
More Cities Are Making It Illegal to Hand Out Food to the Homeless - jcater
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/10/22/357846415/more-cities-are-making-it-illegal-to-hand-out-food-to-the-homeless
======
krschultz
""Street feeding is one of the worst things to do, because it keeps people in
homeless status," he says. "I think it's very unproductive, very enabling, and
it keeps people out of recovery programs."

Instead, he thinks food sharing programs should only be located near what he
calls the "core areas of recovery": mental health, substance abuse and job
readiness services. Otherwise, he says, homeless people may spend more time
pursuing food than the services that will help them get back on their feet."

Not the argument I was expecting, but I would say I think making it _illegal_
to feed people is the wrong.

~~~
melling
I think he's making the case that it should be illegal to hand out food at
certain locations. However, you can certainly donate food to shelters or food
centers, for example. It does seem like a good idea to provide basic food
services for the homeless so they know where they can get their next meal,
rather than begging on the street. Medical services should be supplied there
also. It would be a more effective use of resources.

I'm not sure if it should be illegal, but as a civilization that's probably
what we should encourage.

~~~
shkkmo
I agree. But making it illegal to feed the homeless, or feed them in some
locations seems heavy handed and wrong.

If you want to encourage feeding the homeless in places close to where they
can get other types of assistance, you should take positive steps to encourage
that:

Provide assistance (financial or logistical) to organizations doing the
feeding in proper locations.

Provide transportation to help the homeless get to the proper locations.

Or most simply: Ask the organizations or people what you can do to get them to
start feeding the homeless in proper locations.

~~~
Consultant32452
The issue is the realization that feeding the homeless in unstructured
environments is a net negative. It makes people feel good because, "Look, I
helped that guy eat today." But the reality is that guy could've likely eaten
a meal more appropriate to his specific health needs in a location best suited
to help him with medical aid, psychiatric help, and job skills/placement. So
we have this terrible predicament where people feel _good_ about something
that actually hurts people because they don't know better. It would be nice if
education programs worked and people wised up and stopped feeding the homeless
randomly, but you know what? It just doesn't work. We've tried that. So now
the law is involved. It may sound crazy, but we have to get people to stop
hurting the homeless by encouraging terribly unsafe behaviors like
panhandling.

~~~
shkkmo
The issue is how you deal with a behavior that may be a net negative. Do you
ban it? Or, Do you use education, incentives and support to change the
prevalence of the behavior?

Also, are you completely sure that if you ban unstructured feeding, all the
homeless will get fed in a structured way? Or will banning the feeding lead to
some people starving?

Also, how do you know it's a net negative? Do you take the word of a
politician who has incentive to move the homeless to low property value areas?

~~~
Consultant32452
I live in Orlando, the city that got some infamy a number of years ago for
banning the public unstructured feedings. I feel confident in saying that
education seems to have failed, but banning seems to have been fairly
successful at least with respect to curbing the behavior.

So that leaves the question of whether or not it's a net negative. Panhandling
is demonstrably dangerous, and an argument for unstructured feeding is an
argument for the status quo. I can definitely say that the status quo is an
abject failure. As for the structured efforts, those must be measured and
improved on an individual basis. They certainly have their own issues, but at
least in my city those structured feeding facilities also provide access and
information on medical care, job placement, and other assistance that is
relevant to the homeless population.

------
webnrrd2k
Just so you have some background -- I know homeless people, and I buy food for
the homeless on a regular basis. I sit and eat and talk with them, give them
rides, take them to hospitals, etc..., and I consider many of them friends.
I'm not a therapist, or any sort of expert, but I have some experience.

It's just not street-food that's making or keeping people homeless, and it's a
gross mischaracterization to claim that street feeding is what _keeps_ people
homeless. I just can't see how that contributes any any significant way to
their issues.

The homeless people I know have serious physical and/or mental health issues.
People aren't exactly lining up to give them food and money. Many of them
simply can't manage a budget and afford enough to eat through most of the
month, so they supplement their diet however they can.

They know that there are programs out there to help them, but they don't take
advantage of them _now_. Making it illegal to give them food isn't going to
somehow force them to get help. It'll just make it worse for the homeless.

~~~
drez
> They know that there are programs out there to help them, but they don't
> take advantage of them now. Making it illegal to give them food isn't going
> to somehow force them to get help. It'll just make it worse for the
> homeless.

