As much as I would like to blame BushCheney for this, it is not completely justified. One of the real culprits is our own delight in efficiency. The supermarkets have gotten so much better are predicting their customers’ needs that they have less food to give away because of expiration dates. This has helped keep prices down, but at the cost to the people who do not have the money for renat AND food, let alone medicine and other luxuries.
HOWEVER, this does not let the administration off completely. The economy has started to swirl and is heading for the sewer. Unless someone hits the off switch on the war machine, we are likely to swirl right down and out.
Dallas – get over yourselves. You don’t have anything so great that you cannot share with people in need. Smarten up, humble yourselves and stop being so smug. There are no blessings for people who are more concerned about themselves than anyone needing help. No one is impressed.
Cleveland, go teach them something.

It amazes me the how uncaring a society can be, Dallas has a law that punishes people for feeding the hungry. We just fed over 2000 hungry people so i guess it’s a felony. It’s not just homeless but as the article pointed out some households suffer “food insecurity.” Some people have jobs work long hard hours and still cannot feed their families. This country has a problem in what we think is important, no one should go to bed with a hunger.

If what happened in Dallas, was what happened in GA or FL, feeding people in a public park without a an o.K. is aganist the law. It’s not necessary to try and make such a big harrah about turning away street people and asking them to go to a proper place for food. People that do this do it to create attention to themselves and how very noble they are, and how awful the laws are that they can’t do what they want when they want to. Laws are made for reasons, they should work in the parameters of them.

So H22 what’s wrong with a law that would tell you and your family when to eat and how much? Or perhaps who could loan you a couple of bucks when you run short and the terms and conditions of which that couple of bucks could be loaned? The difference between people who would put a restriction on feeding “street people” and as you say street people is financial freedom and lack of food insecurities. It’s not about “street people,” but people and many of the people at risk are not living on the street but hungry in their own house or apartment, young and old alike.
It’s hard to understand how a person’s heart can be harden about putting food in people’s stomaches.

Henrietta
I am afraid we part ways again. For that I am sad. However, being that I live in one of the communitites that “outlawed” homelessness and feeding people in parks, I feel I have a biot more infomration to add. ALmost no one who chose to defy the law and feed people did so for the attention (though there are alway a few grandstanders). By and large, the people that were fed wer not only legal, many were from families whoise ancestry stretches back for generations. Also the law was enacted by some fools who were influenced by their wealthy “benefactors” who simply thought that poor people clashed (as in, “How Gauche!” or “tey simply don;t match the decor!”) with their sense of our community. Most of us think they are so out of synch that we voted the idiots out and ignore the impersonal clods who are only here part of the year anyway. As to the law – it is selectively enforced – usually only when something gets out of hand.
God said – care for the powerless. No qualifications or exemptions. Laws like these simply serve the self serving.

Cknuck, and jestrfyl, I don’t care to have my words and intent subjected to your interpretation. Although I think you are both very sincere you are too quick to read wrong into this. First, cknuck, the street people in Atlanta were accosting tourists in tourist places, and following them to their cars. Use your imagination for the rest, please. Eventually a park in another area was used for whatever could help them. I have always helped people on city streets, esp. San Francisco. I would look for my little lady and her “dog in the box”, every time we visited our sons home in the city. We knew each other, and talked and shook each others hand, it was more than my just giving her money. So please do not be so smug in your zest for being the ‘prize Christian’ on these postings. Jestrfyl, I don’t need to hear,” we part again”, from you, just your own opinion will suffice. Because a law doesn’t please you doesn’t mean it isn’t for a good reason. The Churches are not running our govenment, yet. I don’t think Americans should be kicked for not helping the poor. In our city we have numerous organizations helping all manner of poor; on the road people, people that have suffered losing their homes by fire, etc., temporarily out of work people, you name it, we do it all.

I’m not trying to be smart H22 but you are mixing criminals right into the innocent hungry people who may not have commited any crime. A broad brush sweep is prejudice unjustified. It probably stems out of fear maybe but never the less its unfair. I’ve look at some laws that just don’t amke sense and there are many, so to use this law to separate people is criminal and the supporters find it a eassy way to deal with in their opinion are the “unlovely.”

Seriously using that logic then politicians sudden be politicking because a few of them steal they are all thieves. I know homeless people with backgrounds from Yale to jail, housewives that find themselves discarded blue-collar workers accountants even lawyers. In today’s society many of us are just a couple of paychecks away from hunger, and its going to get worse before it gets better. Everyone who can’t change their clothes and get a shower everyday are not criminals as a matter of fact the most dangerous criminals you don’t see because they may look like you or I.

Seriously guys are you having a conversation with yourselves or what I’ve posted? I know that men have trouble understanding women, but this is a total waste of my time. Have a nice day, and may God give you understanding that is not of yourselves.

Henrietta,
I think I understand your point fairly well. I simply know that the law in Florida – Sarasota, my home – was for the convenience of a few wealthy folks who thought it was too messy and not part of their image of this town to feed hungry people. There was neither a helath and safty factor, nor was it for the benefit of undocumented folks. Simply, the places the people got the food were convenient. The places allowed by the law were incredibly inconvenient, and because it was so hard for folks to get there, they did not go. When people saw that no one went they justified not having the service. None of this fed hungry people. Some cooler and more sonsiderate heads have prevailed and some fo these folks are again receiving food at more convenient locations (by the way, “convenient” in this case does not imply lazy or laxity. It means the public transportation that might have gotten them to the food was not available when they needed it. Another, entirely different – though related – justice issue).
Laws are fine, good, and appropriate when there is a reason. But simply imposing a law because some friends think something is not to their choosing or taste is abusive. Such was the case here – and I expect similar in Dallas.

It’s always kind of sad to see people who don’t comprehend that “the homeless” consists of individuals from very diverse backgrounds and situations. The homeless are us, not a subspecies that thinks and feels any different from the average person. The stereotypical homeless person (a.k.a., “skidrow bum”) simply isn’t typical of today’s homeless. We are in an era where costs have far surpassed earnings, and most of us are a single illness or misfortune away from being on the streets. Once there, they will come across many other people, just like them—ordinary, working class Americans who never imagined they’d find themselves standing in line at a soup kitchen.