What's this thing you've got for Ales Rarus? [insert trite "opposite of love is not hate" schtick plus commentary on how you're unintentionally promoting that blog]
I wish you'd have come to the meeting. I'd have liked to meet you.
As for the ordinance about panhandlers...that's a tough one. Realize that I got to know a lot of the homeless here and Pittsburgh, though most of the ones I knew well are now dead. I've taken them to the hospital, bound up their wounds and sent them on their way, been threatened by them as I tried to help them, and shipped them off in police wagons. [And yes, I stood there as the cops drove away thinking "I just sent Jesus to the lockup." I took the "What you do for them you do for me" bit literally, and finally decided "If Jesus is drunk and might injure himself at 3 am in the middle of the street by Martin Luther King Jr. school, the best place for him is the drunk tank.]
I've had my arms elbow-deep in 40 lbs of meat, making meatloaf for a shelter. [Note: trust me on this -- make smaller batches.] I've served dinner at a shelter numerous times, and never on Thanksgiving and Christmas!
I think I have some insights into the problem of the homeless. Most of them are fairly harmless, but there are some who deliberately act threatening because they can force money out of people. They are ruining it for the others.
And you know what? That bit about most of the panhandlers I know being dead? Landsbury? Paul? The cat lady? Glycol-Study man? R.W.? Allegheny River guy? They all died violently. They all died in severe pain. They all died much sooner than they should have. Ok, R.W. may have been doomed by the universe -- the question was not why he died so soon but why he lived beyond getting run over by the train or the house explosion or the car accident or...well, you get the idea.
What we're doing now sure isn't working. It didn't work for them.
I wonder if giving money to panhandlers enables the ones who are the most desperate. I'm reluctant to take away freedom, but untreated schizophrenia, drug addiciton, and alcoholism aren't exactly what I think of in terms of freedom. I guess it is freedom, the freedom to be a slave. That's not a freedom I'm fond of.
I don't know the answer, but there's good arguments to be made for the City ordinance. Doing the apparent Christian thing is easy. Doing the Christian thing in a way that doesn't make things worse is hard.
Commenting by HaloScan
