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More Cities Are Making It Illegal to Hand Out Food to the Homeless

166 points by jcater 12y ago

krschultz 12y ago
""Street feeding is one of the worst things to do, because it keeps people in homeless status," he says. "I think it's very unproductive, very enabling, and it keeps people out of recovery programs." Instead, he thinks food sharing programs should only be located near what he calls the "core areas of recovery": mental health, substance abuse and job readiness services. Otherwise, he says, homeless people may spend more time pursuing food than the services that will help them get back on their feet." Not the argument I was expecting, but I would say I think making it illegal to feed people is the wrong.
- melling 12y ago
  I think he's making the case that it should be illegal to hand out food at certain locations. However, you can certainly donate food to shelters or food centers, for example. It does seem like a good idea to provide basic food services for the homeless so they know where they can get their next meal, rather than begging on the street. Medical services should be supplied there also. It would be a more effective use of resources. I'm not sure if it should be illegal, but as a civilization that's probably what we should encourage.
  - shkkmo 12y ago
    I agree. But making it illegal to feed the homeless, or feed them in some locations seems heavy handed and wrong. If you want to encourage feeding the homeless in places close to where they can get other types of assistance, you should take positive steps to encourage that: Provide assistance (financial or logistical) to organizations doing the feeding in proper locations. Provide transportation to help the homeless get to the proper locations. Or most simply: Ask the organizations or people what you can do to get them to start feeding the homeless in proper locations.
    - Consultant32452 12y ago
      The issue is the realization that feeding the homeless in unstructured environments is a net negative. It makes people feel good because, "Look, I helped that guy eat today." But the reality is that guy could've likely eaten a meal more appropriate to his specific health needs in a location best suited to help him with medical aid, psychiatric help, and job skills/placement. So we have this terrible predicament where people feel good about something that actually hurts people because they don't know better. It would be nice if education programs worked and people wised up and stopped feeding the homeless randomly, but you know what? It just doesn't work. We've tried that. So now the law is involved. It may sound crazy, but we have to get people to stop hurting the homeless by encouraging terribly unsafe behaviors like panhandling.
      - shkkmo 12y ago
        The issue is how you deal with a behavior that may be a net negative. Do you ban it? Or, Do you use education, incentives and support to change the prevalence of the behavior? Also, are you completely sure that if you ban unstructured feeding, all the homeless will get fed in a structured way? Or will banning the feeding lead to some people starving? Also, how do you know it's a net negative? Do you take the word of a politician who has incentive to move the homeless to low property value areas?
        Consultant32452 12y ago
        I live in Orlando, the city that got some infamy a number of years ago for banning the public unstructured feedings. I feel confident in saying that education seems to have failed, but banning seems to have been fairly successful at least with respect to curbing the behavior. So that leaves the question of whether or not it's a net negative. Panhandling is demonstrably dangerous, and an argument for unstructured feeding is an argument for the status quo. I can definitely say that the status quo is an abject failure. As for the structured efforts, those must be measured and improved on an individual basis. They certainly have their own issues, but at least in my city those structured feeding facilities also provide access and information on medical care, job placement, and other assistance that is relevant to the homeless population.
- higherpurpose 12y ago
  I don't know about food, but I'd say giving money to beggars certainly enables them. In fact, there's a big Roma community that goes to France and other countries to beg there, because they know they will make "good money" begging. It's not just Roma, though. There are underground networks of beggars, where the people running the network get most of the money, and so on.
- DenisM 12y ago
  Well, in the real world you have to make choices: 1 - Continue to allow unstructured homeless feeding. Homeless continue to lose out on benefits of structured feeding. 2 - Make unstructured homeless feeding illegal. Homeless get benefits of structured feeding, but it clashes with our morals and ideas of personal liberties. 3 - Discourage unstructured homeless feeding without violating restricting anyone's rights. In an ideal world, you would chose option #3. However, we don't have that option, at least to the best of our knowledge. If we had such option, we would see a report from some place that tried and succeeded... Therefore by rejecting option #2 you are by default promoting option #1, that is prolonging pain and suffering in the name of superior morals.
AdmiralAsshat 12y ago
"Street feeding is one of the worst things to do, because it keeps people in homeless status," he says. "I think it's very unproductive, very enabling, and it keeps people out of recovery programs." What exactly, in this economy, should I tell a homeless person who is hungry? "Get a job"?
- pavel_lishin 12y ago
  It sounds like he was addressing concentrated efforts to feed the homeless - groups setting up tables with food to hand out to all who want it - not someone coming out of a McDonald's who doesn't want to finish their fries. To address your actual point, something helpful might be to direct them to a local shelter. (And yup, they're shitty places to be, and that's another problem that needs solving.)
- melling 12y ago
  Did you read the article because it didn't say that it wanted to prevent people from eating.
- bobbyhotpockets 12y ago
  You would tell this person where to find food sharing programs, which would be "located near what he calls the "core areas of recovery": mental health, substance abuse and job readiness services."
  - nknighthb 12y ago
    Yes, we all read that. It's obvious misdirection. To the extent these things exist, they are badly underfunded. Let them eat cake, while properly segregated from polite society.
- josefresco 12y ago
  You shouldn't tell them anything (get a job/get clean etc.), you should offer something/help instead. Food shouldn't be the only thing we offer the homeless, it should be only the last resort. Along with food, should come programs to get them the help they need, whether that be mental health, help with addiction or just help getting back on their feet.
bokonist 12y ago
I really wish we could all, liberals and conservatives, could come up with a "grand compromise" with regards to the homeless. Elements of the compromise: 1) Guarantee all people access to cheap, government provided dormitory style living, with a door that locks, a kitchen and basic food staples, and security screening of fellow residents. There would be different forms of permanent living for the mentally ill, drug addicts, recovering addicts, or able body people who have fallen on hard times. It would seem reasonable to require the sane and able bodied to do 20 hours of very basic work (picking up trash, watching security cameras, etc.) in return for the living. [this line has been edited, see footnote] 2) Re-enact and enforce vagrancy laws. No sleeping in the street, no panhandling, no begging, no telling manipulative sob stories on the subway. 3) Make the support for 1) the responsibility of the community they are from. The problem right now is any community that wishes to be generous to the homeless becomes a homeless magnet. This creates an incentive for cities not to be charitable, and to not take care of their own. The cities that are generous then get mocked for their homeless problem. Instead, if San Francisco police arrest a vagrant, they should make an effort to find out where his closest family from, or where his last established residency or hometown is, and then give him a one-way bus ticket back to that town. Unfortunately, liberals are generally against #2, conservatives are against #1, no one even talks about #3 and so nothing gets done and the problem, which could be so easily solved given our resources, persists on and on. (a) Edit/footnote: obviously many homeless people have drug and mental health problems that would make dorm living and performing a government job infeasible. There also needs to be funded supportive housing and programs for those cases. Also, there needs to be different levels of dorm living so those trying to escape drug addiction are not around those who are still using. The dorm living would need rules and management to prevent the problems that plague homeless shelter.
