This profile is created and maintained by three caring poets: Tommy Baas (Milwaukee, WI), Amelia Matus (Milwaukee, WI), and Courtney Campbell (Recife, Brazil).
It spawned one night when Tommy heard on Alice Cooper's radio show how a new law in Dallas, TX now prohibits people from giving food to homeless people. He was so appalled that he immediately began spreading the word and researching this bizzare issue. Turns out that it's true, and this law is spreading fast across the country, unfortunately.
Why such a ludicrous law?
It would seem that local businesses feel threatened by the presence of the less fortunate. The proponents of the law argue that the homeless should be funneled in the directions of the shelters. Are we hiding the homeless? Removing their visibility from daily life? Erasing any posibility of society having to see and face the ills that face us? Are we trying to ignore a problem that is already ignored?
Forget the fact that the homeless will be there regardless of whether people give them food or not. Time was when it seemed that much better a thing to do to offer a beggar food or buy him/her a sandwich at the shop around the corner than to give him/her change that we assume they will just buy crack with. If there could be a law against giving another human being money in a capitalist society, they might have tried that. But instead a law has been passed prohibiting a human being with a home from giving FOOD to another human being without a home. And who should insist on such a law but the gainfully employed, the businesses who make it possible for some people to have work that they might afford a home. If you do not have a home in this country, you are considered a non-entity. Laws seem to be geared toward just letting the homeless die off or disappear, creeping into the childish mentality that "If I can not see you, you are not there."
We know all too well how in a capitalist/democratic country businesses can affect law much more than actual people. Imagine people with jobs, homes, and nice suits feeling threatened by those who don't have these things, and doing something about it. Obviously there is little the homeless & foodless can do in retaliation, but there is very much that the rest of us who care can do. This profile was begun to spread awareness of such absurd laws. Hopefully it can do more, directly or indirectly, by so doing. We can give bread to pigeons, but not to homeless people. We can give them a cigarette, but not a sandwich. Something is disgustingly wrong here. Don't you think?
We'd like to add that while each of us might have our own religions and politics, this profile is not affiliated with a religious or political group. Everyone from every walk is invited to join and question! All the same, take a look at some of those who have befriended them. You migh find organizations, religious groups, political parties, friends, or politicians who are concerned with these same issues. You might be surprised!
related sites/articles:
http://larryjamesurbandaily.blogspot.com/2007/04/shane-claib
orne-in-dallas.html
http://www.infoshop.org/inews/article.php?story=200508071550
09897
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-03-26-homeless-insi
de_N.htm
http://www.nationalhomeless.org
To see what happened in Las Vegas:
July 20, 2006 Las Vegas Sun: http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/nevada/2006/jul/20
/072010285.html
July 21, 2006 Fox News:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,204854,00.html
July 28, 2006 Mindfully.org:
http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2006/Homeless-Las-Vegas28jul
06.htm
July 28, 2006 New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/28/us/28homeless.html?ex=1311
739200&en=30c047a011e5951c&ei=5088&partner=rssny
t&emc=rss
On Bans in General: http://newstandardnews.net/content/index.cfm/items/3503
On Vegas and Orlando 08/2006: http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/08/30/dont_feed_the_ho
meless.php
On Food not Bombs arrests: http://anti-poverty-activism.suite101.com/article.cfm/feed_h
omeless_face_arrest
