B
balanco01@yahoo.com
Guest
On Apr 11, 5:17 am, "Mike T." <n...@nohow.net> wrote:
> >> How is this different from a family touring the country in an RV for
> >> months
> >> at a time?
>
> >> I agree, leave this family alone.
>
> > The mother has a warrant, and the cops tried to serve that warrant.
> > The two kids got in the way. So they were arrested. Unless I missed
> > it, who says they're getting picked on because of how they live?
>
> I agree that the family has certain legal "issues" that they have to work
> out. However, two different towns tried to force them to move out of their
> van (essentially an RV) citing health code mumbo jumbo. One was successful,
> the next was not. (yet)
>
> If this living arrangement violates health codes, then that means that RVs
> are illegal, and they should all be immediately impounded and crushed.
>
> The family is living in the van no more than a week or two at a time (and
> then renting a room in a motel for a night, to get a hot shower). Gee,
> sounds just like families that travel the country in RVs, yet that
> supposedly doesn't violate any health codes. -Dave
"Health codes" is a widely used pretext and tool for cities to get
rid of their "undesirables", i.e. homeless. Even if the "remedy"
would
actualy endager the health of those they are harassing. Here is a
couple examples:
http://www.iliberty.org/blog/id.3492/news_detail.asp
Government to Homeless: "No Soup for You!"
Fairfax County, Virginia has recently begun enforcing a law
prohibiting charitable donations of food prepared in church or home
kitchens. The county says that it is protecting the homeless and needy
from food poisoning and other dangers from kitchens not inspected by
the health department. But advocates for the homeless say that they
such "protection" will cause many people to go without nutritious food
this winter.
[Health officials] said the crackdown on home-cooked meals is
aimed at preventing food poisoning among homeless people.
But it is infuriating operators of shelters for the homeless and
leaders of a coalition of churches that provides shelter and meals to
homeless people during the winter. They said the strict standards for
food served in the shelters will make it more difficult to serve
healthy, hot meals to homeless people. The enforcement also, they
said, makes little sense.
"We're very aware that a number of homeless people eat out of
dumpsters, and mom's pot roast has got to be healthier than that,"
said Jim Brigl, chief executive of Fairfax Area Christian Emergency &
Transitional Services. "But that doesn't meet the code."
County health codes are designed to protect people from hidden
dangers, like bacterial contamination or improper food storage, that
could harm them. We employ experts to inspect kitchens because most
individuals don't have the information they would need to make a
decision about whether eating food prepared in a particular way is too
risky for them, and we don't expect them to have the same knowledge
about food safety that an inspector has.
In this case, however, the health codes are not protecting anyone.
They instead have the unintended consequence of pushing the hungry and
homeless to seek food from even less safe sources, such as dumpsters
and trash bins. This attempt to protect needy people is making them
worse off by taking away their choice to risk eating a homemade
casserole.
When making laws to protect people, especially to protect people who
are already in bad situations, lawmakers must consider whether the
danger they're trying to protect a person from could be the best
option that person has. Presumably, if homeless people had a reliable
source of hot, nutritious food prepared in an inspected kitchen, they
would have chosen that source in the first place. The fact that they
choose to eat donated food tells us that the risk of food-poisoning
seemed to them less dangerous than the risk of malnutrition. Are we-or
the Fairfax County health department-in a better position to know
what's best for them than they are? Or is the government taking away
from people an option that may be flawed, but is actually the best
option available to them?
by Amy Phillips on November 29, 2006
http://graphic.pepperdine.edu/news/2002/2002-10-31-homeless.htm
Feeding of homeless restricted
Santa Monica City Council passes ordinance making it illegal to feed
more than 150 homeless in public
By Sarah Carrillo
News Assistaint
Helping the needy is usually not considered a crime, but those wishing
to serve food to the homeless in Santa Monica may soon be serving
something else - jail time.
The Santa Monica City Council passed an ordinance Oct. 22 that makes
it illegal to distribute food to more than 150 homeless on a public
street or sidewalk without a permit.
Violators of this law may receive a fine of up to $1,000 or six months
jail time.
The ordinance will go into effect between Thanksgiving and New Years,
but according to Santa Monica Human Services, it will not be enforced
until next year.
Other ordinances passed regarding the homeless include prohibiting
standing or lying in doorways in the downtown and Main Street areas
and increasing protection for tenants of rental properties against the
homeless.
The first reading of the ordinance was Oct. 8 in response to a report
conducted by the city council regarding the homeless community in
Santa Monica.