Are you sure? I'm not trying to attack your point, but what would happen if
your homeless friends actually started taking advantage of these programs that
are put in place to help them? Right now they don't need to because they are
getting by on the kindness of others, but what if they had no other option but
to go to these mental hospitals, homeless shelters, food banks, etc, where
they could someday learn to take care of themselves and break the cycle?

I think what you're doing shows how much of a loving and kind-hearted person
you are, but try to consider the other side of the argument. This is an
enormously hard problem (dating back thousands of years). We need a way to
break the cycle, and the current status quo just isn't working.

~~~
bduerst
That's a gross generalization, almost a false dichotomy.

webnrrd2k's experience mirrors my past experiences, in that many homeless
simply don't have the mental faculties to take care of themselves. This
includes having enough sapience to seek out existing programs for help. Many
will self medicate with illegal or stolen drugs, which only exasperates their
situation.

It's very easy to project ourselves into these situations and think "What
would I do if I were homeless?", and assume that if you were lazy enough and
taken care of you would probably stay homeless. The fact that you are even
able to jump these mental hurdles and consider these situations is why you are
not currently homeless.

------
kauffj
Almost everyone sees it as their right (or the government's right) to restrict
other's behavior/rights/property when it would affect their quality of life or
the standards of their community (cf. drugs, gay marriage).

Suppose 90% of people in Fort Lauderdale want to disallow businesses from
feeding the homeless while 90% of Philadelphia wants to disallow businesses
from allowing smoking inside. What principle allows us to restrict smoking on
private property that wouldn't also allow us to restrict people feeding the
homeless? Is there a reason one of these is more acceptable than the other?

On edit: For those who feel the difference is purely about outcomes, what if
Roger Marbut is right and feeding the homeless in the way banned is a net
harm? Would it be okay then? Also, while one can argue smoking bars are a net
good, they do, at a minimum, harm those who would like to smoke. We can also
construct a scenario in which a smoking restaurateur wants to serve food to
his 3 smoking customers (i.e. all are harmed).

~~~
axotty
I believe you are confusing the government's right to regulate behavior with
the government's right to regulate negative externalities[0] caused by certain
behaviors.

I would argue in that in the case of smoking, there is an overwhelming amount
of evidence that suggests the activity harms others around you. Therefore, the
public has the right to regulate the negative externality that this activity
creates -- needless physical harm to others. The regulation of this activity
creates virtually zero new negative externalities and is therefore justified.

This is in contrast to the other behavioral regulations you mentioned such as
gay marriage, feeding the homeless, or even other drugs. The supposed negative
externalities these activities produce have been viewed with more skepticism
by the general public in recent years.

For example, the argument that gay marriage would somehow harm the way certain
children were raised, has been mostly debunked. If sufficient evidence to the
contrary would arise, evidence that was comparable to the quality of the
evidence for second hand smoke, then the public would be justified in
reevaluating the issue.

Fortunately, from a civil rights perspective, this is not the case.

In the case of non-smokable drugs you have to consider how much harm drug use
causes vs. drug prohibition. It becomes clear that the negative externalities
from the latter are much larger in scope and scale. Therefore, a conversation
in ending drug prohibition is justified.

So, I would argue that whether or not a regulation on feeding the homeless is
justified depends on the scope and scale of the negative externalities the
activity creates, vs the scope and scale of negative externalities the
regulation itself may or may not create.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality)

~~~
shkkmo
> The regulation of this activity creates virtually zero new negative
> externalities and is therefore justified.

The problem with considering issues involved from the point of view of
'Externalities' is how you measure 'externalities'. Can you be sure that you
have measured all the possible externalities?

The regulation of the behavior curtails the rights of a number of people. You
don't seem to consider that a significant externality (probably because you
aren't one of those people).

You also present a false dichotomy. The question is no 'to regulate or not
regulate, which is worse?'.

The question is 'How do we solve this problem while protecting as the rights
of the people involved as much as possible?'

There is a tendency to want to regulate away issues rather than trying to
understand the needs of everyone involved and craft solutions that actauly
work.

~~~
axotty
You seem to have missed the point. And I'll let you have the last word if
want. I will say this though:

There is no universal right to smoke. Smoking harms others and provides no
benefit to anyone other than people who suffer nicotine addictions.

Furthermore, smoking bans are bar none the most effective way to reduce public
harm from second hand smoke. They indeed "actually work".

