Scene: You walk into Starbucks. You get in line and make it to the cash register. You notice a person behind you. Feeling generous, you tell the barista to charge your card for not only your purchase, but of the man’s behind you.

“How kind,” she remarks. You walk away with a filled heart.

Scene: You walk into Starbucks. You get in line and make it to the cash register. You noticed a homeless man outside before entering. Feeling generous, you get yourself a beverage as well as the man outside. You exit and turn to the homeless man offering him a fresh drink.

“How defiant,” the police officer behind you remarks. You walk away in cuffs.

More and more cities are being plagued with an ordinance banning our rights to feed the homeless. It is under a disgusting guise that, by banning our ability to feed the less fortunate, we will be helping them.

Ironic how someone can buy a double cheeseburger, large fry, and super-sized soda for themselves at a fast food joint, but then it is deemed a health code violation to feed a homeless person that same food if it’s free. Now, you can’t even buy it for them. ***

Since when did a homeless person become a dispensable item? Our cities are LITERALLY trying to starve out poverty. If you can’t afford food and shelter, then you can pay the price for being poor. It’s inhumane and brashly unconstitutional.

Under our First Amendment Rights, we are able to feed whomever we want. If I buy a food item, it is now mine and I can give it to whomever I chose. Moreover, under a country with such Christian values, I find it laughable that the upper-crust can be so keen to chose what Jesus would and wouldn’t do.

***

Be honest — If you are hungry, how does that make you feel? You snap, you may be quick to anger, and perhaps thinking becomes harder and harder as your stomach begins to rumble. How are the homeless going to be any more productive if they are starving? Many Americans struggle to get out of bed in the morning for the job they already have, so how on earth are we to believe that, without food, the homeless will be motivated to do anything? Our government continues to take more and more away from people who already have nothing.

***

Ending homelessness is probably one of the easiest things we could do in our country IF we as a people focused more on the things that mattered (yes, we). America is such a consumer-driven machine that many individuals with the means to give, don’t. The rich as well have their own few who, though have the power to make a difference, chose to place their money where they know it will double for their own gain, no one else’s.

Did you know that ending homelessness costs LESS than what citizens spend on Christmas? If that doesn’t blow your mind, then this will:

Our lovely candidates running for office spend about 4 to 6 BILLION dollars a year on their campaigns, combined. For a country dead set on figuring out our debt issues and where our money should be best spent, this area of demand seems worth A LOT less than 6 billion dollars. Most other countries have a cap on their campaigns (as low at 200,000 pounds, i.e ~$320,000). What a novel idea? But, wait, that doesn’t serve the heavy wallets with their own agenda.

Help this end NOW. If you live in a city being chained down by this ordinance (or ones similar) stand up and be a voice for those who do not have one. Start a petition. I guarantee your signature will not stand alone.

---

You know what’s missing from many wallets and registers?

empathy

And that is something money could never buy.

Love, B. R. Wren

***  “Getting food from the farm to our fork eats up 10 percent of the total U.S. energy budget, uses 50 percent of U.S. land, and swallows 80 percent of all freshwater consumed in the United States. Yet, 40 percent of food in the United States today goes uneaten. This not only means that Americans are throwing out the equivalent of $165 billion each year, but also that the uneaten food ends up rotting in landfills as the single largest component of U.S. municipal solid waste where it accounts for a large portion of U.S. methane emissions. Reducing food losses by just 15 percent would be enough food to feed more than 25 million Americans every year at a time when one in six Americans lack a secure supply of food to their tables.” — excerpt from Dana Gunders Wasted: How America is losing up to 40% of its food from Farm to Fork to Landfill.