It passed on a 5-2 vote at both the first and second readings, with
Mayor Michael Feinstein and Mayor Pro Tempore Kevin McKeown casting
the dissenting votes. The author of the ordinance, City Attorney
Marsha Moutrie, said in a press release that the ordinance deals with
health code standards that need to be followed while distributing food
and that the new law only enforces codes that are already in place.
Feinstein said that the health codes are only a pretense for the real
purpose of the law, getting rid of the homeless population.
"It simply was dishonest government," Feinstein said. "They're trying
to drive out the homeless on a pretense of health codes."
According to Feinstein, the problem with the ordinance is that it
appears to be helping the homeless by forcing volunteers to follow
health code standards, but in reality it does more harm than good.
Research has shown that there have not been any reported cases of food
poisoning among the homeless in Santa Monica and that diseases
relating to malnutrition are the main problems homeless people face.
Malnutrition problems will not be solved by limiting the amount of
food the homeless receive.
"It would be a big shame if (feeding the homeless) was curtailed in
any way," Dr. Kevin Iga, assistant professor of mathematics said. Iga
often volunteers feeding the homeless and has been working to fight
the ordinance. "The law violates the rights of those who want to give
out food and violates the rights of the homeless to be fed," he said.
Santa Monica City Council Member Richard Bloom said he thinks the
ordinance will help the homeless get off the streets and get the help
they need.
"It's going to provide an incentive to connect with our service
providers and get assistance," Bloom said. "I think things are so bad,
anything we do will move things in a positive direction."
Critics of the ordinance, like Feinstein, say that it is merely a way
to rid Santa Monica of its homeless community. Feinstein said that
Santa Monica does carry a burden in that many other cities have pushed
their homeless onto Santa Monica, but he also stressed that forcing
the homeless away will not solve the problem.
"It is true that other communities take advantage of us," Feinstein
said. "But we must resist the short-term impulse to push
(homelessness) away."
Supporters of the ordinance have said that in light of recent economic
problems, businesses would benefit from stricter guidelines regarding
the homeless. Feinstein said he disagrees.
"In economic hard times we should be helping the less fortunate, not
pushing them away," he said. "We are playing with fire when we make
our compassion be a function of how we're doing economically. Business
is down overall and it is easy to scapegoat the homeless."
Ashley Nolan, projects coordinator for the Pepperdine Volunteer
Center, said she believes that while the ordinance may seem like a
good short-term solution, it will ultimately cause problems for the
homeless.
"Although this ordinance may provide temporary relief for the city, it
only makes it more difficult for the homeless," Nolan said. "While the
ordinance implies that the city is looking out for the interests of
the homeless as well as its business owners and residents, it provides
no alternative solution. ... The city has not provided any real solution
for the homeless population in the city; they have merely put a band
aid on the issue. ... Although taking peanut butter and jelly sandwiches
to Ocean Park is not a long term solution either, at least it provides
a lunch, a human touch, and a smile to a few more people."
The Volunteer Center organized a trip to Ocean Park in Santa Monica
during Step Forward Day this year to hand out food to the homeless.
Other on-campus groups, like Rotoract, Psi Upsilon fraternity and
Campus Ministry, regularly distribute food in Santa Monica. In the
future, these groups will have to obtain a permit in order to continue
their service if they serve more than 150 people.
Currently, the city council has not designed a process for obtaining
the necessary permit to feed the homeless, but people are looking for
ways to get around the law, like feeding the homeless in smaller
groups.
Also, the city is encouraging those interested in feeding the homeless
to work with local shelters and serve the food indoors.
"As someone who volunteers with such organizations too, (I know) the
people in charge of these groups are already overwhelmed with the
magnitude of the homelessness and poverty problems and are turning
people away because of lack of resources," Iga said in an e-mail
interview. "If the idea is to get the poor into better programs, then
why not push to get more resources to these programs, and as they are
able to handle more homeless, their needs can be met, so that this
ordinance would be unnecessary."
Freshman Marcy Madrigal, who regularly volunteers feeding the
homeless, said she is worried that the homeless will not go to the
shelters even if their source of food is taken away.
"A lot of (the homeless) have too much pride to go to a shelter, but
the will take food from me," Madrigal said.
Feinstein said that the National Lawyers Guild may get involved in
changing this ordinance when it goes into effect next year and there
is a case involving it. Feinstein said he believes his speeches
against the ordinance may provide some help in a case to change or
abolish the ordinance in court.
