Over the past five years, city of Los Angeles have been dedicated in revamping downtown Los Angeles to a residential and pedestrian friendly metropolitan city. This has caused hostility and chaos for the homeless that have been calling Downtown LA their home for over a decade. City lawmakers are trying to “clean up” the streets by barring homeless people from parks, streets and making it a crime to help the homeless. It is illegal for an individual in LA to give food to the homeless. They would have to go through an organization to do so. Sometimes the shelters are not able to accommodate the large amount of homeless people that rushes in and often runs out of food. All of this with the intention to make the homeless leave the city.
Recently, people from different communities have come together for this issue. Utilizing the virtual community as a place to spread the word, getting people together to prepare food for the homeless. I have had the honor to be a part of this social cause. Different groups would adopt different days of the week. People either donate money, food or their time to prepare and certain amount of food. Then the food would be sent to the shelters for distribution.
Of course, handing out food to the homeless is certainly not a long-term solution to homelessness. But eliminating charity isn’t going to make homeless people magically have a different lifestyle. The choices of the homeless are constrained by the absence of social programs, healthcare and income support that people need to find permanent housing and stability. There is still much that needs to b done but at the mean time this is the least we can do to make sure they don’t go hungry.
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Illegal to Feed the Homeless | Applied Social Psychology (ASP)
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Illegal to Feed the Homeless | Applied Social Psychology (ASP)
It is hard to understand why governments would turn their backs on the homeless the way they do in so many cities. It seems that it’s easy for them to forget that these are human beings, not litter on the city streets. These are people that we have failed and they need help. It’s awesome that so many people still listen to their hearts and find a way to help in spite of inhumane laws. I agree that there is so much more that needs to be done to make sure that people are not going hungry in a country with so much excess.