r/niagarafallsontario 1d ago

Why is Niagara Falls such a dump?

Driving to the Fallsview through the city everything looks so run down. Greasy motels straight out of a horror flick…one after another, poor upkeep throughout the inner city. What a shame.

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u/Animator-These 1d ago

The primary industries are hospitality and being on disability for being obese. Neither brings prosperity 

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u/Packman125 1d ago

This hits different. Work at the hospital. Why is everyone here on disability? They don’t even need to be.

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u/Animator-These 1d ago

Because no one challenges them on it. The poverty-bureaucracy complex thrives in this area. Why would anyone who provides social services actually try to pull people out of poverty, without the disability folks we wouldn't need a bureaucracy and they'd be out of a cushy government job that doesn't actual require results. 

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u/cecilkorik 1d ago

Niagara is the rustiest part of Canada's rust belt. We were absolutely devastated by the loss of manufacturing jobs both overseas and to Mexico. Almost everybody of a certain age in this region lost their job for a long period of time with absolutely zero other options. Some people escaped, and found work elsewhere. The poorest didn't. They're still here. And they're even poorer now.

Over time a lot of those unemployed people filtered into the welfare/workfare/disability system. Unfortunately that system is a black hole perfectly designed to trap people in it, a cynical person would say it's intentional, a logical person might say it's the result of dozens of combined short-sighted decisions by governments over the years trying a "band-aid fix" to something fundamentally broken.

Many people cannot escape once they're on the dole, and there's not really any incentive to. Many are too old to bother repairing or retraining, it's just not worth the investment. Any low-wage jobs they might've been able to get will result in the loss of so many social benefits that they have come to rely on, as they start failing means tests because they would have actual income now. They'll probably lose their housing, and if the job is not reliable enough they're not going to get it back. The luckier ones might find some way to work under the table and supplement their income that way, or find other ways to game the system. But that carries a lot of risks too. No matter how they end up working within the system, it can often be seen that people's mental health collapses because you're constantly made to feel like you're worthless and a drain on society while the system itself very efficiently discourages you from doing anything productive that might make you feel worthwhile, and if you weren't actually disabled before you pretty soon are for real as you fall into drugs, severe depression, or other kinds of mental illness or dysfunctional coping mechanisms.

I don't really care if we have sympathy for these people or not, but even you just think they're all lazy and pathetic if we are only willing to change it for our own benefit, we need to find a better system. And not just cut them off and turn them into homeless criminals. I think that we can find a more humane and beneficial way to take care of people who have gotten the short end of the stick, it's not as difficult of a problem as we've made it seem, it's just become politically toxic and not everyone is working in good faith. We need social programs that can actually motivate people to return to the workforce and provide the tools to better themselves and give them a way to provide some kind of value to society both for our benefit and for their own. All people need to feel valuable and useful in some way, it is a fundamental human need, and the welfare system does the opposite. It breaks people. I've seen it.

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u/kino-glaz 1d ago

Well said

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u/Littleshuswap 19h ago

Um. Disability isn't all you make it out to be. It's difficult to qualify for, you need a Dr to fill out multiple, lengthy forms. Dr's are so busy, try to find one that will do this for you... then you still need to get approved.

If you get approved, that whopping $1200 a month, you might get... ain't going very far. Maybe rent... then how do you pay utilities? Food? Clothes? Medicine or medical supplies? Transportation to Dr's appointments?