We also have people driven to assisted suicide because they can’t afford to live.

“In February, a 51-year-old Ontario woman known as Sophia was granted physician-assisted death after her chronic condition became intolerable and her meagre disability stipend left her little to survive on, according to CTV News. “The government sees me as expendable trash, a complainer, useless and a pain in the ass,” she said in a video obtained by the network. For two years, she and friends had pleaded without success for better living conditions, she said. Now a second case has emerged with several parallels: another woman, known as Denise, has also applied to end her life after being unable to find suitable housing and struggling to survive on disability payments.”

  • catreadingabook
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    10 months ago

    This has been a thing in the US for a while unfortunately. We acknowledge that food, shelter, clean water, and reasonable healthcare are basic human rights for prisoners, but when it comes to regular poor people? Suddenly we’re a nanny state and they’re abusing the system by… being alive, I guess.

    • wagoner
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      910 months ago

      Not even for prisoners, when you look at Texas inmates suffering and sometimes dying from unprecedented heat with no air conditioning.

    • @intensely_human@lemm.ee
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      -310 months ago

      The biggest influence the “nanny” state has on housing in the US is that it artificially constrains supply with zoning that is far too strict.

  • Pons_Aelius
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    2210 months ago

    prison vs almost certain homelessness?

    Sophie’s choice right there.

  • @WhyYesZoidberg@lemmy.world
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    910 months ago

    so can someone fill me in? what happened in canada? influx of people and not enough homes built to keep up? homes are empty and being hoarded by capitalists? what?

      • ryan213
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        110 months ago

        But my Conservative coworker said it’s all the immigrants’ fault.

    • @vivadanang@lemm.ee
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      910 months ago

      In Vancouver they had a lot of vacant houses that were investments or air-bnb’s; however bad the issues are in Canada, in the US we won’t even offer end-of-life support.

  • @jantin@lemmy.world
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    710 months ago

    How bad is life in Canada’s prison? How long before we see a wave of nonlethal crime commited with the explicit purpose of getting jailed?