Am not defending this law at all, but the thinking behind it is twofold:
you might be handing out tainted or expired food
the bigger issue: you are creating a “nuisance” on the property where you’re doing it, as large groups of homeless people gather there. Some would say it’s a safety concern, for example handing out free food at the corner of a primary school.
Again, I’m not agreeing with either point, but these are arguments I have heard from people who back such laws.
To the second point though, I’ve seen it firsthand. Salt Lake City tried to do a good thing by making the public library a homeless-friendly zone by handing out free food and allowing access to WiFi. This caused a large amount of homeless to hang out there all the time, and some of them would harass and attack non-homeless patrons of the library to the point that pretty much all of them stopped coming to the library entirely, and the area became a no-go zone.
The real issue is that a large amount of homeless people have severe mental illnesses (since public sanitariums all closed in the 70s). So where there are big congregations of homeless, there will inevitably be harassment and possible violence. Cities don’t want people feeding the homeless at any old public building to avoid these situations, hence the laws, which allow you to do it only at certain places the city allows.
The real issue is that too many Americans have bought into the bootstrap theory and couldn't give a shit about their neighbours who don't have a place to live or food to eat.
Take care of those 2 things first and there won't be an issue of people hanging out where it's warm/cool and food is being supplied.
I hate to burst your bubble, but it’s not just an America problem. Have you been to Paris lately and seen the homelessness situation there, especially on the Metro?
Or in Oslo, where homeless Roma people attack people in broad daylight at Nationalteatret station and steal their luggage?
It’s a big problem everywhere, and attitudes like the type you describe aren’t relegated solely to Americans.
I’d love to mate, but I honestly don’t know how. One thing I have to come to realise is that simply throwing money at the problem doesn’t work. Norway, London, NYC, and California both spends billions each year on homelessness and the problem is only getting worse every year in all those places.
Maybe a good place to start would be opening up free sanitariums again where homeless people with mental issues could be housed, as sadly the streets have become the new dumping ground for people with severe mental illness.
Beyond that, am not sure, besides a total dismantling of capitalism.
No one would be happier than me with this solution, but it will never realistically happen in our lifetimes. And even if it somehow came to happen eventually, given the entrenchment of current elites, it would only happen with an immense cost in human lives and violence, and a massive drop in living standards in the immediate aftermath before some utopia is created.
Current day -> neo Soviet revolution -> Mad Max -> the last of us? -> ??? -> Bernie Sanders Utopia
All those things are basically guaranteed anyway thanks to climate change. I just hope the survivors aren’t stupid enough to try to go back to how things are now.
The sanitoriums were closed for good reason. Bad as homelessness is, it is better than the abuse of sanitoriums.
Not a sanitorium, but i know someone who was in an orphanage, they beat kids with a metal chimney brush if they put their head on the pillow when they slept. This earned them lots of awards for how nice all the kids beds were. Sanitoriums were reportable just as bad, but I don't have such close accounts.
The sanatoriums were horrendous and closed by both Canadian and American gov'ts in the late 60's - early 70's for good reason. The problem was the gov'ts didn't put programs in place to help those people live outside the walls ... essentially the same thing they do with prisoners now.
Guaranteed incomes, stable housing and support networks would clear up many of the "issues", but too many whine about their tax dollars being spent on people in need.
Stop spending billions on a “war on drugs” and make sure people have houses and healthcare (including mental health) unconditionally with no ridiculous hoops or welfare traps 10 years before they become a street junkie.
Just because some places misused a bunch of money doing very stupid things with it doesn’t validate ignoring the solution.
It’s not nearly so trivial. Having lived in Norway for many years, a country which does have unconditional free healthcare (including mental health), and free access to housing, they still have a large homeless population and plenty of street crime.
Maybe, but even Norway has hardly stamped out homelessness completely. Far from it actually, there are some parts of Oslo which have immensely high levels of homelessness. Not as bad Skid Row in LA, but not far behind either.
Hahaha! Doing that thing you said (but still with some hoops for mental healthcare and housing) only makes it way better! Check-mate! Let’s double down on spending ten times as much pujishing the homeless for being homeless!
