Common decency left out in cold

No one community has a monopoly on being mean.
The banner story in today's Toronto Star reminds me, once again, that some people are not only nasty, they're proud of it and have no qualms about flaunting it. 
Organizers of a Toronto-based Out of the Cold program were forced to put the brakes on a plan to open a 12-bed temporary shelter in a church after being threatened with a legal injunction from residents in the upscale Silver Beach Avenue-Queen Street area of The Beach.
The snobs are worried: Out of the Cold is getting too close for comfort, leaving them no option but to mobilize.
The opening for the one-night-a-week shelter has been delayed for three months, while a community meeting is slated for mid-January.
As a reporter, I've covered similar meetings.
At one in particular, I witnessed society at its worst. The meeting held in a Whitby school was set up to discuss a rezoning application to accommodate a 40-unit affordable townhouse development near a pricey subdivision.
It was one of the few times in my media career that I had to duck to avoid injury.
Residents of the upscale neighbourhood resorted to throwing chairs at a six-member panel, made up of people interested in providing decent housing. The very moment I took cover, I knew I had a front-page story.   
The mayor tried but failed to restore order.
Just before police arrived, a local real estate agent handed out, "sell now" flyers. The realtor's scare tactic included warnings that once the townhouses were occupied, seniors would be attacked in the park, wide-open drug deals would take over the streets and everybody's kids would be lured into unspeakable criminal behaviour.
The mayor pulled out all the stops — gave the real estate agent a tongue lashing, told the snobs to go home or he'd have them arrested, while announcing he would do everything in his power make sure the townhouses were built as planned.
At this moment, I knew I had the front-page banner story.
Funny thing happened, life carried on — 40 families got affordable housing, nobody was murdered, seniors didn't get mugged in the park and the mayor was re-elected in a landslide.
Here's another story that proves, once again, that money doesn't care who owns it.
Residents from a mansion-style housing development in north Stouffville turned a community event notice into a front-page story. The Keep-the-Riff-Raft-Out card was played to the enth degree. It was the talk of the town.
Here's what happened:
A developer partnered with the local cancer society to host a fundraiser. It would be an open-house tea party held on two afternoons in a just-built mansion located in the "We're All Rich" part of town.   
It was be a tea party to end all tea parties - Sterling silver tea pots, antique tea wagons, English bone china, complete with hot scones and jelly.   
Toronto's very best interior decorators agreed to work together to turn the unoccupied mansion into a showcase of elegance. 
While I was making plans to invite my mother, two ladies from her church and three old aunts to the high brow tea party, the residents of the neighbourhood weighed in and quickly realized they were being pushed beyond tolerance.
Within three days, the folks from the local cancer society took cover, while the neighbours put the cow-bash on the tea party. 
Who can blame them?
Here's what the rich folks faced: moderate-priced cars parking on their pretty streets, old gals strolling arm-in-arm past their $5-million houses, signs reading "Help Fight Cancer," and blue-haired, God-fearing ladies pouring tea.
One resident suggested it was an open invitation to crime - some of the ladies wouldn't really be from the churches, but rather they'd be thieves in disguise coming to stake out their next job - a home invasion was inevitable. Another hinted that on the way to the tea party, the little old ladies would, as old ladies are prone to do, engage in wreckless driving and run over her rich children. 
Some front-page stories write themselves. This was one.
Back to now:
When the folks from Toronto's St. Aidan's Anglican Church decided to offer the homeless a warm place to sleep, they had the silly idea it was a good thing to do. Instead of stepping over people on the city sidewalks in the dead of winter, a warm bed and a bowl of hot soup seemed to fit their Golden Rule-driven Christian doctrine. 
Facing an Out of the Cold program in the neighbourhood left The Beaches residents with no option but to arm themselves with a lawyer.
At the upcoming meeting, the lawyer will stress that this is not a case of NIMBYism, but rather a meaningful examination that should result in Out of the Cold organizers looking elsewhere for a place for the shelter.
While flying chairs, threats of wild tea parties and a move to make sure some homeless guy freezes to death makes front-page news, why do snobs insist on being part of the story?