toldailytopic: "Soup kitchens": Do they help or hurt the homeless?

The TheologyOnline.com TOPIC OF THE DAY for October 1st, 2010 09:40 AM

toldailytopic: "Soup kitchens": Do they help or hurt the homeless?

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Soup kitchens are bad. Soup kitchens help to remove motivation and therefore enable homeless folks to remain homeless.

A sure-fire way to create a homeless problem in your city is build a soup kitchen. If you build it... they will come.

Knight said:

Soup kitchens are bad. Soup kitchens help to remove motivation and therefore enable homeless folks to remain homeless.

A sure-fire way to create a homeless problem in your city is build a soup kitchen. If you build it... they will come.

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Knight said:

Soup kitchens are bad. Soup kitchens help to remove motivation and therefore enable homeless folks to remain homeless.

A sure-fire way to create a homeless problem in your city is build a soup kitchen. If you build it... they will come.

Click to expand...

I see your point, and in a way I kind of agree, however . . . .

Nothing de-motivates a person like being undernourished.

I think the point of a soup kitchen is much the same as putting a heroin addict on a methadone script, if you take away the chaos of trying to get your hit or feed yourself, then it lays down a sturdier foundation to build on changing your life.

For some it works, for others not.

Knight said:

Soup kitchens are bad. Soup kitchens help to remove motivation and therefore enable homeless folks to remain homeless.

A sure-fire way to create a homeless problem in your city is build a soup kitchen. If you build it... they will come.

Click to expand...

Let them come.

Matthew 25:35-36 (New International Version)

35For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'

Knight said:

Soup kitchens are bad. Soup kitchens help to remove motivation and therefore enable homeless folks to remain homeless.

Click to expand...

The problem is quite a few of the homeless are mentally ill and unable to work and have no family. Even in cases where they've gotten themselves in trouble with alcohol, most have no family support and are in no situation to "pull themselves up by their bootstraps".

What do you expect to happen to these people? Beg/die on the streets?

Without some kind of support, these people end up in the emergency room more often and you end up paying for their care. In the long run it is cheaper and beneficial to the rest of the society to provide some kind of support than none.

They absolutely help and I can't believe any kind of person (much less a Christian) with a heart would be opposed to feeding the needy where they are, and when they are desperate.

I have no problem with soup kitchens; however, the prayer session fort, seems to be be ineffective; most come there to eat/

This is a difficult thing to discuss or admit to...when I was a child (0-12 yrs old) soup kitchens fed me and my brother and sisters and my Mom, more often then we would like to remember.

I got my first job at 12 yrs old (I was the youngest and it was also the year my Mom died), working in the fields picking crops at 75 cents an hour, plus a free lunch from the farmers wife.

As each of us came of an age (actually it was being big enough, size wise) to work, all of us provided towards our food with our earnings, Mom (not being well educated, could only do servants work in homes at a very low income) paid the rent.

All four of us children have been productive and self supporting ever since, as well as being the type to contribute to charities and organizations that offer assistance to people.

So (since the soup kitchens helped us get through a very difficult time) does this indicate that my family was some how the exception to this rule or are there families/individuals that have a temporary need and when able, return to being productive citizens?

Are there people that have mental disabilities that have some how fallen between the cracks of society and need to be cared for? Are there other understandable reasons a person or family may fall into this category, temporarily or even long term?

Life can be difficult, and those that are dealing with those difficulties are no less deserving than those that are more fortunate.

Alate_One said:

Without some kind of support, these people end up in the emergency room more often and you end up paying for their care. In the long run it is cheaper and beneficial to the rest of the society to provide some kind of support than none.

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To further expand on this, if this service is taken away how would they provide themselves with food?

By stealing, which will then cost you further with so much crime being processed for people trying to feed themselves.

It's like spoon feeding a baby. The longer you hold the spoon, the harder it gets for him to take matters into his own hands.

Suggesting that firmly established routines for handing out food cannot be replaced by good people seeing genuine need and meeting it is called blindness.

Suggesting that an established routine will be able to discriminate between the needy and the leech better than the generous individual is nonsense.

Suggesting that people will go wanting without established charities handing out food is to ignore the fact that people go wanting with established charities handing out food.

I say close down established food distribution units and see what happens. I guarantee you needy people will still get their needs met and people leeching off such systems will find a way to feed themselves.

ragTagblues said:

To further expand on this, if this service is taken away how would they provide themselves with food?

By stealing, which will then cost you further with so much crime being processed for people trying to feed themselves.

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I understand trying to avoid creating a dependency, but, like it or not, people will always be on the streets or on the edge or on the fringe--whatever you want to call it--and they don't have many places to turn other than kitchens.

Knight said:

Soup kitchens are bad. Soup kitchens help to remove motivation and therefore enable homeless folks to remain homeless.

A sure-fire way to create a homeless problem in your city is build a soup kitchen. If you build it... they will come.

Click to expand...

Shall we stop feeding ultra-poor children as well? Doesn't that condition them to a life of dependency?

Luke 16:19-31

The problem was not that the rich man did never told poor Lazarus to get a job, the problem was that he did not care for him and give from his abundance.

These people sleep outside in the winter cold. No one does that unless they have no other choice, feeding them and showing them some love and concern is not feeding their laziness.

Do you really think the destitute do what they do because they are lazy or that they want to be a little immoral?

Granite said:

I understand trying to avoid creating a dependency, but, like it or not, people will always be on the streets or on the edge or on the fringe--whatever you want to call it--and they don't have many places to turn other than kitchens.

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I think you mistake me, I am for soup kitchens for the very reason you quoted.

However I think people who have need to access such a service should combine it with a service that works in a different remit. Its all about building a strong foundation on a basic need in which to continue improvement.

The kitchens will always be highly valued.

Calling soup kitchens a disincentive implies that homeless people are so merely because they can't be bothered to work. Have you ever been homeless, Knight? A relative of mine has been, and quite frankly if having to sleep rough in a city when it's winter, and pouring with rain, and you're ill, and there are drunks and thugs wandering the streets isn't incentive enough to magically 'improve yourself', then being given a meagre little snack in the evening isn't going to make much difference. They would just find food elsewhere. Better that the homeless are at least getting something decent to eat, rather than either stealing or eating disgusting, disease-ridden leftovers.

ragTagblues said:

I think you mistake me, I am for soup kitchens for the very reason you quoted.

However I think people who have need to access such a service should combine it with a service that works in a different remit. Its all about building a strong foundation on a basic need in which to continue improvement.

The kitchens will always be highly valued.

Click to expand...

I was actually agreeing with you, if a little indirectly.

Definitely help people. Some people must just choose to be oblivious to the fact that you can't make money without money. No one is going to hire a homeless person fresh off the street. There is no chance for them without charity. Only someone willing to spend money to help those without it is going to make a difference. Soup kitchens are just one part of that equation.

Feeding the hungry is an absolute moral good. What the fed do or fail to do with that assistance is another thing altogether.

Town Heretic said:

Feeding the hungry is an absolute moral good. What the fed do or fail to do with that assistance is another thing altogether.

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Feeding folks who cannot feed themselves is a good and moral thing. Even feeding folks who are hungry because they have devoted their lives to serving the Lord is a good thing.

But soup kitchens are another animal entirely. Soup kitchens are a place where drunks come to get free food so they can spend what little money they have begged for on booze. When we enable people to continue in their addiction we only hurt them more.

For even when we were with you, we commanded you this: If anyone will not work, neither shall he eat. - 2 Thessalonians 3:10