EDIT: And to your other response I did mean "the right to continue their
addiction." Thank you for pointing that out.

~~~
shkkmo
I know I said I was done being off topic...but apparently that wasn't true.

>Smoking harms others and provides no benefit to anyone other than people who
suffer nicotine addictions.

You might feel that way, but other people feel differently. There is a fair
amount of evidence that nicotine is often used as a form of self medication
for both anxiety and depression. It also has a long history of being enjoyed
socially by a number of different cultures.

I regularly encourage and support my friends who are trying to quit smoking, I
did so even back when I was a smoker. My biggest issue with the anti-smoking
activists is that they assume that because they don't like something, nobody
can like it.

> Furthermore, smoking bans are bar none the most effective way to reduce
> public harm from second hand smoke. They indeed "actually work".

They might be the most effective, but they are not the most fair. By your same
logic, completely banning cars on public roads is the most effective way to
reduce pedestrian fatalities.

Smoking bans trample on the universal right of individuals to to pursue
happiness as they see fit. I think it is possible to protect this universal
right while also protecting the rights of those who wish to be free of the
harm caused by second hand smoke.

I think the unwillingness of anti-smoker to work to accomodate this is as
callous as the unwillingness of some smokers to take the effort to avoid
exposing people to their second-hand smoke.

And to bring this back to the discussion at hand: Banning something for the
public good is rarely fair and often has ignored or unvalued externalities.
This is especially true when the ban comes at the expense of a minority of the
population (such as a ban on panhandling).

------
mightybyte
This topic tends to generate polarizing and conflicted views, as we can
clearly see from the comments here. One side thinks it's cruel and heartless
to prevent someone from giving food to a hungry human. The other side thinks
that we shouldn't reward bad behavior. The core of the matter is that helping
people is _hard_. I don't mean just token help. I mean _really_ helping in a
meaningful way that makes a lasting difference.

An example: consider back in the 80s - 90s where there was a charity trend in
at least parts of the United States of sending clothes to Africa. Seems like a
good thing, right? How could giving clothes be bad. Clothing is a basic need
(in many places), just like food. But what really happened when Americans
started sending clothes to Africa? People who have actually spent time in
Africa can tell you that the flood of free clothes totally destroyed the local
textile industries. People who were making a productive living found
themselves unable to compete and out of work/income.

So we see that with free clothes there were significant unintended negative
consequences. Why would we expect it would be any different with free food? I
totally get the desire to empathize with another human being and genuinely
want to help people who found themselves in a very difficult situation with no
obvious way to break the cycle. But we need to be aware that our supposed help
may actually end up causing more difficulty in the long run. In that case, one
could argue that charity becomes a selfish act--the real reason the giver does
it is because it makes them feel better about themselves. I'm not making this
point in an attempt to justify heartless inaction. I just think that we should
put serious thought into examining whether our efforts at charity really make
a meaningful difference in the lives of the people we're trying to help.

~~~
drez
This is the best point here.

I don't think anyone is advocating to let the homeless starve. We just need to
realize as a society that the small act of kindness that we can provide at the
micro scale (giving rides, money, food, etc) can have harsh consequences when
observed from the macro scale.

------
tn13
When I arrived in bay area, I found not too many homeless people but there
were few. Often they asked for "change".

So I thought I might be able to use these people as handyman. So I asked one
of them if he would help me cleaning my car and moving furniture. I offered
him $20, some used clothes and chilled beer. He shrugged saying he doesn't
want my money. He told me that if he wanted work, he could get it easily and
had held many jobs in past.

Being a homeless enabled him get various type of welfare from government he
easily made $800 per month from government. He said he could get a job for
$3000 a month but then it is not a major improvement over getting $800 for
doing nothing.

US needs to rethink its welfare measure. They are winning votes but wrecking
the country.

~~~
objectivetruth
You DO know that's a singular anecdote and not even close to representative of
many, if not most, of the folks that suffer in this situation, right?

~~~
tn13
Given two choices, people tend to make the choice that maximizes their
interest. I am certain that this example is an indicative of what most are
likely to think.

------
pdeuchler
I'm from Orlando, where the original hullabaloo over this sort of thing
erupted a while back. Most of the time the people complaining about laws like
these are (please forgive the stereotypes, but in my experience they've been
accurate) white, upper class, white collar, with very little experience
dealing with poverty or poverty related issues. They hear things that sound
counter intuitive and the "white savior" complex goes into overdrive.

