quote:<HR>Originally posted by Iontach:
Page 14.[/URL" target="_blank">

This is, possibly, the headsickest thing I've read this year.<HR>

Unbelievable.

A similar ordinance went into effect somewhere here in southern Cal (I forget if I heard about when living in LA or here in San Diego). People were being given fines for handing out food and water bottles to homeless people in parks. Un-frickin-believable. The milk of human kindness has soured for some people, apparently.

It reminds me of a set of turnstiles located between where I park for Padres games and the stadium itself. We park at a medical clinic where my DW works, and associated in the same complex is one of the city's largest homeless shelters and its neighboring long-term housing unit. In order to walk from the shelter area to the stadium, you have to pass through a "security" checkpoint -- consisting of a couple turnstiles and rent-a-cops in the middle of the sidewalk who are only there when games are scheduled at the stadium. This doesn't actually provide any security, really, because all you'd need to do to circumvent the turnstiles is walk around it on the street or just cross the street to the other side. But the whole aim is to discourage people from the shelter complex from (oh noes!) walking toward the stadium and ruining the whole experience for the crowd attending the game. Basically it's a show-of-force meant to keep the poor riff-raff away from the wealthy sports fans who are just out trying to enjoy themselves

Hmmmm, well ...I can think of a downtown area near my home that has a major problem with the homeless (not families, these are drunks).. the downtown streets and sidewalks reek of urine. This is an entire downtown area I no longer visit because of the urine smell ....obviously the outdoor cafe owners on the block are impacted because who wants to dine in a urinal.

I can understand shop owners not wanting folks to hand out food/beverages in that area ...food/beverages = poo/pee and garbage....there are empty beds in a shelter that provides free food/beverages/cable TV/education programs just a few miles away ...but these guys prefer the main street because (1) the shelter prohibits alcohol and (2) their source of money to buy booze is aggressive panhandling ...and there is no one to panhandle near the shelter.

Prohibiting folks from handing out milk and food to homeless families = bad, ....but perhaps the problem is more complex than that.

When I lived in Vancouver, I got pushed into being on the annual United Way committee. For anyone who knows Vancouver, our office was directly across from the train and sea bus station...right on the edge where East Van meets West Van. East Van is one of the most desperate areas of homlessness, drug abuse, alcoholism and general despair.

The land there is sloped, so our office had a lower lobby and upper lobby, connected by lifts and escelators. Most of our business visitors entered through the upper lobby, and anyone arriving by train came in the lower lobby. Vancouver also has excessive rain, so we generally allowed homeless people from east Van to seek refuge in the lower lobby during the day, as long as they didn't come upstairs.

When we had our annual United Way day, which of course was there to raise money for these very people, we had a lunch event in the upper lobby, catered by some local restaurant. Because we had some invited guests, the United Way manager insisted we remove the homeless guys down below.

So as we're busy eating our fancy lunch, the security boys were chucking the homeless guys out. There's nothing like nasty homeless people to ruin an event when you're trying to raise money for homeless people.

I told the organisation the next day that I would never do any work again for United Way.

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Goin' where the wind don't blow so strange

I thought everybody understood!

If we try to keep them from starving, the terrorists win!


**slaps forehead** Did I just realize something? Bringing up "terrorists winning" is the new "Hitler" on the internets.

You need conforming zoning and a permit to legally set up a burrito stand - why should it be any different for a soup kitchen?

At the Rockies games you see these hispanic ladies who buy cases of bottled water and giant bags peanuts at Costco or Sam's, they sell the water individually and repackage the peanuts into small bags. They sell it for 1/2 what they charge in the ballpark and still probably make an 800% return on their cost. It's not rocket science - maybe panhandlers should consider providing a service versus expecting a handout.