Quandary: Feeding the homeless while protecting their health

[Virginia Dare]

There is a bit of a controversy in my county over Churches and other private organizations feeding the homeless with food from private kitchens. The health department has started to crack down for fear of food poisoning. They cracked down on PTA's and Athletic Boosters and those types of organizations a while ago. You have to have a certified food manager present if you are going to be serving food to the general public. Becoming a certified food manager is a lengthy and expensive prospect so many of these organizations have bagged trying to make money by selling food. But now they're cracking down on charities. I can see both sides of the issue, but which is more urgent?

Any thoughts?


A state legislator from Fairfax County said yesterday that she plans to introduce a bill that would allow homeless shelters in Virginia to serve home-cooked food. The proposal from Del. Kristen J. Amundson (D-Fairfax) followed a Health Department decision to crack down on the use of such food in county shelters.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/29/AR2006112901441.html

[Jed Dilligan]

1. NIMBY is the driving force behind these crackdowns,

I seriously doubt anyone cares about the health of the homeless.

[Virginia Dare]

2. You could be right about that...

supposedly the crack down came after they received "complaints". Probably some self-important suburban princess objected to the filthy unwashed being brought to her neighborhood.

Luckily at our church we have a caterer who is a member, and he takes care of all of these things, and we feed A LOT of people throughout the year.

[MadHound]

3. You are spot on correct

This has absolutely nothing to do with watching out for the welfare of the homeless, and everything about discouraging them from staying in the community. Take away any sort of living place by banning loitering in parks and other places, make it illegal to feed them or give them food, cut funding to shelter, etc. etc., all in the effort to move the homeless on to another community, where it starts all over again.

I seriously thing that the conservative solution for the homeless problem is a "final" one. Make it impossible to live within the city limits, and force them out into the countryside in order that they die.

[Jed Dilligan]

8. I guess it's the same story everywhere

I'm a little surprised to see this "California style" move happening in the South.

[ThomCat]

4. I used to volunteer feeding the homeless.

We had to deal with the same rules. That was in Buffalo and in New York City (I've lived in both cities). I can understand the concern, and if someone decided to deliberately poison homeless people there would be a huge outrage that it wasn't prevented by such a simple regulation.

But at the same time it really tied our hands.

[acmejack]

5. Lip service nation.

Give them a blanket it's christmas you can feel good about yourself the rest of the year! They'll be warm while they starve since they can't get any food. Just remember - there, but for the grace of God, go I...

[grizmaster]

6. are they better off eating out of dumpsters?

this seems like a no brainer to me.

Unless or until there is a problem with a particular kitchen why stop people from getting a home-cooked meal?

[mondo joe]

7. It's the usual hand binding non profits have to deal with all the time.

And the irony is that it's almost always well intended in its origins.

But it creates these bureaucratic scenarios that hamstring the people trying to do the work.

[grizmaster]

11. worked with community organizations for years

and know all too well what you mean

[catnhatnh]

9. Hmmm,

More unhealthy than the dumpster diving which is the alternative???It would be quite simple to extend existing "good samaritan" laws to cover these situations.
Editted to add: Didn't they recently have a food poisoning outbreak on a cuise ship??? Are we suggesting people spend a week at sea with no food? Why not???

[Midlodemocrat]

10. I know when I used to go down to the Bowery to feed the

homeless there, we had some pretty strict rules about what they could be given.

Bologna sandwiches on white bread, no condiments.
Apples.
Water.

This was in order to prevent upset stomachs because a lot of these poor folks were either alcoholics or drug addicts.

When our church does it, they include cookies. I don't know if anyone has been ill from that. I know that the program here to feed/house the homeless does feed them very well, so maybe it isn't an issue.

[Jed Dilligan]

12. Having been a non-alcoholic, non-drug addicted homeless person,

I can attest that I probably would not have noticed if I got food poisoning.

I will spare you the gory details. Let's just say that a good solid BM is one of the luxuries of working-to-middle-class, first-world life. My stomach is still f'd up from the months I spent on the street years ago.

[Midlodemocrat]

13. I'm so sorry you had to go through that.

[Jed Dilligan]

14. My homelessness was, to some degree, a choice

a choice of freedom over wage or welfare slavery. I needed the time to sort things out. Most young people do at one time or another, but the relentless pace of rent, rent, rent locks us into a holding pattern. I wish there was a way to "hit the road for a while" that wasn't so filthy and degenerate. It's the moralism and rigidity of the public that makes it so.