- VBprogrammer 12y ago
  1) Sounds a lot like slavery. 2) Make being homeless illegal. 3) Eliminate freedom of travel for the homeless. I think I prefer the status quo to your version of a solution.
  - dubfan 12y ago
kauffj 12y ago
Almost everyone sees it as their right (or the government's right) to restrict other's behavior/rights/property when it would affect their quality of life or the standards of their community (cf. drugs, gay marriage). Suppose 90% of people in Fort Lauderdale want to disallow businesses from feeding the homeless while 90% of Philadelphia wants to disallow businesses from allowing smoking inside. What principle allows us to restrict smoking on private property that wouldn't also allow us to restrict people feeding the homeless? Is there a reason one of these is more acceptable than the other? On edit: For those who feel the difference is purely about outcomes, what if Roger Marbut is right and feeding the homeless in the way banned is a net harm? Would it be okay then? Also, while one can argue smoking bars are a net good, they do, at a minimum, harm those who would like to smoke. We can also construct a scenario in which a smoking restaurateur wants to serve food to his 3 smoking customers (i.e. all are harmed).
- quonn 12y ago
  Yes. Giving food to a fellow human being who might otherwise well starve has always been considered positive in probably most societies. A society thinking otherwise is very mistaken.
- wazoox 12y ago
  Because smoking harms you and those around you, while feeding the homeless actually help fellow human beings?
  - icebraining 12y ago
    The argument is that just handing out food harms the homeless by enabling him to avoid places where (s)he could be further helped.
    - Klinky 12y ago
      This would make sense if the US had well-funded homeless shelters & mental health facilities, and a robust economy. We don't. Many of the places the homeless get referred to are not of any help for their circumstances, in some cases they can be more dangerous than the street.
realusername 12y ago
"Street feeding is one of the worst things to do, because it keeps people in homeless status," Oh yeah sure, they're homeless because they are asking for food, that's their own fault for staying homeless and not the fault of the society. This is very convenient. Or maybe they just go to food sharing programs because they are hungry and that's their only option ? Who knows...
- icebraining 12y ago
  That's not what's being said.
zipwitch 12y ago
Practice for treating humans like animals?
SNvD7vEJ 12y ago
Also, soon it will be illegal to help victims of train and car crashes in order to reduce the number of accidents.
- jdmichal 12y ago
  Actually, in the US [0] it's the default that you can be sued for injury or wrongful death if you attempt to assist. Some jurisdictions have Good Samaritan laws [1] to fix this very issue, though even then it sometimes only extends to trained personnel like emergency responders and doctors. [0] And possibly other places, but I'm not familiar enough to say. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Samaritan_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Samaritan_law
  - gnopgnip 12y ago
    You can be sued for anything, it's unlikely you would have any greater risk for attempting to help compared to doing nothing.
    - jdmichal 12y ago
      I do not understand why you would hold such a false impression. Anyone can indeed attempt to sue you for anything, however that says nothing about their likelihood to succeed. Say I am untrained in any rescue or medical procedures. I witness a car collision, and a rider was ejected from a vehicle and lying next to it. I proceed to move them due to perceived fire hazard, however they in fact have a broken neck and die due to my moving them before stabilizing the neck. If it could be reasonably argued [0] that the person would have lived with proper intervention had I not intervened, why should I not be liable for that? In fact, without a Good Samaritan law in effect, I am potentially liable for the rider's death. I can be successfully sued by the survivors. The whole point of Good Samaritan laws is to reduce or eliminate this liability to me in exactly these scenarios. Now, if I do nothing, I am likely to only be liable if there is a duty to rescue [1]. [0] As in, well enough to win a criminal or civil case. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duty_to_rescue http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duty_to_rescue
- 12y ago
harrylove 12y ago
Arrest me then.
mtalantikite 12y ago
I once got yelled at by a pizza shop owner for buying a homeless guy a couple slices in the Lower East Side. It never crossed my mind that someone would take issue with someone feeding another human.
- Crito 12y ago
  Many small businesses like that have issues with homeless people camping directly outside their business, harassing their customers asking for food. When people buy food for them, it encourages them to stick around and keep it up. As you might imagine, having homeless people standing around outside harassing your customers is not great for business.
  - mtalantikite 12y ago
    The guy wasn't outside harassing people, we were talking a couple blocks away and I asked him if he was hungry.
  - omegaham 12y ago
    Yep. I don't go to certain parts of Portland because it's so unpleasant. Those businesses suffer for it.
qwerta 12y ago
War against food :-)
Havoc 12y ago
What are they going to do? Arrest me for helping a starving guy?
- sarciszewski 12y ago
  Yes. See what happened with Food Not Bombs in Orlando a couple of years back.
  - Havoc 12y ago
    ah - I keep forgetting...US legal system.
pdeuchler 12y ago
I'm from Orlando, where the original hullabaloo over this sort of thing erupted a while back. Most of the time the people complaining about laws like these are (please forgive the stereotypes, but in my experience they've been accurate) white, upper class, white collar, with very little experience dealing with poverty or poverty related issues. They hear things that sound counter intuitive and the "white savior" complex goes into overdrive. Since Orlando has weather (and an economy, look up 2008-present foreclosure rates in Central Florida for reference) that is very conducive to a large homeless population we have been dealing with the issue at a large scale for a long time, and a lot of caring, smart, experienced people all agree that there are very constructive ways of dealing with homelessness and very destructive ways of dealing with it. Time and time again, allowing the homeless to disperse geographically and survive in a "free for all" state creates enormous problems. You end up with exploitation, abuse, and harm to not only the homeless but those around them. It's rare, but not unheard of, for stupid kids to give the homeless sandwiches laced with, say, exlax. It's rare, but not unheard of, for people to entice the homeless into essentially handyman jobs with the promise of a meal, or payment, only to "reconsider" at the last second once the job is done. It's rare, but not unheard of, for well meaning people to give out food that has gone bad, or can exacerbate terrible allergies or medical conditions. Furthermore, encouraging the homeless to beg and subsist off of random passerby is an incredibly demeaning thing. It encourages the bad element of panhandling, begging, and lies to encourage donations. It creates an atmosphere where the most seriously poorly off end up being "out begged" by the devious looking to snag a quick meal, or beer money. Last, but not least, it completely ruins standardized initiatives to solve the problem. The homeless are less likely to congregate in safe areas where organizations dedicated to help them are located. They're less likely to receive a steady, nutritious diet. They're less likely to be exposed to further job programs and mental health help. They're more likely to sleep in an alley somewhere instead of, at worst, gathering near a shelter, or at best, getting a bed in a shelter where they are safest and most secure. Keeping tabs on the homeless is one of the hardest things to do, but one of the most important. If you can't track progress on a community or individual scale you can't tell whether or not your efforts are working, and you can't develop the personal relationships and support groups that time and time again are proven to be, overwhelmingly, the most effective way to get people out of the vicious cycle. It's hard to kind of shut off the automatic empathy that pops up, but you have to realize these are people just like you that ended up with a serious short stick in life. You need to treat them like that, instead of infantilizing them.