Since Orlando has weather (and an economy, look up 2008-present foreclosure
rates in Central Florida for reference) that is very conducive to a large
homeless population we have been dealing with the issue at a large scale for a
long time, and a lot of caring, smart, experienced people all agree that there
are very constructive ways of dealing with homelessness and very destructive
ways of dealing with it. Time and time again, allowing the homeless to
disperse geographically and survive in a "free for all" state creates enormous
problems. You end up with exploitation, abuse, and harm to not only the
homeless but those around them.

It's rare, but not unheard of, for stupid kids to give the homeless sandwiches
laced with, say, exlax. It's rare, but not unheard of, for people to entice
the homeless into essentially handyman jobs with the promise of a meal, or
payment, only to "reconsider" at the last second once the job is done. It's
rare, but not unheard of, for well meaning people to give out food that has
gone bad, or can exacerbate terrible allergies or medical conditions.

Furthermore, encouraging the homeless to beg and subsist off of random
passerby is an incredibly demeaning thing. It encourages the bad element of
panhandling, begging, and lies to encourage donations. It creates an
atmosphere where the most seriously poorly off end up being "out begged" by
the devious looking to snag a quick meal, or beer money.

Last, but not least, it completely ruins standardized initiatives to solve the
problem. The homeless are less likely to congregate in safe areas where
organizations dedicated to help them are located. They're less likely to
receive a steady, nutritious diet. They're less likely to be exposed to
further job programs and mental health help. They're more likely to sleep in
an alley somewhere instead of, at worst, gathering near a shelter, or at best,
getting a bed in a shelter where they are safest and most secure. Keeping tabs
on the homeless is one of the hardest things to do, but one of the most
important. If you can't track progress on a community or individual scale you
can't tell whether or not your efforts are working, and you can't develop the
personal relationships and support groups that time and time again are proven
to be, overwhelmingly, the most effective way to get people out of the vicious
cycle.

It's hard to kind of shut off the automatic empathy that pops up, but you have
to realize these are people just like you that ended up with a serious short
stick in life. You need to treat them like that, instead of infantilizing
them.

~~~
shkkmo
> It's rare, but not unheard of, for stupid kids to give the homeless
> sandwiches laced with, say, exlax. It's rare, but not unheard of, for people
> to entice the homeless into essentially handyman jobs with the promise of a
> meal, or payment, only to "reconsider" at the last second once the job is
> done. It's rare, but not unheard of, for well meaning people to give out
> food that has gone bad, or can exacerbate terrible allergies or medical
> conditions.

I would hope that these behaviors are already illegal under current laws.

>Furthermore, encouraging the homeless to beg and subsist off of random
passerby is an incredibly demeaning thing. It encourages the bad element of
panhandling, begging, and lies to encourage donations. It creates an
atmosphere where the most seriously poorly off end up being "out begged" by
the devious looking to snag a quick meal, or beer money.

I agree we shouldn't encourage this behavior. I disagree that we should make
the behavior illegal.

>Last, but not least, it completely ruins standardized initiatives to solve
the problem. The homeless are less likely to congregate in safe areas where
organizations dedicated to help them are located. They're less likely to
receive a steady, nutritious diet. They're less likely to be exposed to
further job programs and mental health help. They're more likely to sleep in
an alley somewhere instead of, at worst, gathering near a shelter, or at best,
getting a bed in a shelter where they are safest and most secure.

I'm inclined to suggest that if not "making feeding homeless people illegal
and strictly curtailing their movements" completely ruins the standardized
initiatives, the standardized initiatives need a lot of work.

My big problem with forcing homeless into these safe areas by making things
outside them illegal, is that you end up with "out of sight, out of mind".
These programs already don't receive enough attention and support.

~~~
pdeuchler
So again, this is the kind of mentality I addressed. Your solution is no
solution, a continuity of the status quo. What we're doing ain't workin'. Full
stop. Yeah, that stuff is already illegal. It's also a nightmare to police and
enforce, and you end up in the same moral quandaries. Do we treat Good
Samaritans like criminals because of a few bad eggs? Do we now have to
interrogate all pan handlers? The general and most effective solution is to
ban all handouts that haven't been well thought through.

