More dirt on Montreal

So if Montreal is dirty, it’s not the fault of the municipal administration, it’s the fault of the poor [Letters, “Montreal filth due to renters,” Feb. 15]. Mr. Magni’s suggestion that we somehow magically turn all the tenants into homeowners in order to improve the cleanliness of the city betrays an all-too-common prejudice: that the poor are dirty.

This prejudice has the unfortunate effect of diverting attention from the real issue: low-income renters frequently have to pay such a high percentage of their revenues towards rent that very little is left afterwards to buy medicine and quality nourishment, let alone participate in leisure activities.

This situation is unjust and inhumane, to the point that the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) recently released a scathing report on the housing situation in Canada, saying, “housing allocations and social aid continue to descend to a level far below the average cost of rents and waiting lists for subsidized housing remain very long, notably in Hamilton and Montreal,” and pressed Canada to consider “the struggle against homelessness and the lack of housing a national emergency.”

It’s true that there is a problem with rental housing in Montreal: It’s too expensive and poorly maintained by landlords. That’s why low-income tenants and we who work in housing committees to defend tenants’ rights propose another solution: social housing. Compared to other Western countries, Quebec has a very low percentage of social housing—only 10 per cent of all rental units, compared to 76 per cent in Holland and 47 per cent in France.

Instead of blaming the poor for problems they have no control over, let’s start working to improve their basic living conditions. I think that we would find that neighbourhoods full of cooperatives, non-profit housing and HLM would be much more pleasant and well-maintained than a city blighted by poorly maintained tenements.

>> Manuel Johnson, Community Organizer, POPIR comité logement

If only it were true that homeowners are tidier than renters, because then the Plateau would be spotless. I have lived in various Plateau neighbourhoods for 20 years. In that time, it’s gone from mostly renters to loads of homeowners, and it’s also gone from decently clean to quite dirty. Arguably coincidence.

For sure, homeowners are very particular about their property, but, sadly, this care often ends at the property line. Walk down a gentrified street after a windy recycling day. Walk down a back alley after the renovations are done.

This city’s cleanliness is not about homeowners vs. renters, it’s an issue of civic responsibility and engagement with your community.

>> Deborah Vanslet

I found Ugo Magni’s hypothesis that homeowners are intrinsically cleaner than non-homeowners intriguing, and decided to test its Freakonomic potential.

I conducted an observational study at a TMR dog walk that was a brisk 30-minute walk from the closest rental property. By appearance and local building type, the human subjects were assumed to be homeowners. Their canine pets were classified as “non-homeowners.”

Eight subjects were observed—four of each subject category. The average visit lasted 20 minutes. The study findings support Magni’s thesis.

The non-home-owning subjects all performed body-waste discharge activities in random spots throughout the dog walk. No effort was made by the non-home-owning subjects to restrict this littering activity to one dedicated area. Moreover, after fouling the grounds, the non-home-owning subjects exhibited no remorse. In fact, they seemed quite overjoyed—as did the other non-home-owners when the unapologetic litterer rejoined the group.

The property-owning subjects acted quite differently. All carried plastic bags on their person which they fashioned into hand-made “poop scoops” to retrieve their pet’s droppings and place them in a waste disposal unit. Each property-owning subject performed this clean-up operation; one owner of a large dog even performed it twice in a 20-minute period.

From this study, I can only conclude that if we wish to make non-property-owning renters cleaner, more civic-minded citizens, we should pass a law to force them to keep dogs as pets. I myself am looking seriously at a black miniature poodle named Poopsie.

>> Ron Huza

Arabs and Zionists

As usual, poor deluded Ken Frankel is suffering from a memory loss [Letters, “Roadblocks, lies and bombs,” Feb. 8]. He suggests that if he were the Prime Minister of Israel, he would have the army “lob an artillery shell at random into Gaza.” Isn’t that what the Israelis have been doing when they kill innocent civilians? Short memory that Zionist has.  

As long as the Israelis continue to steal Arab land and occupy that portion of the Mid-East, there will never be peace. However, because of the enormous influence the Zionists have on Western governments (Harper being a prime example—he has to answer to his master at CanWest), this will continue. There will be no peace in that part of the world.

>> John Dawes