies, and every morning when I go there I see the same guys who are twitching for a fix and asking people in the drive through for change. For a 'coffee'.

Those are the people likely to knock on his door, because most of the agencies that deal with homeless won't allow tweakers in. And people will eat some surprising things when they are hungry. Free Indian food wouldn't be nearly as bad as boiled shoe leather.

We have the same agencies, but I think in Vancouver there would still be a rush to his back door. Just for a change of taste if nothing else. Actually all the Gurdwaras will give you a free, simple meal if you go there. They don't seem swamped either, I guess because they are not close to concentrations of homeless.

Yes, I've even stopped buying burgers for people who ask for money for food and then throw the burger away. I tell them "I don't have money to buy drugs, why should I buy them for you." You can tell when someone is hungry. Young woman outside a Wendy's, I said no to her on the way in, then on the way out offered her the fries and coke I couldn't finish. She gobbled them down real fast, so I went in and bought her a proper meal. Feels real good to give food to people who actually want it.

Yea, I got tired of people saying they were hungry, and getting pissed off when I bought them a meal. Suck it up buttercup, live with your life choices.

I just choose to support the agencies that help the people who need help. You get the same sort of good feeling.

Maybe if you know them personally and know their work.

I've raved here before about not relying on charity to help people. That's the government's job. And it's not being done well. We spend $1000000 a day on the DTES, and what has it gotten us. Agencies that get this money, working at cross purposes.

One agency made the news because it was sending it's top guy to disneyland and expensing highpriced meals, flowers, what have you. It's a shame, because they actually do good work providing supportive housing. But the govt just shovels some money at them with little oversight.

Lemmy says the best way is to just give people money. But seems to me, for many of them it would just mean the price of street drugs would go up and they would still be just as badly off. What's needed is far better access to long term mental health and drug treatment. The Chez Soi model should be broadly adopted. And people who are capably of managing on their own, but will never be able to get a job need either more welfare or subsidized housing. Probably the latter, since again, slumlords would just raise their rents but not improve their buildings. And we need to act on the findings of the NAOMI and SALOME studies. And we need someone like Sheila Fraser to oversee the financial end of things. Clone Tommy Douglas.


While this is a kind gesture by the restaurant owner, you only need to look at India to see how well this charity model works. The middle class giving something back to the community, while the 1% build billion dollar homes.

No, it's not.

It's the job of government to provide a safe and stable society so those who are willing to put in the effort can get ahead.

If you choose to make poor lifestyle decisions (dropping out of school, doing drugs, drinking to excess, etc), then that is your decision and you need to live with the consequences of it (which could include working with a non-profit to help with mental/addiction issues).





IMHO, that tends to be the best way, especially if you support the small, local non-profits and not the Salvation Army/United Ways of the world, who can be as wasteful as Andy suggests.

No, it's not.

It's the job of government to provide a safe and stable society so those who are willing to put in the effort can get ahead.

If you choose to make poor lifestyle decisions (dropping out of school, doing drugs, drinking to excess, etc), then that is your decision and you need to live with the consequences of it (which could include working with a non-profit to help with mental/addiction issues).

Nobody is talking about getting ahead here. Just dealing with the casualties of our society. Don't worry, the govt won't help them get ahead of you.

It's this sort of attitude that leads to so many problems in society. Crime and disease and the fortune we spend on reactively dealing with them. Breeding resistant strains of TB an other diseases. The corrosion of society that the crime causes, mistrust, etc. The idea that most of these people just up and decided to be fuck ups and homeless, because that's what they want, so fuck em. No understanding of how many people are brought up in horror shows that are their families, or the manifold ways the brain can go wrong.

We could save a lot of money by being proactive, taking care of those who can't take care of themselves, helping those who can get back on their feet. But Victorian England seems to still run strong in our society.

And what's so wonderful about non-profits that the govt pays to do the work? Always trying to cut their budgets, going for short term, band aid interventions that in the end spent a lot of money on no results because the stable support isn't there. What's so wonderful about an approach that says "we're going to leave you on the street but drop by any time for 'treatment' except we have a waiting list that's as long as your arm, so check back with us, mmKay?"

No, it's not.

It's the job of government to provide a safe and stable society so those who are willing to put in the effort can get ahead.

If you choose to make poor lifestyle decisions (dropping out of school, doing drugs, drinking to excess, etc), then that is your decision and you need to live with the consequences of it (which could include working with a non-profit to help with mental/addiction issues).

Nobody is talking about getting ahead here. Just dealing with the casualties of our society. Don't worry, the govt won't help them get ahead of you.

For anyone else, I'd say something like, "Little early to be flinging shit, isn't it?", but it's you, so that's to be expected.

You said it's the government's job to deal with people's poor decisions and it's not.

Nowhere in the Charter of Rights & Freedoms does it say, "The government shall protect persons from their own stupidity."

I don't have any problem with the government helping out, but it's not the solely the government's responsibility, which is what you implied.

It is society's job to help out those who need help, not just government.





Really? The attitude of personal responsibility is the underlying cause of people's addition and/or mental health issues?

There's absolutely nothing wrong with being proactive - I was simply disagreeing with your assertion that the problem is up to government to solve.

Most non-profits don't rely on just the government for funding, they also solicit from corporations, individuals and sometimes even religious organizations, which means they represent a more society-based form of supports for those who need help. Non-profits also do not have a four year political cycle, so they can think long term about problems instead of focusing on what is trendy or cool.

By andys own admission there are more free-loaders in BC than Alberta.

And you stated "no it's not" the government's job. Looks like you're backing away from that now. You say it's government's job to provide a safe and stable society for those willing to make the effort to get ahead. Wow - how Haperian can you get. Just how will government provide a safe and stable society if the attitude is "fuck em if the make poor choices, never mind why they might do that?" How does government "provide society" but it's society's job to look after society's failures, not the government. Strange logic.

The government = the society. It's who we elect to deal with problems. This is a societal problem that government should be working to ameliorate. Not sure if it can be solved in a capitalist society.

You want to see the success of "society" (somehow in your mind this is divorced from government) deals with this problem, just look at India, as I said. Giving alms out the backdoor just doesn't cut it, nor does putting on bandages the way the non-profits do.

Since it is your stance that people just make their own choices and must take responsibility for them, why congratulate this restaurant owner at all? Isn't he just enabling these people?

Next you'll be saying it's not government's job to provide health care. Addiction and mental healthcare issues.

I'm not backtracking at all.

Government is part of society, not the whole of it.

The government cannot be everything to everyone, which is why society a a whole has to step up to help those who need it - and non-profits, especially small, local ones, do a better job at delivering targeted assistance to those who need it.





As usual, you've got it backwards.

Government is not society - but it should be reflective of it. That's why the Green Party has 1 seat in Parliament, because a small number of people believe in its ideology. It's also the reason the Liberals and Conservatives have the lions share of seats in Parliament.





I think Canada should set the bar a little higher than that of a third world country.





While I do believe that people should accept responsibility for their own choices, I also think anyone who goes out of their way to help others is worthy of praise.





Actually, it's not the government's job to provide health care, it's their job to pay for it. That's why it's called a single payer system.

If you do a scan of most doctors in this country, they work for themselves as incorporated entities, not the government. Sure, most specialists work in hospitals and get a check from the government, but most doctors are not specialists, they are general practitioners. And the fact is many of those specialists also run their own practice on the side too. Further, many clinics in the country are run by private corporations and simply bill the government for the services they provide.