eevilspock 12y ago
...while the Supreme Court protects the right of people and corporations (because of course they are persons too!) to feed politicians as much money as they want.
gumby 12y ago
Seems to me that feeding the homeless is unambiguously a first amendment right. Saying this doesn't invalidate some of the reasons why it might be a bad idea (although many of those reasons seem like...a stretch), but then again the first amendment allows you to say (and, I claim do) some stupid stuff. I think giving money to panhandlers is dumb but I do it. It's clear to me that when I pull out a couple of bucks I'm expressing my concern for that person, for the social issues that may have helped them end up there (or they may simply have had their own problems, or own bad luck) and my feelings about myself as a person, which may be noble, base or guilty. I also, when I think of it, donate to charities that help the homeless (it's a problem here in Palo Alto, though less than it used to be now the city council fell prey to the real estate lobby and shoved all the homeless shelters aside). I know a wholesale approach is generally more sensible. But sometimes a little "retail therapy" of this sort is valuable too.
alexvr 12y ago
Sounds like a great way to invite a higher crime rate.
hellbanner 12y ago
So if I meet someone on the street who has a home, I can hand them my fries?
joshfraser 12y ago
It's one thing for a city to discourage me from giving food or money to panhandlers. It's another to make it illegal.
mightybyte 12y ago
This topic tends to generate polarizing and conflicted views, as we can clearly see from the comments here. One side thinks it's cruel and heartless to prevent someone from giving food to a hungry human. The other side thinks that we shouldn't reward bad behavior. The core of the matter is that helping people is hard. I don't mean just token help. I mean really helping in a meaningful way that makes a lasting difference. An example: consider back in the 80s - 90s where there was a charity trend in at least parts of the United States of sending clothes to Africa. Seems like a good thing, right? How could giving clothes be bad. Clothing is a basic need (in many places), just like food. But what really happened when Americans started sending clothes to Africa? People who have actually spent time in Africa can tell you that the flood of free clothes totally destroyed the local textile industries. People who were making a productive living found themselves unable to compete and out of work/income. So we see that with free clothes there were significant unintended negative consequences. Why would we expect it would be any different with free food? I totally get the desire to empathize with another human being and genuinely want to help people who found themselves in a very difficult situation with no obvious way to break the cycle. But we need to be aware that our supposed help may actually end up causing more difficulty in the long run. In that case, one could argue that charity becomes a selfish act--the real reason the giver does it is because it makes them feel better about themselves. I'm not making this point in an attempt to justify heartless inaction. I just think that we should put serious thought into examining whether our efforts at charity really make a meaningful difference in the lives of the people we're trying to help.
- drez 12y ago
  This is the best point here. I don't think anyone is advocating to let the homeless starve. We just need to realize as a society that the small act of kindness that we can provide at the micro scale (giving rides, money, food, etc) can have harsh consequences when observed from the macro scale.
- TheOtherHobbes 12y ago
  I don't see how you get one from economic situation to another. Would subsidised housing for the homeless destroy rental values? Would free food destroy the restaurant business? Isn't it more likely that a relative small spend would increase property values and restaurant footfall? Most people don't like having to deal with beggars and if beggars disappear from an area, isn't it at least worth considering that it could become more popular with potential customers and residents?
jemfinch 12y ago
How is it that giving money to political campaigns is an expression of free speech, but giving food to the homeless isn't? If municipalities couldn't pass a law prohibiting speaking to homeless people, how, in a post-"Citizens United" world, can they pass a law prohibiting giving food to homeless?
- jemfinch 12y ago
  I'd really like my cowardly downvoter to post a reply; as far as I can tell, my reasoning is sound.
  - innguest 12y ago
    You're being downvoted for being right (correct) and right (not a leftist) at the same time. Happens often here. Grab a chair.
  - dllthomas 12y ago
    Don't read too much into downvotes. With no ability to correct a vote, it's sometimes just fat fingers.
steveax 12y ago
I like Carlin's solution [1] "... But getting back to low-cost housing, I think I might have solved this problem. I know just the place to build housing for the homeless: golf courses. It’s perfect. Plenty of good land in nice neighborhoods; land that is currently being squandered on a mindless activity engaged in by white, well-to-do business criminals who use the game to get together so they can make deals to carve this country up a little finer among themselves..." [1]: http://www.georgecarlinrip.com/2014/01/golf-courses-for-homeless.html http://www.georgecarlinrip.com/2014/01/golf-courses-for-home...
mkhalil 12y ago
Seen this comment on that article. Kind of sad really; what we're turning into. "that law has me, and plenty others in the greater Houston area, really ticked off. There were several very active (although small and not well funded) charities that were recently shut down due to this nonsense. Church groups that would fix food in their kitchens and take it to the homeless were stopped because they didn't have a commercial kitchen and all the permits that came with it; other groups would get together in their homes and cook meals, and got shut down for the same reasons. It's absolutely ridiculous to turn good samaritans in to criminals, but that's exactly what we do every time a new law is created as a knee jerk reaction to some recent event. How about we LEAVE PEOPLE ALONE? sorry /endrant"
GoldenHomer 12y ago
I know in Lubbock something similar was in the news a while. It had more to do with city health code violation than anything else and the matter seemed to die down. It's interesting because a church was doing the feeding and I didn't think the city would do such a thing considering how conservative and religious this city is. I rather see the food being eaten rather than being thrown away. I have nothing against the homeless except for the rare ones who get angry when I say I will buy them food rather than hand money over. There's also Tent City here in the 806 which is a congregation of homeless who sleep in tents and I haven't heard much trouble there. Now the homeless in San Francisco are a different story. I didn't want to believe it since SF is such a lovely city but damn, the homeless there are aggressive as hell. That's just my experience though.
unknownBits 12y ago
I think it would be much better to make it illegal to have idiots being in power.
webnrrd2k 12y ago
Just so you have some background -- I know homeless people, and I buy food for the homeless on a regular basis. I sit and eat and talk with them, give them rides, take them to hospitals, etc..., and I consider many of them friends. I'm not a therapist, or any sort of expert, but I have some experience. It's just not street-food that's making or keeping people homeless, and it's a gross mischaracterization to claim that street feeding is what keeps people homeless. I just can't see how that contributes any any significant way to their issues. The homeless people I know have serious physical and/or mental health issues. People aren't exactly lining up to give them food and money. Many of them simply can't manage a budget and afford enough to eat through most of the month, so they supplement their diet however they can. They know that there are programs out there to help them, but they don't take advantage of them now. Making it illegal to give them food isn't going to somehow force them to get help. It'll just make it worse for the homeless.
- drez 12y ago
