City puts a stop to homeless outreach

From chron.com (Jan. 13):

Bobby and Amanda Herring spent more than a year providing food to homeless people in downtown Houston every day. They fed them, left behind no trash and doled out warm meals peacefully without a single crime being committed, Bobby Herring said.

That ended two weeks ago when the city shut down their "Feed a Friend" effort for lack of a permit. And city officials say the couple most likely will not be able to obtain one.

Anyone serving food for public consumption, whether for the homeless or for sale, must have a permit, said Kathy Barton, a spokeswoman for the Health and Human Services Department. To get that permit, the food must be prepared in a certified kitchen with a certified food manager.

The regulations are all the more essential in the case of the homeless, Barton said, because "poor people are the most vulnerable to food borne illness and also are the least likely to have access to health care." [read more]

They were shut down because they did not have a “certified” kitchen with a “certified” food manager? I think the the city managers are certified nuts. Then again that’s bureaucracy for you. Just wait, someone will be fined for giving a sandwich to a homeless person. After all the sandwich might not be made in a certified kitchen. Who knows.

The HHS department said they made this regulation to protect the homeless from food poison. I would think not starving to death would be more important to the homeless than getting sick. True, getting sick would be bad, but not as bad as starving to death. Couldn’t HHS just fined the outreach program instead of just shutting them down? Seems kind of harsh.

I wonder if the HHS would shut down homeless shelters if they weren’t “certified.” Probably. They would say the shelters did not keep the homeless warm or cool enough depending on the season. Didn’t have a certified temperature manager.

So, some police officers asked the outreach program to move to a location on city park land. Guess what happened next? If you said they weren’t allowed there either you would be correct.  They didn’t have permits (one from the parks department and one from health department) to move there! Sounds like a badly written comedy skit save for the fact it actually happened.