"I feel that I exposed what I thought to be the hypocrisy of the law,"
Feinstein said.
> >> How is this different from a family touring the country in an RV for
> >> months
> >> at a time?
>
> >> I agree, leave this family alone.
>
> > The mother has a warrant, and the cops tried to serve that warrant.
> > The two kids got in the way. So they were arrested. Unless I missed
> > it, who says they're getting picked on because of how they live?
>
> I agree that the family has certain legal "issues" that they have to work
> out. However, two different towns tried to force them to move out of their
> van (essentially an RV) citing health code mumbo jumbo. One was successful,
> the next was not. (yet)
>
> If this living arrangement violates health codes, then that means that RVs
> are illegal, and they should all be immediately impounded and crushed.
>
> The family is living in the van no more than a week or two at a time (and
> then renting a room in a motel for a night, to get a hot shower). Gee,
> sounds just like families that travel the country in RVs, yet that
> supposedly doesn't violate any health codes. -Dave
"Health codes" is a widely used pretext and tool for cities to get
rid of their "undesirables", i.e. homeless. Even if the "remedy"
would
actualy endager the health of those they are harassing. Here is a
couple examples:
http://www.iliberty.org/blog/id.3492/news_detail.asp
Government to Homeless: "No Soup for You!"
Fairfax County, Virginia has recently begun enforcing a law
prohibiting charitable donations of food prepared in church or home
kitchens. The county says that it is protecting the homeless and needy
from food poisoning and other dangers from kitchens not inspected by
the health department. But advocates for the homeless say that they
such "protection" will cause many people to go without nutritious food
this winter.
[Health officials] said the crackdown on home-cooked meals is
aimed at preventing food poisoning among homeless people.
But it is infuriating operators of shelters for the homeless and
leaders of a coalition of churches that provides shelter and meals to
homeless people during the winter. They said the strict standards for
food served in the shelters will make it more difficult to serve
healthy, hot meals to homeless people. The enforcement also, they
said, makes little sense.
"We're very aware that a number of homeless people eat out of
dumpsters, and mom's pot roast has got to be healthier than that,"
said Jim Brigl, chief executive of Fairfax Area Christian Emergency &
Transitional Services. "But that doesn't meet the code."
County health codes are designed to protect people from hidden
dangers, like bacterial contamination or improper food storage, that
could harm them. We employ experts to inspect kitchens because most
individuals don't have the information they would need to make a
decision about whether eating food prepared in a particular way is too
risky for them, and we don't expect them to have the same knowledge
about food safety that an inspector has.
In this case, however, the health codes are not protecting anyone.
They instead have the unintended consequence of pushing the hungry and
homeless to seek food from even less safe sources, such as dumpsters
and trash bins. This attempt to protect needy people is making them
worse off by taking away their choice to risk eating a homemade
casserole.
When making laws to protect people, especially to protect people who
are already in bad situations, lawmakers must consider whether the
danger they're trying to protect a person from could be the best
option that person has. Presumably, if homeless people had a reliable
source of hot, nutritious food prepared in an inspected kitchen, they
would have chosen that source in the first place. The fact that they
choose to eat donated food tells us that the risk of food-poisoning
seemed to them less dangerous than the risk of malnutrition. Are we-or
the Fairfax County health department-in a better position to know
what's best for them than they are? Or is the government taking away
from people an option that may be flawed, but is actually the best
option available to them?
by Amy Phillips on November 29, 2006
http://graphic.pepperdine.edu/news/2002/2002-10-31-homeless.htm
Feeding of homeless restricted
Santa Monica City Council passes ordinance making it illegal to feed
more than 150 homeless in public
By Sarah Carrillo
News Assistaint
Helping the needy is usually not considered a crime, but those wishing
to serve food to the homeless in Santa Monica may soon be serving
something else - jail time.
The Santa Monica City Council passed an ordinance Oct. 22 that makes
it illegal to distribute food to more than 150 homeless on a public
street or sidewalk without a permit.
Violators of this law may receive a fine of up to $1,000 or six months
jail time.
The ordinance will go into effect between Thanksgiving and New Years,
but according to Santa Monica Human Services, it will not be enforced
until next year.
Other ordinances passed regarding the homeless include prohibiting
standing or lying in doorways in the downtown and Main Street areas
and increasing protection for tenants of rental properties against the
homeless.
The first reading of the ordinance was Oct. 8 in response to a report
conducted by the city council regarding the homeless community in
Santa Monica.
