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Posted on 09/10/2024 6:09:44 AM PDT by Twotone
When will Portland learn?
There’s a movement afoot in Portland to provide free food to the homeless from front yard refrigerators. Willamette Week thinks it’s a great way “to Be a Better Neighbor”. I don’t.
It’s a misguided feel-good effort at charity by naïve social justice warriors that perpetuates their presence while not resolving the situation on the ground. And of course the homeless services complex never shrinks because the client base never diminishes.
A while ago I went to a free lunch for the homeless in an underground Portland parking garage. Tables spread out across the center of the garage displayed a bounty of meal options put together by multiple volunteers, from sandwiches and lasagna to potato chips and hot ethic dishes. Homeless people streamed in, wearily assembled in slow-moving lines, grabbed hold of what they wanted and found a spot on the concrete floor to sit and eat.
It wasn’t uplifting. It was depressing.
Nobody was there to help the struggling people get their lives back on track, to inquire about the welfare of their children, to make them aware of accessible pathways towards lasting change.
The fridges are little more than an incentive for too many of the homeless to stay in a downward spiral of addiction and helplessness.
” The concept is simple,” says Willamette Week. ” Find a fridge, hook it up to a power source, put it in your front yard, and stock it with free food.”
There’s even an outfit, PDX Free Fridge, that will give you advice on how to start a free fridge effort and publicize it.
There’s a saying of uncertain providence, “Give a Man a Fish, and You Feed Him for a Day. Teach a Man To Fish, and You Feed Him for a Lifetime”. The free food tribe are giving the homeless a fish.
It’s a classic case of when helping the homeless doesn’t really help, but reinforces a culture of helplessness.
It reminded me of when I saw a group of fresh-faced, eager suburban teenage girls handing out sandwiches from the trunk of their car to homeless people at the Tom McCall Waterfront Park. That might have eased their consciences, but how, exactly, did that drive change?
A woman who directed a social service agency in the Portland area that served low-income families once told me the whole free food approach was “antiquated”, a long-ago discredited tactic.
And, of course, all of this ignores the fact your neighbors may be less than supportive of cluttering up front yards with old refrigerators that serve as magnets for the homeless under the guise of compassion. I guess that doesn’t matter when you’re on the side of goodness.
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What could possibly go wrong?
“Hey free food! I wonder what else they got for free inside the home? Let’s check”
What could possibly go wrong?
~~~
At best, homeless will divert their standard amble route to the heroin dealer to pass your fridge every time.
A little worse, they will raid your entire fridge so they can sell some of it on the way for extra drug money.
Worst case, they will simply congregate around your fridge, start pitching tents, and tweaking on your lawn.
And if those refrigerators have copper, they’ll strip all the copper from it.
Over sixty years ago “The Untouchables” show portrayed an auto mechanic, a singer, and a musician as heroin addicts.
They will steal the fridge and sell it for drug money
And let out the R32/R410.
Talk about clueless people who have no concept of human nature. All this is for is to give them a warm and fuzzy feeling that they did something.
ROTFL!!! Friggin’ weird left wingnuts.
ROTFL!!! Friggin’ weird left wingnuts.
It is a lot like feeding bears in your yard.
Sooner then later it leads to trouble.
“If you give a mouse a cookie....”
Democrats can’t and won’t fix any problems because those problems are good business for them.
had a neighbor that thought it was ok to feed a stray cat on the back porch. three days later there was a litter of 8. then a semi-feral male cat showed up. now there are 10 cats demanding to be fed, qwapping everywhere, marking territory and clawing virtually every surface they can reach. not to mention that everyone in the neighborhood can now smell this mess. when asked if this person could clean up the mess they responded with “what can I do now?”. yes, some people REALLY are that dumb.
“”You Feed Him for a Lifetime””
Exactly what happens!!!!!
Well, I guess it’s cheaper than paying someone to pick up your garbage. Feed it to the homeless.
I leave boxes of extra produce from my garden at the local shelter. Some of the homeless do take it and I doubt they can trade much crack for vegetables.
It comes outta the ground easy enough once you have an understanding of gardening and you soon have more than know what to do with. Not only do I give to homeless but all visitors and neighbors. I encourage everyone to get into gardening to just give away the bounty and knowledge (especially before big govt puts the screws to it)
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