You even said it yourself, there's not enough money or support. So save the
extra $3 you would otherwise be giving out and make a year end donation to a
worthy organization. Maybe give a weekend of free time. That will go miles
beyond just throwing cash out of a car window at a random intersection. Ever
wondered how many homeless get hit by cars begging at intersections by the
way? It's more than you'd like to know.

~~~
sounds
You make good points but your message gets twisted by saying things like "this
is the kind of mentality I addressed. Your solution is no solution"

Why not just say, "This is the status quo. I want to change things by --" ?

The reason this article is trending is that the status quo is broken. Instead
of outlawing Good Samaritans, why not take the time and make the effort to
educate them?

The educational information in your posts is quite valuable and deserves more
attention than it is getting.

~~~
pdeuchler
I realize that I probably sound like a bit of a dick, and I apologize for
that, but I've been having this argument for many years and it definitely gets
frustrating to explain the situation and have people essentially ignore
everything you just said and say "well yeah but what about..."

Part of the problem is the mentality people go into this issue with, and
changing that will do wonders for the various initiatives trying to tackle
this. That said, it's something I had to go through myself so I should
probably be more empathetic

~~~
joe_the_user
_I probably sound like a bit of a dick_

You sound reasonable on first blush but your words are aimed to harm and crush
the weak. That you put your apologies for a regime for the policing of the
poor in apparently plausible and benevolent terms simply makes your words more
harmful.

I think you should be ashamed of yourself.

Edit: Your parent post is very eloquent (if deceptive imho) argument for "give
up on helping your fellow human, instead trust the authorities". Are you happy
with living in a world like that really?

------
bokonist
I really wish we could all, liberals and conservatives, could come up with a
"grand compromise" with regards to the homeless. Elements of the compromise:

1) Guarantee all people access to cheap, government provided dormitory style
living, with a door that locks, a kitchen and basic food staples, and security
screening of fellow residents. There would be different forms of permanent
living for the mentally ill, drug addicts, recovering addicts, or able body
people who have fallen on hard times. It would seem reasonable to require the
sane and able bodied to do 20 hours of very basic work (picking up trash,
watching security cameras, etc.) in return for the living. [this line has been
edited, see footnote]

2) Re-enact and enforce vagrancy laws. No sleeping in the street, no
panhandling, no begging, no telling manipulative sob stories on the subway.

3) Make the support for 1) the responsibility of the community they are from.
The problem right now is any community that wishes to be generous to the
homeless becomes a homeless magnet. This creates an incentive for cities not
to be charitable, and to not take care of their own. The cities that are
generous then get mocked for their homeless problem. Instead, if San Francisco
police arrest a vagrant, they should make an effort to find out where his
closest family from, or where his last established residency or hometown is,
and then give him a one-way bus ticket back to that town.

Unfortunately, liberals are generally against #2, conservatives are against
#1, no one even talks about #3 and so nothing gets done and the problem, which
could be so easily solved given our resources, persists on and on.

(a) Edit/footnote: obviously many homeless people have drug and mental health
problems that would make dorm living and performing a government job
infeasible. There also needs to be funded supportive housing and programs for
those cases. Also, there needs to be different levels of dorm living so those
trying to escape drug addiction are not around those who are still using. The
dorm living would need rules and management to prevent the problems that
plague homeless shelter.

~~~
rthomas6
I have a counter-proposal:

1) Universal basic income. You get paid like $10,000 no matter what.

2) Eliminate minimum wage. Anyone is free to earn extra if they so desire.

3) Outlaw rent control. Now you have more abundant housing.

That wouldn't take care of all of it, but it would sure help.

~~~
losvedir
I like roughly this.

One issue: how do you disburse the income? What happens if someone blows it
all on drugs, and then is out? We're sort of back where we started. Could we
then just let the person starve or whatever, and say, "well you had your
chance."? Push comes to shove, I don't think I could.

My solution: Government provided withdrawal systems (ATMs or something like
that), that provide $27/day (to use your number). Most people who unwisely
spent their $27 could manage to wait another day and then get food.

Problem: How do you pay for all this?

Solution: A low-percentage wealth (aka capital) tax. It's a redistribution of
wealth, but if you outearn/outinvest the rate, then you can accumulate wealth.
Could then do away with estate taxes. Ideally I'd cap the Basic Income
Guarantee as a percentage of this wealth tax, evenly distributed, and not a
fixed number. As the society gets richer/poorer so does the distribution.

Then, just add in single payer health insurance, and remove minimum wage,
social security, medicare, medicaid, welfare, and all sorts of other systems
and we have my socialist/libertarian paradise. : )

~~~
rthomas6
I think we're on the same page.

