Re:" Toronto 'takes the cake' for wasting tax " for a homeless survey. lt seems this is only counting pennies. Toronto's homeless housing and supports  budget is 160M$ for an estimated 5000 homeless. This computes to about $32,000 per year for each homeless person...but a large number of these people used to live in rooming houses which have faced a servere decline during the same period which a gov't. hostel industry has exploded. lt is clear that  the lack of housing polices for this private rooming house rental have allowed this housing to go off the market.  And so only extremely expensive government options are allowed.            

During the recent Canadian Olympics an Olympic tent city was erected to protest and demand more such wasteful spending. Only free or close to free govovernment housing forms are wanted. Private forms are spurned.        A example of such waste was very close at hand in the form of a Vancouver government funded hotel $326,000 PER TINY SINGLE ROOM_JUST TO RENOVATE! Now many hardworking Canadians would be lucky if they could afford such a large amount of money to buy themselves a home after working all their lives. And remember that we are talking about single people and not 2-income couples here...if these people can live in private rooming houses why should we be paying an amount of money that an average Canadian pays for their home(or double that if you consider couples)? The same sad comparison can be made with Toronto's hostel budget.      The $32,000 per year that Toronto spends on each homeless person would finance a house worth $300,000....l wonder what average taxpayers would think if they knew that that homes for homeless of often far more expensive than their own, especially when much of this spending is not even needed...                                                      l have operated a rooming house in Toronto since 1977....Larry Chilton -416-535-2615