Las Vegas Sued Over Homeless Feeding Law

[Rose Siding]

Activists sued Wednesday to strike down a new city law that makes it illegal to feed homeless people in parks.

The law violates free speech, free assembly and other rights, says the federal suit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada.

The suit was filed on behalf of five activists and the local chapter of Food Not Bombs, a national organization that describes its objective as "sharing free vegetarian food with hungry people and protesting war and poverty."

The group and its members regularly served meals to homeless people in a Las Vegas park, angering neighbors and sparking the debate that led to the ordinance, passed July 19.

It prohibits "providing food or meals to the indigent for free or for a nominal fee" in a city park and defines indigent as a person whom a reasonable ordinary person would believe to be entitled to county public assistance.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/02/AR2006080201877.html

[pinto]

1. Kudos to the locals and ACLU. Check out this "end run" attempt

in the ordinance. The ordinance supporters don't want folks to be denied services, they want them to apply across town for services. Riggghht. Way across town.

<snip>

"It prohibits "providing food or meals to the indigent for free or for a nominal fee" in a city park and defines indigent as a person whom a reasonable ordinary person would believe to be entitled to county public assistance."

[Rose Siding]

2. And it sounds discriminatory. Can people who aren't indigent be fed?

How is that fair?

[patcox2]

10. I very much doubt that you'd be allowed to sell food in the park.

Really, why a special rule for bums? Homelessness is a public health problem, not a pverty problem, the street people are mentally ill. Misguided do-gooders turned them loose from the asylums in the 1960s and they have been living out their short unhappy lives in the streets ever since.

[Rose Siding]

12. Sharing food is the issue, not selling food. And "bums", as you call them,

are not all mentally ill.

[stepnw1f]

13. "Special Rule for Bums"

I've always wanted to be a bum. They got it made...:sarcasm:

[Nevernose]

4. And these people have been sleeping in this park for at least 18 years

Because that's how long I've witnessed them sleeping in this park. Children don't go to it because it's absolutely tiny (and it's in the center of a circle-circus-type traffic slow-down; you have to cross six lanes of heavy traffic to get there and back again, which made since 50 years ago, but not today).

Maybe not every indignet person is mentally well enough to show up at the Salvation Army for a few old-fashioned Christian prayers before breakfast?

[Nevernose]

5. To be fair: it's not waaay across town

A couple of miles, maybe. Although, to be fair once again, a lot further to walk since the mayor "cleaned up" that part of town by clearing out the indigants (and doing nothing for the poor or the addicts who make living there so attractive).

The services aren't available to everyone year round, either. Shelters are only set up in the coldest of winter months, meaning that a homeless person who lived in Henderson because of limited beds in the shelter might have to walk 20 miles for some beans.

THe current way foodnotbombs is getting around the ordinance is by taking the homelss directly to the grocery store, buying them food, and dropping them off right back where they started (except with full bellies).

[silverojo]

3. I've recommended this n/t

[Trillo]

6. This is the best news I've read in some time,

I hope it's successful. It is the opposite of humanity and humaneness to outlaw feeding hungry people.

[Canuckistanian]

7. I'm surprised Church groups aren't protesting this

After all this seems to be a direct violation of Jesus's orders to "feed the poor".

Could it be that Christianist groups have formally rejected Christ's teachings?

[Lerkfish]

8. The predominant religion in Las Vegas is Mormon.

I used to live there. Mormons are not all that keen on feeding the poor, especially if non-white.

:shrug:

[patcox2]

9. If I want to sell food, I cannot do it in a park. Its a nuisance.

Sorry, but there are all kinds of limitations on what activities are permissable in what locations in a community. The homeless bums can go to the locations where the feeding is allowed. I wouldn't want my children to have to run a gamut of drug-addicted nutjobs crapping and pissing in the bushes when they want to go to the playground.

[SemperEadem]

11. how xtian of them to try to enact laws to ok being unxtian...

"whatsoever you do to the least of your brothers, that you do unto me..." guess that one got past them...