Beginning this Friday, October 31st, it is illegal to feed a person on the street in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Many of the people who stood to speak in opposition were from the religious community.
Unfortunately, laws against feeding the homeless are now on the books in 21 US cities.
A recent study by the Urban Ministry Center in Charlotte, North Carolina found that it is less expensive to provide permanent supportive housing for the chronically homeless than to deal with homelessness through either callous disregard or by means of punitive approaches.
However, because of the common stereotypes many people hold about the homeless (they choose to be homeless, they don’t want to work, they are dangerous drug addicts, etc.), punitive measures are more popular. Help for the homeless, some claim, just rewards bad behavior and flawed character traits. This sort of thinking has allowed cities to move beyond criminalizing homelessness to criminalizing compassion.
Those who say feeding those on the streets does not solve the problem of homelessness are right. It doesn't. But it does help solve the problem of hunger.
Hungry people are desperate people. They are more likely to commit crimes to get the food they need. By making it much more difficult to feed the homeless, the city leaders harm the homeless, harm those who are compassionate and increase the possibility of real crime in the city.
The full article is available here
