Please don't feed the homeless

Las Vegas has passed a law that prohibits people from giving food to homeless people in public parks. The law also prohibits people from selling food to the homeless at a nominal fee. Passage of the new law is an attempt to prevent mobile soup kitchens from operating; residents say that when homeless people are fed in a park, the park cannot be used by families (one assumes they mean families with homes).

City officials said they instituted the law in part because of recommendations from some who work with the homeless who say offering food separately from other services, such as counseling and drug treatment, is counterproductive.

Do I hear the word faith-based behind this statement? Because offering food to those who do not have any is somewhat productive in that it keeps them alive. And all the counseling and drug treatment (most of which is pure hogwash) is useless if someone does not have shelter and food.

I am reminded of the time a client came to me after she had spent the day volunteering at the polls. "Did you know," she asked me, "that there were homeless people trying to vote?" I asked her what it was about not having a home that stripped a person of her American citizenship, and she just looked at me as though I had crawled out from under a rock. Did I say that she was volunteering through her church?