  > They know that there are programs out there to help them, but they don't take advantage of them now. Making it illegal to give them food isn't going to somehow force them to get help. It'll just make it worse for the homeless. Are you sure? I'm not trying to attack your point, but what would happen if your homeless friends actually started taking advantage of these programs that are put in place to help them? Right now they don't need to because they are getting by on the kindness of others, but what if they had no other option but to go to these mental hospitals, homeless shelters, food banks, etc, where they could someday learn to take care of themselves and break the cycle? I think what you're doing shows how much of a loving and kind-hearted person you are, but try to consider the other side of the argument. This is an enormously hard problem (dating back thousands of years). We need a way to break the cycle, and the current status quo just isn't working.
  - bduerst 12y ago
    That's a gross generalization, almost a false dichotomy. webnrrd2k's experience mirrors my past experiences, in that many homeless simply don't have the mental faculties to take care of themselves. This includes having enough sapience to seek out existing programs for help. Many will self medicate with illegal or stolen drugs, which only exasperates their situation. It's very easy to project ourselves into these situations and think "What would I do if I were homeless?", and assume that if you were lazy enough and taken care of you would probably stay homeless. The fact that you are even able to jump these mental hurdles and consider these situations is why you are not currently homeless.
tn13 12y ago
Firstly with minimum wage laws you deny them opportunity to earn their living. Then you deny them food. Well done America.
Istof 12y ago
It should be illegal to make this illegal unless such city at least first setup a free food program for the homeless that is easily accessible for all homeless in that city. They only want to drive them away to different cities so that the city look better?
tn13 12y ago
When I arrived in bay area, I found not too many homeless people but there were few. Often they asked for "change". So I thought I might be able to use these people as handyman. So I asked one of them if he would help me cleaning my car and moving furniture. I offered him $20, some used clothes and chilled beer. He shrugged saying he doesn't want my money. He told me that if he wanted work, he could get it easily and had held many jobs in past. Being a homeless enabled him get various type of welfare from government he easily made $800 per month from government. He said he could get a job for $3000 a month but then it is not a major improvement over getting $800 for doing nothing. US needs to rethink its welfare measure. They are winning votes but wrecking the country.
- objectivetruth 12y ago
  You DO know that's a singular anecdote and not even close to representative of many, if not most, of the folks that suffer in this situation, right?
  - tn13 12y ago
    Given two choices, people tend to make the choice that maximizes their interest. I am certain that this example is an indicative of what most are likely to think.
frandroid 12y ago
If people don't want to see homeless people in the streets, give them homes. LA Country has pretty much proven that the cost of social housing is lower than the cost of homelessness (policing, healthcare, etc).
bane 12y ago
When I was young, due to some bad business deals and other factors, my family went homeless for a few months. We lived in a cheap motel, 4 of us to the room. We had some hot plates and cooked some in the room and used the bathroom sink to wash up afterwards. It wasn't too bad to be honest, we had food, shelter, clothing, jobs and each other. We weren't the only "housing challenged" residents of this motel. By the late night activity in the hallway and the parking lot, most seemed to have some kind of severe addiction problem, though there were a couple illegal immigrants who had secured a room through a friend while they worked for remittance money. On more than one occasion, drunk/high people tried to force entry into our room later at night. My father slept by the door with a hammer after the second time. Despite this, I'm not an authority on homelessness, but I know it sucks. For people like us, without severe mental, substance or family problems, wanting the make the sucking part stop is what kept us working on getting out of the situation. So I understand the ideas behind some of these notions around "not encouraging" people to be homeless. Having lived in those kinds of conditions before and not minded them terribly, to be perfectly honest, I've had moments where I've thought "if I could have a room and food, without working at all, I wouldn't bother looking for a job". So I fundamentally get where that's coming from. However, I also have several people in my family with severe psychological and addiction issues, and recognizing these same issues in the homeless I see out on the street every day, I understand that "getting out of the suckiness of homelessness" is not a major driver for them. Their hierarchy of needs is often screwed up and insomuch as they are able to satisfy that hierarchy, getting shelter (and even food) is often not a major priority for them. So no amount of having food kitchens or not having them is going to be a major decision point for them to suddenly come off their additions, become sane, and become productive members of society. However, I do think that people should be able to eat a safe meal if they need it. Now that I'm long out of that situation, educated and affluent, I also suffer from NIMBYism. I worked very hard and have spent significant amounts of time and money to live in an area where I don't really have to worry about the kinds of negative environmental factors and activities that come with handling large homeless populations. I don't want a food kitchen anywhere near where I live. Not because I don't believe in feeding the homeless, people need to eat today not after a six month job training program, but because for people who aren't working their way out of homelessness, there are large numbers of negative issues that homeless people bring along with them and it contributes to an environment I don't want to be in. So this is a very tough issue. However, just offering services isn't really a good answer either. When I spent some time in Portland, I was struck by the number and permanence of the homeless population there. It's not a particularly great outdoor environment, but the large number of free services in the downtown area have created a more or less stable population of self-supporting homeless. The principle complaint residents I've spoken to have is that it's great these services exist, but once they've been served, what's next? I've observed poor coordination among homeless service organizations. You go here for food, here for the shelter, here for blankets, here for a job, if you're extremely lucky you might be getting medical/psychological/addiction care on a sporadic basis. But what really needs to happen is a centralized "get off the streets" center. If a homeless person wants any services, they have to check in there and they must participate in all of the appropriate services proscribed to them. I'm also an advocate that they should immediately be working in return for the services. Every city has loads of work that needs doing, picking up litter, emptying public trash bins, park beautification, cleaning up graffiti, repainting bridges, filling in potholes, etc. In exchange a person who's "in the program" should get 3 hot meals a day, a small dorm room with a door they can lock, free psych/rehab/basic medical clinic treatment. They should be scored on participation, and if they do well, move on to more advanced programs like finding rent-controlled/shared housing, real jobs that pay money, mass-transit subsidies etc. A friend of mine had a horrible experience and ended up in a battered women's shelter with 3 kids. The program they put her on was better than any homeless program I've seen. Within weeks, she had a job, psych counseling for her and her kids, and in a couple months had moved out of the shelter and was splitting a town home with another woman from the program at hugely subsidized rent (based on how much she made at her job). Within a year they had found her a two bedroom apartment just for her family. This was for a person who had money in her bank account, work history and some job skills, and a sizable social network who helped her out during her ordeal with food, money and places to stay. It wasn't perfect, but I was surprised at how much better it was for her than for the homeless who don't really have anything at all.