However, I don't think your first solution solves your first problem. I don't
have a good solution for it either, though.

I like your second solution, but I would prefer a progressive capital gains
tax + a carbon tax. Basically you only get taxed on your wealth if you earn
about a certain yearly amount.

------
steveax
I like Carlin's solution [1]

"... But getting back to low-cost housing, I think I might have solved this
problem. I know just the place to build housing for the homeless: golf
courses. It’s perfect. Plenty of good land in nice neighborhoods; land that is
currently being squandered on a mindless activity engaged in by white, well-
to-do business criminals who use the game to get together so they can make
deals to carve this country up a little finer among themselves..."

[1]: [http://www.georgecarlinrip.com/2014/01/golf-courses-for-
home...](http://www.georgecarlinrip.com/2014/01/golf-courses-for-
homeless.html)

------
GoldenHomer
I know in Lubbock something similar was in the news a while. It had more to do
with city health code violation than anything else and the matter seemed to
die down. It's interesting because a church was doing the feeding and I didn't
think the city would do such a thing considering how conservative and
religious this city is. I rather see the food being eaten rather than being
thrown away. I have nothing against the homeless except for the rare ones who
get angry when I say I will buy them food rather than hand money over. There's
also Tent City here in the 806 which is a congregation of homeless who sleep
in tents and I haven't heard much trouble there. Now the homeless in San
Francisco are a different story. I didn't want to believe it since SF is such
a lovely city but damn, the homeless there are aggressive as hell. That's just
my experience though.

------
jemfinch
How is it that giving money to political campaigns is an expression of free
speech, but giving food to the homeless isn't? If municipalities couldn't pass
a law prohibiting _speaking_ to homeless people, how, in a post-"Citizens
United" world, can they pass a law prohibiting giving food to homeless?

~~~
jemfinch
I'd really like my cowardly downvoter to post a reply; as far as I can tell,
my reasoning is sound.

~~~
dllthomas
Don't read too much into downvotes. With no ability to correct a vote, it's
sometimes just fat fingers.

------
AdmiralAsshat
_" Street feeding is one of the worst things to do, because it keeps people in
homeless status," he says. "I think it's very unproductive, very enabling, and
it keeps people out of recovery programs."_

What exactly, in this economy, should I tell a homeless person who is hungry?
"Get a job"?

~~~
bobbyhotpockets
You would tell this person where to find food sharing programs, which would be
"located near what he calls the "core areas of recovery": mental health,
substance abuse and job readiness services."

~~~
nknighthb
Yes, we all read that. It's obvious misdirection. To the extent these things
exist, they are badly underfunded. Let them eat cake, while properly
segregated from polite society.

------
SNvD7vEJ
Also, soon it will be illegal to help victims of train and car crashes in
order to reduce the number of accidents.

~~~
jdmichal
Actually, in the US [0] it's the default that you can be sued for injury or
wrongful death if you attempt to assist. Some jurisdictions have Good
Samaritan laws [1] to fix this very issue, though even then it sometimes only
extends to trained personnel like emergency responders and doctors.

[0] And possibly other places, but I'm not familiar enough to say.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Samaritan_law](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Samaritan_law)