I said I’m all for free mental healthcare and housing, but even these don’t seem to solve the problem. Nor does just throwing money at the problem. So I have no ideas for how to solve the issue, besides maybe just dismantling capitalism entirely, but this also comes with problems.
A solution requires more than just providing food and shelter. We have a class of people who are marginally mentally ill or barely literate. They do not function well enough to hold down a job or fill out a welfare form, but they function too well to require that they be locked up. These people need a semi-monitored place with enough oversight to keep them safe. The street can’t do that, but they have no other place to go.
“Poisoned or tainted food” is just a sensationalist term for “not FDA approved” or “not handled by a certified food professional”. It’s kinda over the top in this regard but remember when people put borax in their milk to make it taste better or lime and plaster into bread to stretch the flour? It was unregulated food. Just like you can’t open an unregistered and unlicensed restaurant without certfied cooks, you can’t just hand out foods without someone knowing (i.e. licensed) how the food is supposed to be handled.
Cops protect the rich. The rich are only rich because they’re psychopaths. Our economic system rewards psychopathy and punishes empathy. Eat. The. Rich
Here’s my plug to ask y’all to join food not bombs. They serve vegan meals prepared under strict cleanliness methods to provide safe meals and various supplies like cleansing products, clothing, etc. Volunteer with your local branch!
Also Texas. Tony Hinchcliffe told a story about getting kicked out of a Whataburger for being gay. His friend got arrested and held but not charged. This was 10 years ago, not 50. Texas sucks.
I’m guessing Texas is an at-will state, but just going to a show of any kind in your private time should not be a firing offense no matter where you work. I don’t care if you work for the Southern Poverty Law Center and go see a minstrel show on Saturday. You’re doing it on your private time.
Religious institutions have a little more freedom in certain areas regarding who they can hire and fire depending on their job duties.
For instance, a preacher for a Baptist church can be required to be Christian as a condition of their employment. But they can’t fire a janitor for religious reasons because their faith has no impact on the work they perform.
For teachers, they probably have a policy regarding public support of the church and its doctrines that was violated when the teacher posted about attending a drag show.
It’s stupid, but it’s legal.
I have similar restrictions at my job in municipal government. I’m not allowed to get involved in local politics or advocate for or against candidates openly. As a public official, I’m always at least somewhat on duty.
Hell, I have to be careful about what I text, because my personal phone is subject to Open Records requests.
I think it’s much simpler than that. Texas has been an at-will employment state since the 1800s. As long as it doesn’t violate civil rights, you can be fired for pretty much any reason in Texas. They can fire you because they don’t like your face.
Absolutely, but for religious institutions they can even ignore civil rights in some instances. You can be fired for religious reasons, which is usually a big no-no.
And at-will isn’t just a Texas thing. All 50 states and DC are at-will employment.
As long as the thing they don’t like about your face isn’t it’s color. But seriously American employment laws (in most states) allow for companies to fire people for any non-protected reason (protected reason = gender, race, age, etc). If a co.pany does illegally fire a person it can be a real up hill battle to prove it because at-will is so permissive.
I can’t say a firing like this one sits super well with me personally but it’s almost certainly legal.
Yeah but in your position it kinda makes sense. I don’t think career civil servants should be out there with even the hint of their office support endorsing candidates.
Kinda interesting however that you are following strong ethical rules than all these powerful people above you.
Most civil employees stick hard and fast to their rules regarding politicization with a giant exception for police who get away with (sometimes literal) murder.
Politicians are expressly political. The difference is that politicians can be voted out of office by the public. I cannot be directly voted away. Even City Council or the mayor cannot directly fire me - the only staff members they have direct hire/fire authority over are the City Manager and the Municipal Judge.
Seriously, though, are people still pretending Christian organizations are filled with decent human beings? You can just point to the majority of western history as an example of the kind of people running these orgs.
“For almost 20 years, I’ve taught children to love each other. I’ve talked to them and told them, ‘You have to get along. God loves us all equally.’ And that’s the way we should be,” Maris told ABC 13’s Lodhia.“We should love everybody, and that’s what we’ve been teaching, but they’re expecting us not to do that.”
chron.com
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