166 points by jcater 12y ago

""Street feeding is one of the worst things to do, because it keeps people in homeless status," he says. "I think it's very unproductive, very enabling, and it keeps people out of recovery programs." Instead, he thinks food sharing programs should only be located near what he calls the "core areas of recovery": mental health, substance abuse and job readiness services. Otherwise, he says, homeless people may spend more time pursuing food than the services that will help them get back on their feet." Not the argument I was expecting, but I would say I think making it illegal to feed people is the wrong.

melling 12y ago
I think he's making the case that it should be illegal to hand out food at certain locations. However, you can certainly donate food to shelters or food centers, for example. It does seem like a good idea to provide basic food services for the homeless so they know where they can get their next meal, rather than begging on the street. Medical services should be supplied there also. It would be a more effective use of resources. I'm not sure if it should be illegal, but as a civilization that's probably what we should encourage.
- shkkmo 12y ago
  I agree. But making it illegal to feed the homeless, or feed them in some locations seems heavy handed and wrong. If you want to encourage feeding the homeless in places close to where they can get other types of assistance, you should take positive steps to encourage that: Provide assistance (financial or logistical) to organizations doing the feeding in proper locations. Provide transportation to help the homeless get to the proper locations. Or most simply: Ask the organizations or people what you can do to get them to start feeding the homeless in proper locations.
  - Consultant32452 12y ago
    The issue is the realization that feeding the homeless in unstructured environments is a net negative. It makes people feel good because, "Look, I helped that guy eat today." But the reality is that guy could've likely eaten a meal more appropriate to his specific health needs in a location best suited to help him with medical aid, psychiatric help, and job skills/placement. So we have this terrible predicament where people feel good about something that actually hurts people because they don't know better. It would be nice if education programs worked and people wised up and stopped feeding the homeless randomly, but you know what? It just doesn't work. We've tried that. So now the law is involved. It may sound crazy, but we have to get people to stop hurting the homeless by encouraging terribly unsafe behaviors like panhandling.
    - shkkmo 12y ago
      The issue is how you deal with a behavior that may be a net negative. Do you ban it? Or, Do you use education, incentives and support to change the prevalence of the behavior? Also, are you completely sure that if you ban unstructured feeding, all the homeless will get fed in a structured way? Or will banning the feeding lead to some people starving? Also, how do you know it's a net negative? Do you take the word of a politician who has incentive to move the homeless to low property value areas?
      - Consultant32452 12y ago
        I live in Orlando, the city that got some infamy a number of years ago for banning the public unstructured feedings. I feel confident in saying that education seems to have failed, but banning seems to have been fairly successful at least with respect to curbing the behavior. So that leaves the question of whether or not it's a net negative. Panhandling is demonstrably dangerous, and an argument for unstructured feeding is an argument for the status quo. I can definitely say that the status quo is an abject failure. As for the structured efforts, those must be measured and improved on an individual basis. They certainly have their own issues, but at least in my city those structured feeding facilities also provide access and information on medical care, job placement, and other assistance that is relevant to the homeless population.
higherpurpose 12y ago
I don't know about food, but I'd say giving money to beggars certainly enables them. In fact, there's a big Roma community that goes to France and other countries to beg there, because they know they will make "good money" begging. It's not just Roma, though. There are underground networks of beggars, where the people running the network get most of the money, and so on.
DenisM 12y ago
Well, in the real world you have to make choices: 1 - Continue to allow unstructured homeless feeding. Homeless continue to lose out on benefits of structured feeding. 2 - Make unstructured homeless feeding illegal. Homeless get benefits of structured feeding, but it clashes with our morals and ideas of personal liberties. 3 - Discourage unstructured homeless feeding without violating restricting anyone's rights. In an ideal world, you would chose option #3. However, we don't have that option, at least to the best of our knowledge. If we had such option, we would see a report from some place that tried and succeeded... Therefore by rejecting option #2 you are by default promoting option #1, that is prolonging pain and suffering in the name of superior morals.

AdmiralAsshat 12y ago

"Street feeding is one of the worst things to do, because it keeps people in homeless status," he says. "I think it's very unproductive, very enabling, and it keeps people out of recovery programs." What exactly, in this economy, should I tell a homeless person who is hungry? "Get a job"?

pavel_lishin 12y ago
It sounds like he was addressing concentrated efforts to feed the homeless - groups setting up tables with food to hand out to all who want it - not someone coming out of a McDonald's who doesn't want to finish their fries. To address your actual point, something helpful might be to direct them to a local shelter. (And yup, they're shitty places to be, and that's another problem that needs solving.)
melling 12y ago
Did you read the article because it didn't say that it wanted to prevent people from eating.
bobbyhotpockets 12y ago
You would tell this person where to find food sharing programs, which would be "located near what he calls the "core areas of recovery": mental health, substance abuse and job readiness services."
- nknighthb 12y ago
  Yes, we all read that. It's obvious misdirection. To the extent these things exist, they are badly underfunded. Let them eat cake, while properly segregated from polite society.
josefresco 12y ago
You shouldn't tell them anything (get a job/get clean etc.), you should offer something/help instead. Food shouldn't be the only thing we offer the homeless, it should be only the last resort. Along with food, should come programs to get them the help they need, whether that be mental health, help with addiction or just help getting back on their feet.

bokonist 12y ago

I really wish we could all, liberals and conservatives, could come up with a "grand compromise" with regards to the homeless. Elements of the compromise: 1) Guarantee all people access to cheap, government provided dormitory style living, with a door that locks, a kitchen and basic food staples, and security screening of fellow residents. There would be different forms of permanent living for the mentally ill, drug addicts, recovering addicts, or able body people who have fallen on hard times. It would seem reasonable to require the sane and able bodied to do 20 hours of very basic work (picking up trash, watching security cameras, etc.) in return for the living. [this line has been edited, see footnote] 2) Re-enact and enforce vagrancy laws. No sleeping in the street, no panhandling, no begging, no telling manipulative sob stories on the subway. 3) Make the support for 1) the responsibility of the community they are from. The problem right now is any community that wishes to be generous to the homeless becomes a homeless magnet. This creates an incentive for cities not to be charitable, and to not take care of their own. The cities that are generous then get mocked for their homeless problem. Instead, if San Francisco police arrest a vagrant, they should make an effort to find out where his closest family from, or where his last established residency or hometown is, and then give him a one-way bus ticket back to that town. Unfortunately, liberals are generally against #2, conservatives are against #1, no one even talks about #3 and so nothing gets done and the problem, which could be so easily solved given our resources, persists on and on. (a) Edit/footnote: obviously many homeless people have drug and mental health problems that would make dorm living and performing a government job infeasible. There also needs to be funded supportive housing and programs for those cases. Also, there needs to be different levels of dorm living so those trying to escape drug addiction are not around those who are still using. The dorm living would need rules and management to prevent the problems that plague homeless shelter.

