If You Help the Poor, You Will Prevent Them From Seeking Help

|


Via TtP, please don't feed the animals homeless:

The Las Vegas City Council passed an ordinance Wednesday that bans providing food or meals to the indigent for free or a nominal fee in parks.

The measure is an attempt to stop so-called "mobile soup kitchens" from operating in parks, where residents say they attract the homeless and render the city facilities unusable by families.

Like all bright ideas, this one's for the children. Oh, and it's for the homeless:

"This is not a punishment; this is to help people," [Mayor Oscar] Goodman said. "The people who provide sandwiches have good intentions, but they're enabling people not to get the help that is needed."

Help, like.. I don't know, food? But worry not, poorly dressed home owners: Goodman knows a bum when he sees one:

Mayor Oscar Goodman, who has been a vocal advocate of cracking down on the homeless in city parks, dismissed questions about how marshals, who patrol city parks, will identify the homeless in order to enforce the ordinance, the violation of which would be a misdemeanor.

"Certain truths are self-evident," Goodman said. "You know who's homeless."