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Sunday Poll: Should St. Louis Require A License To Give Food To The Homeless?

July 17, 2016 Featured, Homeless, Politics/Policy, Sunday Poll 6 Comments
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The St. Louis Board of Aldermen are on their Summer break, when they return they’ll take up Board Bill 66:

The measure would require a vendor’s license to distribute food, blankets or other goods on city sidewalks or parks — even if those items are being given away. It would also make it illegal to give anything away between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m. (St. Louis Public Radio)

The following is today’s poll question:

The poll will close at 8pm.

— Steve Patterson

 

Currently there are "6 comments" on this Article:

  1. JZ71 says:

    Yes, but it’ll be virtually unenforceable. There’s that free-speech issue and that targeting the homeless issue (as in, if bars and casinos can give away “free” food to patrons and people can buy meals for co-workers and employees can do pot-luck lunches at work, why can’t someone give a “free” meal to someone, whether they’re homeless or not?). Plus if the ban is on “free” food, all the do-gooders need to do is to charge a token fee and they’ll then be in compliance!

    The issue is not that homeless people are being fed, the issues are where it is happening (in public areas), under questionable sanitation standards (both in preparation and clean-up) and the number of people concentrated in one area (for both feeding and sleeping). Bottom line, most people don’t like to see homeless people anywhere near where they live or work, so they pressure their political leaders to “do something”. This has been going on for decades, and laws keep getting passed, challenged, overturned, reintroduced, tweaked and the cycle continues.

     
  2. Mark-AL says:

    I wonder who this “wise” person is who has decided that we need to properly license those who are generous enough to feed the homeless and hungry? There is a difference between being “wise” vs “crafty”. I wonder if this discussion would have reared its ugly head and been given serious consideration (in STL) if Larry Rice and his comrades hadn’t attempted to operate out of a previously abandoned structure that just happens to be located smack-dab in the middle of a geographic area of pseudo-sophisticated, ultra -liberal Sanders-supporting Democrat loft dwellers who fall victim to political conversions when political outlooks change (for convenience and comfort) from left to right, spelled NIMBY? Doesn’t this confirm that our inhumanity is one of the nastiest characteristics of our humanity–? The audacity to feed someone who is hungry! ……..so, to protect the homeless and the hungry from dying of ptomaine poisoning, we’ll let them starve to death. I wonder if Bernie would be proud? Frost wrote about whether the world would end in fire or in ice…and concluded that both could be hateful, but for different reasons.

     
    • Mark-AL says:

      Oh, and that 11 PM to 6 AM qualification is so Aldermanic! No one should be ALLOWED to get cold or develop hunger between 11 PM and 6 AM! That never happens……..not even in a loft!

       
  3. Fozzie says:

    Do-gooders might feel warm and fuzzy about giving money to panhandlers or driving from their church with a van-load of blankets, but these actions perpetuate a cycle of keeping people on the streets instead of getting help from professional agencies.

     
    • Mark-AL says:

      Much like indiscriminate, institutionalized welfare and other “anti-poverty” legislation, which is leading (has lead) to the demise of the family unit. Feeling like a sire, or think you’re feeling horny, or like the feeling you get when you’re horny? Then search out a willing bitch, dump your “load” and don’t look back, and then go on to rut the next willing, continuous breeder in or out of estrus (doesn’t matter!) looking for attention!!! Indiscriminate welfare and so many other anti-poverty programs destroy personal initiative and therefore do little to break the long-term cycle of poverty and irresponsibility among the poor. A meager sandwich and warm blanket at least is a worthy, humanitarian attempt to appease the immediate discomfort that the poor and hungry experience. Under this program, there are no guarantees about what tomorrow will bring, unlike with institutionalized welfare.

      Any attempt to remove or limit boundaries of the homeless from downtown STL is akin to building a new home in the middle of bear country, then complaining about the nuisances created by the bears, and then going out with your big-bore .33+ caliber rifle and shooting every one of them! Problem solved!

       
  4. KevinB says:

    Basically comes down to an “if-then” for me. There are a handful of existing organizations, heavily-funded, with public funds whose mission is, ostensibly, to support the homeless and work to make them not be.

    IF these organizations have a plan in place and are doing their job well, then no, I don’t think individuals or groups should get in the way of this effort by setting up their own deliveries (and I’m not talking about the random sandwich and soda or $5, I’m talking the large drop-offs you’ll occasionally see at downtown parks).

    IF…THEN these individual/group drop-offs should be filtered through the organization(s) who can beat incorporate the generous gifts into its own services and sequences.

    I guess the question then is if STL’s Human Services Dept and support organizations are, in fact, effectively addressing homelessness? I honestly don’t know, sorry.

     

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