VBprogrammer 12y ago
1) Sounds a lot like slavery. 2) Make being homeless illegal. 3) Eliminate freedom of travel for the homeless. I think I prefer the status quo to your version of a solution.
- dubfan 12y ago

kauffj 12y ago

Almost everyone sees it as their right (or the government's right) to restrict other's behavior/rights/property when it would affect their quality of life or the standards of their community (cf. drugs, gay marriage). Suppose 90% of people in Fort Lauderdale want to disallow businesses from feeding the homeless while 90% of Philadelphia wants to disallow businesses from allowing smoking inside. What principle allows us to restrict smoking on private property that wouldn't also allow us to restrict people feeding the homeless? Is there a reason one of these is more acceptable than the other? On edit: For those who feel the difference is purely about outcomes, what if Roger Marbut is right and feeding the homeless in the way banned is a net harm? Would it be okay then? Also, while one can argue smoking bars are a net good, they do, at a minimum, harm those who would like to smoke. We can also construct a scenario in which a smoking restaurateur wants to serve food to his 3 smoking customers (i.e. all are harmed).

quonn 12y ago
Yes. Giving food to a fellow human being who might otherwise well starve has always been considered positive in probably most societies. A society thinking otherwise is very mistaken.
wazoox 12y ago
Because smoking harms you and those around you, while feeding the homeless actually help fellow human beings?
- icebraining 12y ago
  The argument is that just handing out food harms the homeless by enabling him to avoid places where (s)he could be further helped.
  - Klinky 12y ago
    This would make sense if the US had well-funded homeless shelters & mental health facilities, and a robust economy. We don't. Many of the places the homeless get referred to are not of any help for their circumstances, in some cases they can be more dangerous than the street.

realusername 12y ago

"Street feeding is one of the worst things to do, because it keeps people in homeless status," Oh yeah sure, they're homeless because they are asking for food, that's their own fault for staying homeless and not the fault of the society. This is very convenient. Or maybe they just go to food sharing programs because they are hungry and that's their only option ? Who knows...

icebraining 12y ago
That's not what's being said.

zipwitch 12y ago

Practice for treating humans like animals?

SNvD7vEJ 12y ago

Also, soon it will be illegal to help victims of train and car crashes in order to reduce the number of accidents.

jdmichal 12y ago
Actually, in the US [0] it's the default that you can be sued for injury or wrongful death if you attempt to assist. Some jurisdictions have Good Samaritan laws [1] to fix this very issue, though even then it sometimes only extends to trained personnel like emergency responders and doctors. [0] And possibly other places, but I'm not familiar enough to say. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Samaritan_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Samaritan_law
- gnopgnip 12y ago
  You can be sued for anything, it's unlikely you would have any greater risk for attempting to help compared to doing nothing.
  - jdmichal 12y ago
    I do not understand why you would hold such a false impression. Anyone can indeed attempt to sue you for anything, however that says nothing about their likelihood to succeed. Say I am untrained in any rescue or medical procedures. I witness a car collision, and a rider was ejected from a vehicle and lying next to it. I proceed to move them due to perceived fire hazard, however they in fact have a broken neck and die due to my moving them before stabilizing the neck. If it could be reasonably argued [0] that the person would have lived with proper intervention had I not intervened, why should I not be liable for that? In fact, without a Good Samaritan law in effect, I am potentially liable for the rider's death. I can be successfully sued by the survivors. The whole point of Good Samaritan laws is to reduce or eliminate this liability to me in exactly these scenarios. Now, if I do nothing, I am likely to only be liable if there is a duty to rescue [1]. [0] As in, well enough to win a criminal or civil case. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duty_to_rescue http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duty_to_rescue
12y ago

harrylove 12y ago

Arrest me then.

mtalantikite 12y ago

I once got yelled at by a pizza shop owner for buying a homeless guy a couple slices in the Lower East Side. It never crossed my mind that someone would take issue with someone feeding another human.

Crito 12y ago
Many small businesses like that have issues with homeless people camping directly outside their business, harassing their customers asking for food. When people buy food for them, it encourages them to stick around and keep it up. As you might imagine, having homeless people standing around outside harassing your customers is not great for business.
- mtalantikite 12y ago
  The guy wasn't outside harassing people, we were talking a couple blocks away and I asked him if he was hungry.
- omegaham 12y ago
  Yep. I don't go to certain parts of Portland because it's so unpleasant. Those businesses suffer for it.

qwerta 12y ago

War against food :-)

Havoc 12y ago

What are they going to do? Arrest me for helping a starving guy?

sarciszewski 12y ago
Yes. See what happened with Food Not Bombs in Orlando a couple of years back.
- Havoc 12y ago
  ah - I keep forgetting...US legal system.

pdeuchler 12y ago

I'm from Orlando, where the original hullabaloo over this sort of thing erupted a while back. Most of the time the people complaining about laws like these are (please forgive the stereotypes, but in my experience they've been accurate) white, upper class, white collar, with very little experience dealing with poverty or poverty related issues. They hear things that sound counter intuitive and the "white savior" complex goes into overdrive. Since Orlando has weather (and an economy, look up 2008-present foreclosure rates in Central Florida for reference) that is very conducive to a large homeless population we have been dealing with the issue at a large scale for a long time, and a lot of caring, smart, experienced people all agree that there are very constructive ways of dealing with homelessness and very destructive ways of dealing with it. Time and time again, allowing the homeless to disperse geographically and survive in a "free for all" state creates enormous problems. You end up with exploitation, abuse, and harm to not only the homeless but those around them. It's rare, but not unheard of, for stupid kids to give the homeless sandwiches laced with, say, exlax. It's rare, but not unheard of, for people to entice the homeless into essentially handyman jobs with the promise of a meal, or payment, only to "reconsider" at the last second once the job is done. It's rare, but not unheard of, for well meaning people to give out food that has gone bad, or can exacerbate terrible allergies or medical conditions. Furthermore, encouraging the homeless to beg and subsist off of random passerby is an incredibly demeaning thing. It encourages the bad element of panhandling, begging, and lies to encourage donations. It creates an atmosphere where the most seriously poorly off end up being "out begged" by the devious looking to snag a quick meal, or beer money. Last, but not least, it completely ruins standardized initiatives to solve the problem. The homeless are less likely to congregate in safe areas where organizations dedicated to help them are located. They're less likely to receive a steady, nutritious diet. They're less likely to be exposed to further job programs and mental health help. They're more likely to sleep in an alley somewhere instead of, at worst, gathering near a shelter, or at best, getting a bed in a shelter where they are safest and most secure. Keeping tabs on the homeless is one of the hardest things to do, but one of the most important. If you can't track progress on a community or individual scale you can't tell whether or not your efforts are working, and you can't develop the personal relationships and support groups that time and time again are proven to be, overwhelmingly, the most effective way to get people out of the vicious cycle. It's hard to kind of shut off the automatic empathy that pops up, but you have to realize these are people just like you that ended up with a serious short stick in life. You need to treat them like that, instead of infantilizing them.

