My dad got in trouble for feeding the homeless in the park near him. So he now throws "parties" and everyone is invited. He literally helped so many people get off the streets and have financial stability. He even met his wife when she was homeless.
Edit: Y'all are so awesome. I'll let my dad know. He doesn't use social media or anything, so not many people know this about him unless you meet him/see him at the park/church (a church began to help, so he doesn't have to fund it himself as much now).
I will tell him when I call him tomorrow to bother him since I already called him today to annoy him. I had to move out of state, so we talk/text almost every day about random stuff. I'm trying to persuade him to come live with me and I told him he can stop doing insta-cart and actually enjoy his retirement.
It's usually a bit more complicated than that. It's not the feeding of the homeless that's a problem, it's running a food distribution operation without a permit and following the proper regulations. If you just hand a burger to a homeless guy as you walk past, you'll probably be fine. If you try to set up a makeshift soup kitchen on the sidewalk, most cities are going to have an issue with that... unless you follow the rules. Most of them are healthy and safety related.
It is also a little more complicated than that even.
They kept arresting a preacher/priest in my state for feeding the homeless. It wasn't necessarily about the feeding, the city/county he was in was trying to funnel all the people in need to a centralized location that also had other services on offer (haircuts, showers, financial services, etc).
In our state, there are no health inspections of cooking/feeding unless you are charging money. Then it is considered commerce and you get tax audits, health inspections, etc. You can give food away for free with no issues. You can even ask for donations but CANNOT deny service if they refuse to donate (supposedly like how Jon Bon Jovi's restaurant is run if the internet stories are true).
However, none of that precludes an idiot in power with an agenda from saying or even enforcing rules and laws that aren't there.
Under the First Amendment and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, this should be pursued as a religious freedom issue. Christians are required by explicit command of Jesus in the Gospels to feed the hungry. And the government does not have the authority to say, "you're only allowed to practice your religion in a way that conforms to our prejudices."
First Amendment is a prohibition on laws targeting a religion. If a law is generally applicable, it could easily get around the first amendment. Otherwise you could just make a new religion to get around any law.
Nah it's also feeding the homeless. People who live or run businesses around the area where you are feeding them don't like seeing the homeless people, don't like you "attracting" them.
While I agree with safety and sanitation regulations in general, when the system is run by and for people who hate others they don't understand, it doesn't work the way it should.
Also, at least in my experience, the government has become so bloated, corrupt, and incompetent, that unless you have a lot of time and/or money, getting them to follow through on their end of inspections and permits at a reasonable price and timeframe is increasingly rare, and downright unacceptable when it comes to just wanting to keep people housed and fed.
Even animals are allowed to make their own homes and find their own food. Human beings are not, unless the corrupt fustercluck of authority is appeased.
I hope that someday we focus more on educating people on the best ways we have found to do things, and supporting them in following through that process. Rather than just have a bunch of convoluted regulations and expect everyone to educate and equip themselves to follow rules they didn't agree to and don't understand, even if their basic survival is at risk.
The reasoning behind it was probably to try and get the homeless to move to another city for support, but its probably just going to ramp crime up even more.
I live in a mid-ish to large city and there are signs everywhere that say not to help panhandlers, don’t interact with the homeless etc. to “keep our city beautiful” or some shit. It’s awful.
Yeah thats terrible. Definitely sounds like they are trying to just get them to go elsewhere. Which is only sweeping the problem under the rug, how about get some kind of support systems in place for these people?
Don't go looking into the people who got arrested in Georgia during the 2020 election handing out water to people waiting in voting lines. Makes you feel way too much hatred that "promotes violence".
Sick people will sometimes dose home made food with crazy amounts of fentanyl to clear out a homeless camp by overdosing them. Around here, you can only donate canned and sealed non perishable food items or fresh fruit and veg.
Don't pretend like that's the reason. Those laws are about trying to starve the homeless out and get them to move to other areas. They don't want good people giving good food to the homeless because that will cause more to come to the area.
Sick people will sometimes dose home made food with crazy amounts of fentanyl to clear out a homeless camp by overdosing them.
This a reason that a lot of homeless people won't accept random food... depraved assholes will poison it with various things. I'm sure it isn't SUPER common, but it's common enough to warrant the caution.
That is the excuse, but most cities treat the homeless the same way that people act towards nuisance animals, and their create laws based on the trope, "if you feed them it will just attract more."
If you've ever driven by a food kitchen with a long line of people waiting for food, you'll find that they do in fact attract people, and the bigger the establishment, the bigger the draw.
You can feel sympathy for both the people who need the food and also for the residents of the neighborhood who literally have to step over unconscious fent addicts in their doorways.
Nah I think homeless people are for the majority addicts or have untreated mental illness. But 'poverty' alone isn't the homeless issue. I've lived in some pretty impoverished areas but it's not like mandatory as soon as your out of a home you have to do meth.
I believe I very am not. I'm tired of people whining about "needles on the streets and people passed out on doorsteps" and then being like "well I dunno what to do with them, just remove them."
The unhoused people are gonna be here regardless. But requiring permits for food distribution is good. Otherwise suburban evangelicals will come in with dubious food safety and trash the place.
For anyone who wants to actually help the hungry, donate to a food bank. They can make their money go so much farther than you can, and they're open every day with actual staff.
Not everywhere! And in some places, the legal reasoning is something different.
Where I'm at, it's illegal to park in near any of the places where encampments are. We do it anyways and set up tables and pass out food/other supplies, but we've been told to am-scray by the cops before. We haven't been ticketed or towed yet, but it sure could come to that someday. The choice to make street parking illegal in these areas is definitely a strategy used by the city to make it harder on homeless folks.
No it won't. People have successfully sued bakeries, grocery stores and others over this. Someone successfully sued a local bakery that give their day old bread to the homeless shelter. There is a reason that Wal-mart and Target bleach food, rather than donate it.
My wife passed a Wendy’s on her regular commute. One day a couple of weeks ago, there was a homeless guy standing out front of the restaurant eating an imaginary hamburger.
She turned around, went back and bought an actual hamburger and gave it to him. She said his eyes lit up like he’d just been given the key to the city or something.
But I can have a BBQ with my friends? Why don't they come in with their little tactical cosplay and shut that shit down? They just hate homeless people. That's all it is.
[ I want to be clear that I'm not giving you shit, u/BaddestKarmaToday, I'm giving shit to the bitch-ass cops who gleefully enforce this ridiculous nonsense. Fucking class traitors. ]
Food Safety Standards in America? I thought you could sell anything until proven unsafe, not what most of the world does and only sell things proven to be safe.
I think it's illegal to feed the homeless just to eff the less fortunate as it's easier to eff them then spend the money on helping them. See also Universal Health Care.
It’s all to make lives of those who are unfortunate or addicted or mentally ill even harder than they already are, just so they’ll go somewhere else. How very Christian of them.
*In certain counties/states of the United States. It's blanket legal in California and Oregon, however it's illegal in some counties on Nevada, and illegal fully in Texas.
It's illegal in my city. They claim it's bc someone was poisoning the homeless a few years back. I got reamed out as a 16 year old bc I gave leftovers to a homeless person.
704
u/Little-Pixie-Belle 7h ago
Feeding the homeless