A bunch of rich white kids are going to pretend they know what it’s like to be homeless.

University students across Canada are trying to live for five days without money, food or shelter, in a campaign to raise awareness about homelessness.

During the five days, participating students must follow several rules:

Remain on their school campus until Friday at 5 p.m.;
Have no disposable income;
Only eat food they receive from donations;
Have a blanket and pillow, which can be exchanged for an emergency meal;
Sleep outside, unless temperatures put their health at risk;
Do not use their student access card for showers; and,
Attend all of their regular classes and follow all academic responsibilities.

So they will be “roughing it” on secure university campuses, where there is no danger of having their shoes stolen while they sleep. Uh huh. They also don’t have to be among the genuine homeless, many of whom are mentally ill or high on meth and possibly dangerous. Certainly they’d be dangerous to a bunch of rich kids who go slumming.

Should it get too cold, they can go inside. But they don’t have to go to a real homeless shelter, where they would risk contracting TB.

They will have food “donated”, probably by their own school pals who think this is quite a lark. Real homeless people have few - if any - friends.

A pillow? Wow.

Attend classes - where it’s warm and dry.

Is it just me, or does this sound like a page out of a book on Method Acting? Seriously. If any of these kids ever missed a meal in their lives for something other than hockey practice, I’d be shocked.

Heck, I consider myself pretty lucky that I lived in my car for a few weeks - at least I had a car to live in. But I certainly wouldn’t be so damn patronizing as to run out and pretend to be poorer than I am. It’s a bloody insult to those that won’t be able to take a warm shower and have a hot meal at 5:01 Friday afternoon.

And really… who are they kidding? By 5:02 this will be nothing but a clever little story about their college days that they can tell at the law firm dinner parties in the not-too-distant future.

Derek Leonard, 27, of no fixed address, is facing assault charges after allegedly attacking a man who would only identify himself as David near Spadina and Dundas streets.

David says he told Leonard not to touch his vintage vehicle when he approached it and offered to clean the windshield. David says Leonard then banged on the vehicle, jumped in and began beating David on the head.

Toronto’s lenient attitude toward vagrancy has turned our city streets into a war zone between those who work and contribute, and those who don’t. Whatever their reasons for being on the streets, it does not give them the right to attack others. Not other homeless, and not the general public. There is too much untreated mental illness out there, and with a progressive lefty mayor not willing to admit the problem and tackle it head on, it is only going to get worse. We’ve already had a murder. What more has to happen before the mayor is willing to clean up our streets?

While dumpster diving late last night for something to blog about, I happened upon an article over at Rabble, where Krystalline Kraus (described as writer and activist) laments the violence on the streets and turns due process on its head.

The situation is similar in Vancouver. Last month Peter Collins, a 79-year-old church patron, was mugged by a homeless man in a downtown Cathedral. His assailant, 43-year-old Darcy Lance Jones, was apparently unsatisfied with the money Collins gave to him, and has now been charged with one count of robbery.

In regards to Collins’ mugging, Vancouver Police spokesperson Constable Howard Chow commented to CityTV.ca: “I’m to understand that (Jones) touts himself as a bit of a professional panhandler… He’s well known in the area and he is known to police.”

Comments such as these are not the first times that the media has tried to link ’social ills’ and violence.

Comments such as these? You mean, the facts of the case? The guy was known to cops, and had a history of this kind of behavior. That makes him a criminal.

But Toronto Councillor Michael Thompson, who claims he himself was the victim of an assault near Toronto City Hall last year, is calling for a complete city-wide ban on begging (in Toronto, aggressive panhandling is already illegal).

He claims to have been a victim. But he’s a rich white guy, so he can’t ever be a victim. Ever. Just like Ross Hammond. He deserved what he got, right? Oh, and by the way, shooting someone is also already illegal in Toronto, but that doesn’t stop the progressive left from adding gun law on top of gun law. Maybe we need a panhandler registry…

Similarly, Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan has launched Project Civil City, aimed at tackling ‘public disorder’ problems in time for the 2010 Winter Olympic Games. In a press release describing the initiative, Sullivan lumps the scourge of panhandling in the same category as open drug use.

Actually, in many cases they are one in the same, but our narrator doesn’t bother to mention the drug addiction that leads many to the streets in the first place.

In another demeaning article, Toronto Star columnist Rosie DiManno suggests that the rights of panhandlers now trump the rights of ordinary citizens. She mocks homeless advocates who, in the aftermath of the [Ross] Hammond killing, called on the public not to lose sight of the socio-economic issues at play.

The whisper of sanity can barely be heard over the hysteria. Never mind that it has been repeatedly proven time and again that it is actually the poor who are more likely to be the victims of crime than the perpetrators.

Certainly the death of Hammond and the assault of Collins were tragic. But countless acts of violence - many fatal - are visited upon the urban poor every year.

Yup, very true. Usually homeless-on-homeless crime though. How come this isn’t mentioned in the article?

Oh, and my favorite part: Ms. Kraus has decided that a charge is the same as a conviction when it comes to the middle classes harming the quirky and beloved street folk.

Sadly, such reactions are all too rare. Consider the August 2005 death of a homeless Toronto man, Paul Croutch. Croutch was bludgeoned on the park bench upon which he regularly slept by three Canadian army reservists - an apparent case of homeless bashing. All three reservists are members of the Queen’s Own Rifles, based at Moss Park Armoury, and all were charged with second-degree murder and assault causing bodily harm.

They have not been convicted. They may never be convicted. They may be innocent. But the law is applied differently to those for whom Ms. Kraus crusades. Had it been a homeless man who had beaten a reservist, Ms. Kraus would have screamed for due process and reminded us that all are innocent until proven guilty. But in this case, she is willing to be judge and jury, and convict these men in the progressive court of the left-wing press.

Toronto has a problem on it’s streets and in its ghettos where violence is too often overlooked in the search for “root causes”. It’s time to punish those who wreak violence on the population at large - and on each other - before this city becomes completely uninhabitable.