eevilspock 12y ago

...while the Supreme Court protects the right of people and corporations (because of course they are persons too!) to feed politicians as much money as they want.

gumby 12y ago

Seems to me that feeding the homeless is unambiguously a first amendment right. Saying this doesn't invalidate some of the reasons why it might be a bad idea (although many of those reasons seem like...a stretch), but then again the first amendment allows you to say (and, I claim do) some stupid stuff. I think giving money to panhandlers is dumb but I do it. It's clear to me that when I pull out a couple of bucks I'm expressing my concern for that person, for the social issues that may have helped them end up there (or they may simply have had their own problems, or own bad luck) and my feelings about myself as a person, which may be noble, base or guilty. I also, when I think of it, donate to charities that help the homeless (it's a problem here in Palo Alto, though less than it used to be now the city council fell prey to the real estate lobby and shoved all the homeless shelters aside). I know a wholesale approach is generally more sensible. But sometimes a little "retail therapy" of this sort is valuable too.

alexvr 12y ago

Sounds like a great way to invite a higher crime rate.

hellbanner 12y ago

So if I meet someone on the street who has a home, I can hand them my fries?

joshfraser 12y ago

It's one thing for a city to discourage me from giving food or money to panhandlers. It's another to make it illegal.

mightybyte 12y ago

This topic tends to generate polarizing and conflicted views, as we can clearly see from the comments here. One side thinks it's cruel and heartless to prevent someone from giving food to a hungry human. The other side thinks that we shouldn't reward bad behavior. The core of the matter is that helping people is hard. I don't mean just token help. I mean really helping in a meaningful way that makes a lasting difference. An example: consider back in the 80s - 90s where there was a charity trend in at least parts of the United States of sending clothes to Africa. Seems like a good thing, right? How could giving clothes be bad. Clothing is a basic need (in many places), just like food. But what really happened when Americans started sending clothes to Africa? People who have actually spent time in Africa can tell you that the flood of free clothes totally destroyed the local textile industries. People who were making a productive living found themselves unable to compete and out of work/income. So we see that with free clothes there were significant unintended negative consequences. Why would we expect it would be any different with free food? I totally get the desire to empathize with another human being and genuinely want to help people who found themselves in a very difficult situation with no obvious way to break the cycle. But we need to be aware that our supposed help may actually end up causing more difficulty in the long run. In that case, one could argue that charity becomes a selfish act--the real reason the giver does it is because it makes them feel better about themselves. I'm not making this point in an attempt to justify heartless inaction. I just think that we should put serious thought into examining whether our efforts at charity really make a meaningful difference in the lives of the people we're trying to help.

drez 12y ago
This is the best point here. I don't think anyone is advocating to let the homeless starve. We just need to realize as a society that the small act of kindness that we can provide at the micro scale (giving rides, money, food, etc) can have harsh consequences when observed from the macro scale.
TheOtherHobbes 12y ago
I don't see how you get one from economic situation to another. Would subsidised housing for the homeless destroy rental values? Would free food destroy the restaurant business? Isn't it more likely that a relative small spend would increase property values and restaurant footfall? Most people don't like having to deal with beggars and if beggars disappear from an area, isn't it at least worth considering that it could become more popular with potential customers and residents?

jemfinch 12y ago

How is it that giving money to political campaigns is an expression of free speech, but giving food to the homeless isn't? If municipalities couldn't pass a law prohibiting speaking to homeless people, how, in a post-"Citizens United" world, can they pass a law prohibiting giving food to homeless?

jemfinch 12y ago
I'd really like my cowardly downvoter to post a reply; as far as I can tell, my reasoning is sound.
- innguest 12y ago
  You're being downvoted for being right (correct) and right (not a leftist) at the same time. Happens often here. Grab a chair.
- dllthomas 12y ago
  Don't read too much into downvotes. With no ability to correct a vote, it's sometimes just fat fingers.

steveax 12y ago

I like Carlin's solution [1] "... But getting back to low-cost housing, I think I might have solved this problem. I know just the place to build housing for the homeless: golf courses. It’s perfect. Plenty of good land in nice neighborhoods; land that is currently being squandered on a mindless activity engaged in by white, well-to-do business criminals who use the game to get together so they can make deals to carve this country up a little finer among themselves..." [1]: http://www.georgecarlinrip.com/2014/01/golf-courses-for-homeless.html http://www.georgecarlinrip.com/2014/01/golf-courses-for-home...

mkhalil 12y ago

Seen this comment on that article. Kind of sad really; what we're turning into. "that law has me, and plenty others in the greater Houston area, really ticked off. There were several very active (although small and not well funded) charities that were recently shut down due to this nonsense. Church groups that would fix food in their kitchens and take it to the homeless were stopped because they didn't have a commercial kitchen and all the permits that came with it; other groups would get together in their homes and cook meals, and got shut down for the same reasons. It's absolutely ridiculous to turn good samaritans in to criminals, but that's exactly what we do every time a new law is created as a knee jerk reaction to some recent event. How about we LEAVE PEOPLE ALONE? sorry /endrant"

GoldenHomer 12y ago

I know in Lubbock something similar was in the news a while. It had more to do with city health code violation than anything else and the matter seemed to die down. It's interesting because a church was doing the feeding and I didn't think the city would do such a thing considering how conservative and religious this city is. I rather see the food being eaten rather than being thrown away. I have nothing against the homeless except for the rare ones who get angry when I say I will buy them food rather than hand money over. There's also Tent City here in the 806 which is a congregation of homeless who sleep in tents and I haven't heard much trouble there. Now the homeless in San Francisco are a different story. I didn't want to believe it since SF is such a lovely city but damn, the homeless there are aggressive as hell. That's just my experience though.

unknownBits 12y ago

I think it would be much better to make it illegal to have idiots being in power.

webnrrd2k 12y ago

Just so you have some background -- I know homeless people, and I buy food for the homeless on a regular basis. I sit and eat and talk with them, give them rides, take them to hospitals, etc..., and I consider many of them friends. I'm not a therapist, or any sort of expert, but I have some experience. It's just not street-food that's making or keeping people homeless, and it's a gross mischaracterization to claim that street feeding is what keeps people homeless. I just can't see how that contributes any any significant way to their issues. The homeless people I know have serious physical and/or mental health issues. People aren't exactly lining up to give them food and money. Many of them simply can't manage a budget and afford enough to eat through most of the month, so they supplement their diet however they can. They know that there are programs out there to help them, but they don't take advantage of them now. Making it illegal to give them food isn't going to somehow force them to get help. It'll just make it worse for the homeless.