~~~
gnopgnip
You can be sued for anything, it's unlikely you would have any greater risk
for attempting to help compared to doing nothing.

~~~
jdmichal
I do not understand why you would hold such a false impression. Anyone can
indeed attempt to sue you for anything, however that says nothing about their
likelihood to succeed.

Say I am untrained in any rescue or medical procedures. I witness a car
collision, and a rider was ejected from a vehicle and lying next to it. I
proceed to move them due to perceived fire hazard, however they in fact have a
broken neck and die due to my moving them before stabilizing the neck. If it
could be reasonably argued [0] that the person would have lived with proper
intervention had I not intervened, why should I not be liable for that?

In fact, without a Good Samaritan law in effect, I _am_ potentially liable for
the rider's death. I _can_ be successfully sued by the survivors. The whole
point of Good Samaritan laws is to reduce or eliminate this liability to me in
exactly these scenarios.

Now, if I do nothing, I am likely to only be liable if there is a duty to
rescue [1].

[0] As in, well enough to win a criminal or civil case.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duty_to_rescue](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duty_to_rescue)

------
gumby
Seems to me that feeding the homeless is unambiguously a first amendment
right.

Saying this doesn't invalidate some of the reasons why it might be a bad idea
(although many of those reasons seem like...a stretch), but then again the
first amendment allows you to say (and, I claim do) some stupid stuff.

I think giving money to panhandlers is dumb but I do it. It's clear to me that
when I pull out a couple of bucks I'm expressing my concern for that person,
for the social issues that may have helped them end up there (or they may
simply have had their own problems, or own bad luck) and my feelings about
myself as a person, which may be noble, base or guilty.

I also, when I think of it, donate to charities that help the homeless (it's a
problem here in Palo Alto, though less than it used to be now the city council
fell prey to the real estate lobby and shoved all the homeless shelters
aside). I know a wholesale approach is generally more sensible. But sometimes
a little "retail therapy" of this sort is valuable too.

------
mkhalil
Seen this comment on that article. Kind of sad really; what we're turning
into.

"that law has me, and plenty others in the greater Houston area, really ticked
off. There were several very active (although small and not well funded)
charities that were recently shut down due to this nonsense. Church groups
that would fix food in their kitchens and take it to the homeless were stopped
because they didn't have a commercial kitchen and all the permits that came
with it; other groups would get together in their homes and cook meals, and
got shut down for the same reasons. It's absolutely ridiculous to turn good
samaritans in to criminals, but that's exactly what we do every time a new law
is created as a knee jerk reaction to some recent event. How about we LEAVE
PEOPLE ALONE? sorry /endrant"

------
bane
When I was young, due to some bad business deals and other factors, my family
went homeless for a few months. We lived in a cheap motel, 4 of us to the
room. We had some hot plates and cooked some in the room and used the bathroom
sink to wash up afterwards. It wasn't too bad to be honest, we had food,
shelter, clothing, jobs and each other.

We weren't the only "housing challenged" residents of this motel. By the late
night activity in the hallway and the parking lot, most seemed to have some
kind of severe addiction problem, though there were a couple illegal
immigrants who had secured a room through a friend while they worked for
remittance money. On more than one occasion, drunk/high people tried to force
entry into our room later at night. My father slept by the door with a hammer
after the second time.

Despite this, I'm not an authority on homelessness, but I know it sucks. For
people like us, without severe mental, substance or family problems, wanting
the make the sucking part stop is what kept us working on getting out of the
situation. So I understand the ideas behind some of these notions around "not
encouraging" people to be homeless. Having lived in those kinds of conditions
before and not minded them terribly, to be perfectly honest, I've had moments
where I've thought "if I could have a room and food, without working at all, I
wouldn't bother looking for a job". So I fundamentally _get_ where that's
coming from.

However, I also have several people in my family with severe psychological and
addiction issues, and recognizing these same issues in the homeless I see out
on the street every day, I understand that "getting out of the suckiness of
homelessness" is not a major driver for them. Their hierarchy of needs is
often screwed up and insomuch as they are able to satisfy that hierarchy,
getting shelter (and even food) is often not a major priority for them. So no
amount of having food kitchens or not having them is going to be a major
decision point for them to suddenly come off their additions, become sane, and
become productive members of society. However, I do think that people should
be able to eat a safe meal if they need it.

Now that I'm long out of that situation, educated and affluent, I also suffer
from NIMBYism. I worked very hard and have spent significant amounts of time
and money to live in an area where I don't really have to worry about the
kinds of negative environmental factors and activities that come with handling
large homeless populations. I don't want a food kitchen anywhere near where I
live. Not because I don't believe in feeding the homeless, people need to eat
_today_ not after a six month job training program, but because for people who
aren't working their way out of homelessness, there are large numbers of
negative issues that homeless people bring along with them and it contributes
to an environment I don't want to be in.

So this _is_ a very tough issue. However, just offering services isn't really
a good answer either. When I spent some time in Portland, I was struck by the
number and permanence of the homeless population there. It's not a
particularly great outdoor environment, but the large number of free services
in the downtown area have created a more or less stable population of self-
supporting homeless. The principle complaint residents I've spoken to have is
that it's great these services exist, but once they've been served, what's
next?

I've observed poor coordination among homeless service organizations. You go
here for food, here for the shelter, here for blankets, here for a job, if
you're extremely lucky you might be getting medical/psychological/addiction
care on a sporadic basis.

But what really needs to happen is a centralized "get off the streets" center.
If a homeless person wants _any_ services, they have to check in there and
they _must_ participate in all of the appropriate services proscribed to them.
I'm also an advocate that they should immediately be working in return for the
services. Every city has loads of work that needs doing, picking up litter,
emptying public trash bins, park beautification, cleaning up graffiti,
repainting bridges, filling in potholes, etc. In exchange a person who's "in
the program" should get 3 hot meals a day, a small dorm room with a door they
can lock, free psych/rehab/basic medical clinic treatment. They should be
scored on participation, and if they do well, move on to more advanced
programs like finding rent-controlled/shared housing, real jobs that pay
money, mass-transit subsidies etc.

A friend of mine had a horrible experience and ended up in a battered women's
shelter with 3 kids. The program they put her on was better than any homeless
program I've seen. Within weeks, she had a job, psych counseling for her and
her kids, and in a couple months had moved out of the shelter and was
splitting a town home with another woman from the program at hugely subsidized
rent (based on how much she made at her job). Within a year they had found her
a two bedroom apartment just for her family. This was for a person who had
money in her bank account, work history and some job skills, and a sizable
social network who helped her out during her ordeal with food, money and
places to stay.

It wasn't perfect, but I was surprised at how much better it was for her than
for the homeless who don't really have anything at all.

