Posted on 12/23/2005 12:12:02 PM PST by COBOL2Java
BALTIMORE (CNS) -- A Jesuit-run college in Baltimore has suspended a food program for the homeless after the city's health department informed student participants that they could not distribute sandwiches without a license.
Despite not having a license, which requires that hot and cold running water be available where the food is served, several students from Loyola College in Maryland have continued to give out sandwiches on their own outside St. Vincent de Paul Church in downtown Baltimore on Monday nights.
"We think the regulations are ridiculous," said Ashley Biggs, an 18-year-old sophomore and the student coordinator of the outreach program, called Care-A-Van. Biggs said students in the college program had been giving out food in a downtown parking lot when Baltimore City Health Department officials asked them to stop Nov. 14.
Four to six students have continued to distribute food at St. Vincent de Paul independent of the college program because "people still need to eat," she told The Catholic Review, newspaper of the Baltimore Archdiocese.
"Technically, it is illegal," Biggs added. "They could potentially give us a citation and a fine."
Mark Kelly, a Loyola spokesman, said the college's Center for Values and Service is in discussions with students and the health department to "come up with a working solution" that will allow the center's outreach program to resume.
One option is implementing a health department suggestion to get licensed and relocate to an area next to the Supermax prison in Baltimore. Another possibility is for the college to find a health-certified kitchen and alternative location, Kelly said.
Sister Catherine "Missy" Gugerty, a School Sister of Notre Dame who directs the Center for Values and Service, said she was thrilled that the students were continuing their outreach even though they no longer can do it through the college. "I can't think of a more impressive scenario," she said.
Sister Missy said the van outreach has become an "essential service." About 20 student volunteers participate, and approximately 50-75 people have been receiving ham and cheese sandwiches along with a drink every Monday and Tuesday.
The number of clients has increased dramatically since the program began 1991, she said.
Sister Missy said students are "gravely concerned" about the well-being of the people who have benefited from the outreach program. "The students really felt that if the people were not getting the sandwiches, the alternative is to pick food out of the trash cans," she said.
Melisa Lindamood, senior adviser on legislative affairs for the Baltimore City Health Department, said the city is enforcing regulations related to the licensing of food providers as a way of protecting the homeless. She said Baltimore has been recognized nationally for having the cleanest restaurants.
"We wanted to be able to say that any outdoor food provider is as safe as the Cheesecake Factory or any other restaurant," said Lindamood, who noted that licensing fees are waived for nonprofit groups such as Loyola's.
Lindamood said many homeless people have "compromised immune systems," and that licensing serves as "a check to make sure homeless persons are protected."
"These licenses are to make the food safer, not to stop distribution," she said.
When preparing food, Sister Missy said, students wear rubber gloves and place each sandwich in a sealed baggie. The food is refrigerated until it is distributed, she said.
Students are not eager to relocate their outreach to the site promoted by the health department, Sister Missy said. "The (homeless) people have told us they don't like to be there," she said. "It is dreary, and some of them have had interactions with the law and have spent time in some form of jail system and so it is really hard for them to be near there."
Biggs said she believes the city is trying to hide the homeless by moving the food program to the Supermax site. "Out of sight, out of mind," she said. "If people don't see the problem, then it doesn't exist."
ALL these PEOPLE should be left to the tender mercies of Holy Mother the State.
I remember a family where the preggo wife actually had to give birth in a cow stall, beause there wasn't room for "their kind" at the local motel. (Needless to say, her "husband" wasn't even the brat's father.)
Serves 'em right. Somebody shoulda told that "Hobo Joe" to get a job.
Oh, and by the way, Merry Christmas....
I'll call myself wrong on that one. That was a vast pile of wreckage, possibly 10 percent of which was salvageable, and covered with swarms of germs from the filthy water. In a country as wealthy as this one, the humans who could have been sorting through it needed to spend their efforts on better things. In an actual famine situation, I'd have scrounged every last broken stalk of celery.
Besides, it was Coke not Pepsi...trash to begin with.
I would think they would want the bums to have licenses to pick through shit cans for food, then.
Thank you for reminding me again what Christmas is about.
Merry Christmas to you, too. You've hit the nail on the head once again.
Many laws deserve to be ignored.
---
You may find this of interest:
http://www.neoperspectives.com/rhetoric.htm
bump
Touche and Merry Christmas
Anyhow, here's the part that gets me : One couple was traveling from Minnesota when their rented van broke down in Iowa. The police impounded the vehicle which had all their worldly possessions in it, and that pair spent 2 days in a homeless shelter before a sister was able to get out to Iowa. When they got out, they discovered that the fee to get their property out of the rented U Haul was $1121.00.
They also learned that an anonymous Iowan had already paid the fee.
Somewhere in Iowa is a person willing to pay $1121 to help out complete strangers, and s/he doesn't want any publicity. Apparently s/he doesn't even want anmy expressions of gratitude from those s/he helped. I guess it's enough that s/he knows who s/he is.
Christ call us all to care for our fellow man. Period.
What a beautiful and wonderful example and story!
Your comments have nothing to do with this article or subject matter. They seem to just be meant to incite. Not going to work with me today, though. Merry Christmas!
Realisticly, the food that the students in the article were distributing were most likely prepared in a kitchen with running water and fridge. They weren't SERVING food there, they were DISTRIBUTING it there
My pizza delivery guy doesn't have running water in his car either
Joseph had a job. He was a carpenter. The town was simply crowded with all the people who had to come there, and there were no vacancies. They were NOT a "homeless" family, however much modern liberals might like to characterize them that way
Once again, I suppose I should have used a big ol' honkin' sarcasm-tag. Sigh.
Merry Christmas to you, uh, Sauron. Sauron. Figures.
Sorry. I'd seen the "Joe and Mary homeless road show" theme too often in lefty circles
If you think my comment is rhetoric, we disagree.
I literally think many laws deserve to be ignored. Further, most of the ones that deserve it are routinely and rightfully ignored by many, many people.
lol, sorry I have a bad habbit of doing that (pinging people to links without saying why). You said you didn't think all laws should be obeyed or somethign to that effect and that link agreed wtih you. I didn't think what you were saying was 'rhetoric', I was agreeing with you.
And I agree that laws which are unjust should be ignored and violated, indeed, some might say it is our duty to do so if we wish to remain free.
No, no, Sauron, I meant that part. They had noplace to go. If they'd had any money, they could have come a week earlier and gotten a nice place to stay; or maybe if they were prosperous they would have had camels or something and could have gotten to Bethlehem sooner when there were still some vacancies.
No, believe me, you don't give birth in a cattle stall if you've got the cash to do better.
But, Sauron of Mordor, I wonder if you are in any sense of the side of the Beatitudes. Which is it going to be, Sauron? Angels or Orcs?
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