By Vic Bishop
It’s tough to say when our societal values shifted so dramatically, but for some reason now, government at large has decided that charity for the homeless is a crime. In a society with such stunning abundance, efforts to feed the homeless are being met with legal challenges and even police action in America. This is a disturbing trend which has been gaining steam in recent years.
In the latest publicized event, authorities in California have demanded that the United Methodist Church in Malibu, CA stop its meager yet hope-giving program of offering hot meals to the city’s homeless. The church has been giving away only 100 meals a week, on Wednesdays, since 2014, which is a relatively small humanitarian contribution in a wave of homelessness which has descended on the West Coast since the housing crisis of 2008 and now spurred on by the excesses of the regions tech industry.
“It’s a safe place,” said Michah Johnson, who is homeless. “And everyone is welcome. And the food is really good. It’s home-cooked. And there’s TLC involved.”
“The church is very helpful,” he added. “They keep my spirits up. They keep me accountable. When you’re homeless, it’s very easy to slip off and become jaded.” [Source]
This is nothing new, as we have seen for the last few years authorities have been cracking down on efforts by citizens around the nation who attempt to help the homeless by providing food for them. Without the help of churches, citizens and other devoted organizations, our homeless neighbors are left to scavenger for sustenance, as noted by a member of Malibu United Methodist Church.
“I think many of them eat out of dumpsters and trash cans when they aren’t eating with us,” said Kay Gabbard, who also works with the United Methodist Church. “We can’t pretend like (homelessness) doesn’t exist in our backyard. We can’t pretend that it only exists outside Malibu.” [Source]
When contacted by CBS Los Angeles for comment on this issue, the Mayor’s office in Malibu did not respond with a comment, and as of now there is no clear reason why this policy is to go into effect. Nevertheless, given the track record in cases like these, cities claim that feeding homeless people puts others in danger and causes a public nuisance, which is a wholesale denial of the depth of the homeless problem.
In 2014 it was reported that some 33 U.S. cities had enacted restrictions or outright bans on feeding the homeless, and this has only continued to increase in subsequent years. Charity workers in Florida and other cities have even been arrested for efforts to support the homeless in their communities. And a major crackdown on feeding homeless earlier this year in San Francisco made headlines.
Read more articles by Vic Bishop.
Vic Bishop is a staff writer for WakingTimes.com and OffgridOutpost.com Survival Tips blog. He is an observer of people, animals, nature, and he loves to ponder the connection and relationship between them all. A believer in always striving to becoming self-sufficient and free from the matrix, please track him down on Facebook.
This article (Happy Holidays – California City Demands Church Stop Feeding the Homeless) was originally created and published by Waking Times and is published here under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Vic Bishop and WakingTimes.com. It may be re-posted freely with proper attribution, author bio, and this copyright statement. Please contact [email protected] for more info.
The answer is simple. Decent people helping others for free takes power and control away from the state and lunatic politicians. Also, they are being fed real food and not some GM chemically laced muck.
Well, if the munis don’t want charity organizations or church’s helping to feed the Homeless, then what is the Munis program that should have been set up years ago – in order to help homeless folks? Obviously, they don’t want one or have one. So, in short – Americans don’t need a Municipal government that doesn’t take into account – what to do with Homeless folks. Here is Russia – there are no Homeless or at least in all the miles I’ve been traveling – I have seen no homeless people – or gangs !
Russia is a better country and society in countless respects when compared to the US. They might not give them too much free stuff in Russia but they certainly don’t have them live out of garbage cans.
As America turns viler and viler in its transformation to a socialist state, Russia will only become more and more attractive.
T K – America has already turned into a Fascist state with Mussolini and Hitler smiling from the grave. After all the same people that funded Hitler – run the Fed.
sh1t. i was just about to become homeless in ca.
sht. i was just about to become homeless in ca.
divert enough dollars from the trillions being spent to bomb rocks in Afghanistan to build bathroom/shower/laundry facilities for the homeless, and also some sort of take-away meals. That, and some health oversight, will go a long way towards their eventual job prospects and psychological health.
First off, are you not smart enough to know there is hardly anything going on in afghanistan? You cannot build facilities for them, all they do is destroy them…just like they do parks. I been to areas where the homeless camp and live. They live in trash. There are some here and there that don’t live like that. But 99% of homeless areas are trash ridden filth holes.
Partly true, but the Government should have taken a few billion of the trillions that they DID spend bombing rocks in Afghanistan, and helped the homeless. I was homeless for 15 years, so don’t tell me what it’s like. The homeless population includes hose who are working but cannot afford housing, those with genuinely limiting medical problems, people who lost spouses, and other scenarios. Believe me, you do not know the truth, that many people are only a couple steps away from homelessness themselves.
Your lack of empathy is an unfortunate symptom of having a narcissistic personality disorder just like the mayor of Malibu who refused to comment. The last time I visited the United States I was appalled by the number of homeless in a country that always finds the money to bomb their perceived enemies. I was further appalled by the disdain most pedestrians showed towards these unfortunate souls who have been unable to function in your dysfunctional dog-eat-dog society. In Australia we provide a home and welfare to those unable to work for whatever reason. Of course there are some who abuse the system, however I thank God I was born here and not America where in all likelihood I too may have ended up living on the street and looked down on like a piece of trash by narcissists and sociopaths.
