BTSavage

The news article mentioned that the permit fee to feed people legally is expensive due to the insurance requirement. Do you know what the permit fee is? Would you be interested in raising money to legally feed the homeless or is your organization interested in pointing out the seeming absurdity of the regulation/permit requirement instead?

Thank you for the thoughtful and thorough answer.

Regulations like these are toughies:

1) They are (or seem to be) implemented in order to protect public safety by ensuring that health and safety standards are met and followed. I don't think anyone can reasonably argue that serving safe food is not (or shouldn't be) a priority.

2) Clearly, the local government does not want to attract or encourage the homeless to congregate or be attracted to a location based on the promise of a regular meal. As a middle-class tax payer, I can say I wouldn't want more homeless (we have enough as is) drawn to the area.

I applaud your efforts though. I agree completely that we should be free to help those in need by whichever means possible. I hope your group is also working some of the more legitimate avenues to enable serving food to those less fortunate. Good luck and (insert divinity of your choice) bless!

I think that this event really strengthens the position that it should be a public utility. To me, it's clear that what verizon did wasn't choosing which traffic to allow on the fast-lane of their network, but more that there should be no interference with traffic at all.

Check out the PDF OP links to. It outlines the licensing, permits, and insurance needed to serve food in public spaces. I think the 'spirit' of these laws are to protect public safety, but enforcement against OP's organization is certainly meant to deter people feeding the homeless.

Are you a coparent? How did you gain experience with coparenting and counseling divorced couples with children?