SAVE US FROM THE EXPERTS

The Globe is continuing its series on the DTES called "The Fix."

It began well, but it is now in the "experts" phase.

We knew there would be trouble ahead.

Today an academic tells us what we already know and then fails to tell us what is behind what we know.

No doubt he is a good man.

Here is what he tells us:

"The root of the problems plaguing DTES is the concentration of poverty, homelessness, drug addiction, poor housing, prostitution, petty crime, and mental illness in the area."

Really?

And this honorable man has some good suggestions about housing mixes.

But he doesn't dare address why we have our famous "concentration of poverty, homelessness, drug addiction, poor housing, prostitution, petty crime, and mental illness in the area."

Can you say, "Values," boys and girls?

We are a do-as-you-will culture that dare not impose any acts of citizenship on one another.

So drug addiction or mental illness are no longer problems or conditions to be unhappy about, they are a right and a life style to be defended at all costs.

On an average day, driving my car the short distances it takes me to go about my quiet life, I must deal with at least three outrageous misbehaviours by drivers around me. Anything goes. Signals are a waste of time.

Addicts are patients and the homeless like living outdoors; they choose this lifestyle.

Uh-huh.

The DTES will remain the city's great social sewer and shame until the day we decide as a community that we'd like addicts to live clean and sober lives and we'd like the mentally ill and the homeless to find something resembling homes.