I’m going to add one more comment regarding the American homeless scene – this has to do with the country’s dreaded criminal justice system, where even an unproven allegation (the cops call these “catch-and-release” arrests) will bar you from any decent job, actually just about any job at all nowadays. And then there’s just the psychological impact of being dragged through that humiliating system. It has nothing to do with correcting bad behaviour, but everything to do with destroying any sense of personal self-esteem and practical ability to re-enter society. So what’s left? Drugs, anti-social behaviour, and all the health and other problems that eventually go along with that.
I had that happen to me.The judge smiled at me with disdain and hate for what reason? There wasn’t a reason……I was lucky….I appealed and the charge was dropped….during that period applying for jobs was out of the question
Another societal parasite feeding at the public trough.
Over ten trillion dollars had dissapeared from the Department of Defence over the last twenty years. Some believe it’s closer to 21 trillion. The DOD has spent over ten trillion dollars on wars since 911. The US GOVERNMENT was the perpetrator of 911.
American society is experiencing a form of backlash from constant wars on poor countries. It is not a surprise that a society that admires death and destruction (honour the troops) would lose any decency and charitable beliefs it may have once held.
The church is doing a good thing on what the city government brought upon themselves, yet they want the church to stop?? Why don’t they stop causing the homelessness??
How do laws like this get passed in the first place, where is the outrage? If the more fortunate citizens in a community could just donate for a cause to help those who are less fortunate in their community’s, that would go a long ways in helping the homeless. I can’t even believe there could be law that would prevent feeding anyone they desire to feed.What then? a law that prevents us from helping our neighbors, is that even legal? The city would just like it if there weren’t any homeless people, well there not just going to go away, it’s real, they are homeless people in every major city in the usa. We need to address this and figure out how to help and not just try and sweep this under the rug. next charitys will not be able to be chartable insanity at its fineness
If you will just open your eyes and look around you will immediately discover that the German people under the Nazis and Adolph Hitler actually had a greater degree of liberty than we now do. Like us now, the German people were able to do pretty much whatever they chose to do; so long as they didn’t challenge that which the Nazis wanted to accomplish. Here now, like there then, the government needed people in its labor camps. (Here they’re called private prisons; that the states agree to keep full of slave labor) The Nazis, like is being done here now, made crimes of an ever expanding list of normal human activity and continually lengthened the time of incarceration for them. They, like us, didn’t want real criminals there; they would be too dangerous to supervise. The homeless, made more desperate by such “laws”, make good slave labor for committing crimes like “looting a trash can”. If they resist such treatment, they are just shot down by police who are continually in “fear for their lives” when confronting unarmed old men, cripples in wheel chairs, 80 year old grandmothers and twelve year old children. We now have as much an inhuman fascist dictatorship here as existed under Hitler in Germany; it is, however, made to have a different appearance. At least for the time being.
Is anyone aware of a study that does this comparison? It would be a powerful tool to wake the masses and corner our elected.
There are a number of studies that correlate the interests of the two major corporate prison chains that operate most of the private prisons and the number of arrests for victimless “crimes”. There are numerous sources of statistics covering police state violence and fatal shootings by police in which police killings exceed, by almost three times, the number of combat fatalities in Afghanistan and Iraq combined over the same 16 year period; and exceed the number of all such shootings in all of the countries, excluding civil war fatalities, of the rest of the world. The problem is, we do not “elect” these crooks. We are given a choice, usually the lesser of two evils, of candidates selected for us by the oligarchs to serve their interests no matter which one is picked. A good start toward learning about the real government is to read the constitution as it was before 1861 and compare it to what you see happening now. After March 27, 1861 the original United States no longer existed, and the original documents prove that.
David Irving’s real facts of WWII and Germany are historically correct – His books were never liked by those who wrote the BS about the German people and the Nazi rise to fame – Funded by the 2 big Rothschild Banks in Berlin
Government probably does not want the church to be the good guy because they need people to see the state as the good guy. Therefore, they only want the homeless to be fed by the government. God forbid, anyone should see the church in a good light. They need people to be dependent on the government. Then they can grow. And grow. And grow. It seems that is all the government is good for.
no their not even good for that. they keep you down so low you can just barley survive, then they crawl up your behind so far that they pull out the hoops for you to jump through. i don’t see the states or the gov. feeding the homeless, they would just prefer that they all just dissapear. they just keep passing more laws that make it harder and harder for homeless people to even barley get a foot hold then fall again, it’s so heart wrenching. we have a homeless girl staying with us temporary during are present cold spell in colorado.
UI ??
The people of Sodom and Gomorrah as well as sins of the flesh were like this to the poor (Ezekiel) . They even killed beggars though having an abundance of food – historical . So these city rulers will get the same judgement as the cities of the plain .
Indeed, if God doesn’t get America under control he will owe an apology to Sodom and Gomorrah.