drez 12y ago
> They know that there are programs out there to help them, but they don't take advantage of them now. Making it illegal to give them food isn't going to somehow force them to get help. It'll just make it worse for the homeless. Are you sure? I'm not trying to attack your point, but what would happen if your homeless friends actually started taking advantage of these programs that are put in place to help them? Right now they don't need to because they are getting by on the kindness of others, but what if they had no other option but to go to these mental hospitals, homeless shelters, food banks, etc, where they could someday learn to take care of themselves and break the cycle? I think what you're doing shows how much of a loving and kind-hearted person you are, but try to consider the other side of the argument. This is an enormously hard problem (dating back thousands of years). We need a way to break the cycle, and the current status quo just isn't working.
- bduerst 12y ago
  That's a gross generalization, almost a false dichotomy. webnrrd2k's experience mirrors my past experiences, in that many homeless simply don't have the mental faculties to take care of themselves. This includes having enough sapience to seek out existing programs for help. Many will self medicate with illegal or stolen drugs, which only exasperates their situation. It's very easy to project ourselves into these situations and think "What would I do if I were homeless?", and assume that if you were lazy enough and taken care of you would probably stay homeless. The fact that you are even able to jump these mental hurdles and consider these situations is why you are not currently homeless.

tn13 12y ago

Firstly with minimum wage laws you deny them opportunity to earn their living. Then you deny them food. Well done America.

Istof 12y ago

It should be illegal to make this illegal unless such city at least first setup a free food program for the homeless that is easily accessible for all homeless in that city. They only want to drive them away to different cities so that the city look better?

tn13 12y ago

When I arrived in bay area, I found not too many homeless people but there were few. Often they asked for "change". So I thought I might be able to use these people as handyman. So I asked one of them if he would help me cleaning my car and moving furniture. I offered him $20, some used clothes and chilled beer. He shrugged saying he doesn't want my money. He told me that if he wanted work, he could get it easily and had held many jobs in past. Being a homeless enabled him get various type of welfare from government he easily made $800 per month from government. He said he could get a job for $3000 a month but then it is not a major improvement over getting $800 for doing nothing. US needs to rethink its welfare measure. They are winning votes but wrecking the country.

objectivetruth 12y ago
You DO know that's a singular anecdote and not even close to representative of many, if not most, of the folks that suffer in this situation, right?
- tn13 12y ago
  Given two choices, people tend to make the choice that maximizes their interest. I am certain that this example is an indicative of what most are likely to think.

frandroid 12y ago

If people don't want to see homeless people in the streets, give them homes. LA Country has pretty much proven that the cost of social housing is lower than the cost of homelessness (policing, healthcare, etc).

bane 12y ago

When I was young, due to some bad business deals and other factors, my family went homeless for a few months. We lived in a cheap motel, 4 of us to the room. We had some hot plates and cooked some in the room and used the bathroom sink to wash up afterwards. It wasn't too bad to be honest, we had food, shelter, clothing, jobs and each other. We weren't the only "housing challenged" residents of this motel. By the late night activity in the hallway and the parking lot, most seemed to have some kind of severe addiction problem, though there were a couple illegal immigrants who had secured a room through a friend while they worked for remittance money. On more than one occasion, drunk/high people tried to force entry into our room later at night. My father slept by the door with a hammer after the second time. Despite this, I'm not an authority on homelessness, but I know it sucks. For people like us, without severe mental, substance or family problems, wanting the make the sucking part stop is what kept us working on getting out of the situation. So I understand the ideas behind some of these notions around "not encouraging" people to be homeless. Having lived in those kinds of conditions before and not minded them terribly, to be perfectly honest, I've had moments where I've thought "if I could have a room and food, without working at all, I wouldn't bother looking for a job". So I fundamentally get where that's coming from. However, I also have several people in my family with severe psychological and addiction issues, and recognizing these same issues in the homeless I see out on the street every day, I understand that "getting out of the suckiness of homelessness" is not a major driver for them. Their hierarchy of needs is often screwed up and insomuch as they are able to satisfy that hierarchy, getting shelter (and even food) is often not a major priority for them. So no amount of having food kitchens or not having them is going to be a major decision point for them to suddenly come off their additions, become sane, and become productive members of society. However, I do think that people should be able to eat a safe meal if they need it. Now that I'm long out of that situation, educated and affluent, I also suffer from NIMBYism. I worked very hard and have spent significant amounts of time and money to live in an area where I don't really have to worry about the kinds of negative environmental factors and activities that come with handling large homeless populations. I don't want a food kitchen anywhere near where I live. Not because I don't believe in feeding the homeless, people need to eat today not after a six month job training program, but because for people who aren't working their way out of homelessness, there are large numbers of negative issues that homeless people bring along with them and it contributes to an environment I don't want to be in. So this is a very tough issue. However, just offering services isn't really a good answer either. When I spent some time in Portland, I was struck by the number and permanence of the homeless population there. It's not a particularly great outdoor environment, but the large number of free services in the downtown area have created a more or less stable population of self-supporting homeless. The principle complaint residents I've spoken to have is that it's great these services exist, but once they've been served, what's next? I've observed poor coordination among homeless service organizations. You go here for food, here for the shelter, here for blankets, here for a job, if you're extremely lucky you might be getting medical/psychological/addiction care on a sporadic basis. But what really needs to happen is a centralized "get off the streets" center. If a homeless person wants any services, they have to check in there and they must participate in all of the appropriate services proscribed to them. I'm also an advocate that they should immediately be working in return for the services. Every city has loads of work that needs doing, picking up litter, emptying public trash bins, park beautification, cleaning up graffiti, repainting bridges, filling in potholes, etc. In exchange a person who's "in the program" should get 3 hot meals a day, a small dorm room with a door they can lock, free psych/rehab/basic medical clinic treatment. They should be scored on participation, and if they do well, move on to more advanced programs like finding rent-controlled/shared housing, real jobs that pay money, mass-transit subsidies etc. A friend of mine had a horrible experience and ended up in a battered women's shelter with 3 kids. The program they put her on was better than any homeless program I've seen. Within weeks, she had a job, psych counseling for her and her kids, and in a couple months had moved out of the shelter and was splitting a town home with another woman from the program at hugely subsidized rent (based on how much she made at her job). Within a year they had found her a two bedroom apartment just for her family. This was for a person who had money in her bank account, work history and some job skills, and a sizable social network who helped her out during her ordeal with food, money and places to stay. It wasn't perfect, but I was surprised at how much better it was for her than for the homeless who don't really have anything at all.