It passed on a 5-2 vote at both the first and second readings, with
Mayor Michael Feinstein and Mayor Pro Tempore Kevin McKeown casting
the dissenting votes. The author of the ordinance, City Attorney
Marsha Moutrie, said in a press release that the ordinance deals with
health code standards that need to be followed while distributing food
and that the new law only enforces codes that are already in place.
Feinstein said that the health codes are only a pretense for the real
purpose of the law, getting rid of the homeless population.
"It simply was dishonest government," Feinstein said. "They're trying
to drive out the homeless on a pretense of health codes."
According to Feinstein, the problem with the ordinance is that it
appears to be helping the homeless by forcing volunteers to follow
health code standards, but in reality it does more harm than good.
Research has shown that there have not been any reported cases of food
poisoning among the homeless in Santa Monica and that diseases
relating to malnutrition are the main problems homeless people face.
Malnutrition problems will not be solved by limiting the amount of
food the homeless receive.
"It would be a big shame if (feeding the homeless) was curtailed in
any way," Dr. Kevin Iga, assistant professor of mathematics said. Iga
often volunteers feeding the homeless and has been working to fight
the ordinance. "The law violates the rights of those who want to give
out food and violates the rights of the homeless to be fed," he said.
Santa Monica City Council Member Richard Bloom said he thinks the
ordinance will help the homeless get off the streets and get the help
they need.
"It's going to provide an incentive to connect with our service
providers and get assistance," Bloom said. "I think things are so bad,
anything we do will move things in a positive direction."
Critics of the ordinance, like Feinstein, say that it is merely a way
to rid Santa Monica of its homeless community. Feinstein said that
Santa Monica does carry a burden in that many other cities have pushed
their homeless onto Santa Monica, but he also stressed that forcing
the homeless away will not solve the problem.
"It is true that other communities take advantage of us," Feinstein
said. "But we must resist the short-term impulse to push
(homelessness) away."
Supporters of the ordinance have said that in light of recent economic
problems, businesses would benefit from stricter guidelines regarding
the homeless. Feinstein said he disagrees.
"In economic hard times we should be helping the less fortunate, not
pushing them away," he said. "We are playing with fire when we make
our compassion be a function of how we're doing economically. Business
is down overall and it is easy to scapegoat the homeless."
Ashley Nolan, projects coordinator for the Pepperdine Volunteer
Center, said she believes that while the ordinance may seem like a
good short-term solution, it will ultimately cause problems for the
homeless.
"Although this ordinance may provide temporary relief for the city, it
only makes it more difficult for the homeless," Nolan said. "While the
ordinance implies that the city is looking out for the interests of
the homeless as well as its business owners and residents, it provides
no alternative solution. ... The city has not provided any real solution
for the homeless population in the city; they have merely put a band
aid on the issue. ... Although taking peanut butter and jelly sandwiches
to Ocean Park is not a long term solution either, at least it provides
a lunch, a human touch, and a smile to a few more people."
The Volunteer Center organized a trip to Ocean Park in Santa Monica
during Step Forward Day this year to hand out food to the homeless.
Other on-campus groups, like Rotoract, Psi Upsilon fraternity and
Campus Ministry, regularly distribute food in Santa Monica. In the
future, these groups will have to obtain a permit in order to continue
their service if they serve more than 150 people.
Currently, the city council has not designed a process for obtaining
the necessary permit to feed the homeless, but people are looking for
ways to get around the law, like feeding the homeless in smaller
groups.
Also, the city is encouraging those interested in feeding the homeless
to work with local shelters and serve the food indoors.
"As someone who volunteers with such organizations too, (I know) the
people in charge of these groups are already overwhelmed with the
magnitude of the homelessness and poverty problems and are turning
people away because of lack of resources," Iga said in an e-mail
interview. "If the idea is to get the poor into better programs, then
why not push to get more resources to these programs, and as they are
able to handle more homeless, their needs can be met, so that this
ordinance would be unnecessary."
Freshman Marcy Madrigal, who regularly volunteers feeding the
homeless, said she is worried that the homeless will not go to the
shelters even if their source of food is taken away.
"A lot of (the homeless) have too much pride to go to a shelter, but
the will take food from me," Madrigal said.
Feinstein said that the National Lawyers Guild may get involved in
changing this ordinance when it goes into effect next year and there
is a case involving it. Feinstein said he believes his speeches
against the ordinance may provide some help in a case to change or
abolish the ordinance in court.
"I feel that I exposed what I thought to be the hypocrisy of the law,"
Feinstein said.