Bet they wouldn,t object to feeding the illegals or the so called muslim refugees. …
You sure sound like an empathic winner
Just stating a fact,how’s all those diseases going,you know from all those illegals?
Churches are free to feed them in their sanctuaries, Cali communist cannot do anything about that. However, what happens when you feed stray animals? They bring friends for free food. The churches should do this in their buildings, feed them, and then they can minister to them in a controlled environment. Right now I’m sure all they do is give out food and maybe a few tracks and thats it. These people just come for the food, but if you have it on church grounds they can be lightly ministered too if chosen.
People being treated like unlicensed campers are given a few choices, as a matter of policy —
1. Say the stuff is yours, be told to move your encampment, x amount of yards, every x amount of days.
2. Say the stuff is not yours, watch it be destroyed on the spot.
3. After several contacts, with the authorities, go to prison or a halfway house, either of which involves forced labor.
4. If too sick to work, questionably-dangerous health care.
You keep saying you want programs and welfare statism. They’re not substantially-different from nazism. You don’t expect to see them lamp-shaded, or to see how long it takes them to drown. Medical testing does not seem out of the question. They are not held behind barbed wire, but not allowed to leave the poor house.
Land owners have figured out, there is a subsidy. In some of the burbs, every fourth or fifth residence has them shoved in every spare room, guesthouse, toolshed or walk-in closet. For tax reporting purposes, there was some discussion on putting hard sides, on those car ports made of pipe.
What was the basis for ObamaCare?….Free Health care, right?…. Well, that is not working out very well, but…they intend to fix it…. Lets Legislate Free Housing for everyone…. it won’t work in the beginning, but….they will fix it…and everyone will get a free house….
Russia’s Constitution – ” Every citizen will have adequate shelter” !
Greetings,
I live in SoCal just a bit North of Malibu. Yeah, the homeless are an army ’round here. They are everywhere and it makes sense because, well, it never rains and the weather, at least down by the beach, is about 70 degrees every single day of the year. In so far as I see it, about 1/2 are just lazy bums and we provide a convenient place for them to hustle their drug and booze money. The 1/2 that should be helped are the ones that are 100% out of their ever lovin’ minds.
Now, if I refuse to pay fines involving victimless crimes, ie speeding or tall grass in my yard, the State will lock me up and keep me there for my own good. Why, then, can’t we lock up the crazies that are running around making life miserable for everyone else? Seriously, someone living in a schizophrenic hallucination might suddenly decide that you are the voice in their head that is always telling them to go drown themselves in the ocean and decide that now is the time to put a stop to it. Yeah, I had that happen to me.
“Are there no work houses? Are there no prisons?” “If they would rather die then they had better do it and decrease the surplus population.” – Dickens – “A Christmas Carroll”
#StupidityOfLiberals
This is damn nauseating.
The actual story is that the citizens of Malibu don’t want homeless people flocking there for free meals. These big-hearted lefties want the REST OF US to feed them in OUR communities.
James – Jesus’s brother – says you will have no mercy when you come to be judged if you show no mercy to your fellow man . We dont know how these people ended up the way they did – could be a divorce or false charges.
AMP For judgment will be merciless to one who has shown no mercy; but [to the one who has shown mercy] mercy triumphs [victoriously] over judgment. James’s letter should be read every day
40% of the homeless are Veterans!
The State fears the Veterans, who upholds the US Constitution, the Bill of Rights, both in and out of the Military Services.
This is why two California Senators wanted Veterans declared as ‘Potential Terrorists’!
Compare this non-feeding law to the Genocide of Starvation in the Warsaw Ghetto, and Holodomor in the Ukraine!
Passing a law that causes misery is a violation of the UN Human Rights Act, and the Nuremburg Law!
So is mandatory vaccination but CA did that too.
So going to church to mouth platitudes is OK, but actually doing gods work is illegal? Has there been any word from the greater methodist church? Or is the sound of crickets overwhelming?
The church is the one doing the right thing here. I used to live in California, its rich wealthy elite liberals who can’t walk their own talk or practice what they preach to others. I saw the same thing in the liberal SF bay area where I grew up. Liberals hate the poor and working class. Yes, the sounds of crickets is overwhelming. The church is again doing more than those who brag about how compassionate they are.
Hopefully you don’t need me to explain that expecting the greater church to intervene would be the church intervening in a matter of state. Do you generally believe that church and state should work together, or were you just looking for a cheap way to bash and scapegoat the church?
Then we must stop feeding and sheltering POLITICIANS.
Cut off all salaries/paychecks to all politicians ….. because they are using them to get food & shelter ….. without the money YOU give them THEY would be HOMELESS so you are breaking these laws by giving them money.
Best reply.
HiYa Hitler! Ugh! California is now Nazi Germany…and i don’t say that sarcastically..Brown the Clown gov. has turned our once beautiful state into a wasteland…
This is an effort to stop churches from providing . . . anything, for the homeless or otherwise. Big government want to be rid of churches, of religion. That is what is happening. This is French Revolution stuff. And it’s just beginning.