~~~
sedachv
> Every city has loads of work that needs doing, picking up litter, emptying
> public trash bins, park beautification, cleaning up graffiti, repainting
> bridges, filling in potholes, etc.

There's a large problem with the "filling in potholes" part. Road construction
is a skilled trade (no, it's not just digging ditches). I've heard this
"ditch-digging" argument on HN before (the other commenter wanted welfare
recipients to dig a ditch on the Mexican border to keep illegal immigrants
out...). Using public funds to effectively put tradesmen (some of whom are
unionized) out of work to provide busywork to welfare recipients is not a good
idea from a free-market point of view.

~~~
bane
> to provide busywork to welfare recipients

well they wouldn't exactly be welfare recipients if they're working

------
joshfraser
It's one thing for a city to discourage me from giving food or money to
panhandlers. It's another to make it illegal.

------
Istof
It should be illegal to make this illegal unless such city at least first
setup a free food program for the homeless that is easily accessible for all
homeless in that city. They only want to drive them away to different cities
so that the city look better?

------
frandroid
If people don't want to see homeless people in the streets, give them homes.
LA Country has pretty much proven that the cost of social housing is lower
than the cost of homelessness (policing, healthcare, etc).

------
hellbanner
So if I meet someone on the street who has a home, I can hand them my fries?

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mtalantikite
I once got yelled at by a pizza shop owner for buying a homeless guy a couple
slices in the Lower East Side. It never crossed my mind that someone would
take issue with someone feeding another human.

~~~
Crito
Many small businesses like that have issues with homeless people camping
directly outside their business, harassing their customers asking for food.
When people buy food for them, it encourages them to stick around and keep it
up.

As you might imagine, having homeless people standing around outside harassing
your customers is not great for business.

~~~
mtalantikite
The guy wasn't outside harassing people, we were talking a couple blocks away
and I asked him if he was hungry.

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realusername
"Street feeding is one of the worst things to do, because it keeps people in
homeless status,"

Oh yeah sure, they're homeless because they are asking for food, that's their
own fault for staying homeless and not the fault of the society. This is very
convenient.

Or maybe they just go to food sharing programs because they are hungry and
that's their only option ? Who knows...

~~~
icebraining
That's not what's being said.

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Havoc
What are they going to do? Arrest me for helping a starving guy?

~~~
sarciszewski
Yes. See what happened with Food Not Bombs in Orlando a couple of years back.

~~~
Havoc
ah - I keep forgetting...US legal system.

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alexvr
Sounds like a great way to invite a higher crime rate.

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unknownBits
I think it would be much better to make it illegal to have idiots being in
power.

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qwerta
War against food :-)

------
zipwitch
Practice for treating humans like animals?

------
harrylove
Arrest me then.

------
tn13
Firstly with minimum wage laws you deny them opportunity to earn their living.
Then you deny them food. Well done America.

------
eevilspock
...while the Supreme Court protects the right of people and corporations
(because of course they are persons too!) to feed politicians as much money as
they want.

