ON A PERSONAL NOTE: Homeless issues

Was listening to a report on the news today about how England dropped the ball with securing the Olympics.  Somehow the company in charge only has half the amount of security necessary.  I have to get the quote but at one point an excuse was that it wasn’t “cost effective” when questioned.  This is why you do not contract out certain things.  I thought about that in connection to some private companies here in New York feeding the homeless.

It should be no secret that even though I am for private companies assisting with feeding the hungry (I don’t know of any private business actually assisting the homeless) I am 100% against them being the go to people for feeding people.  To hell with most statistics since they only help the person providing the stats.  The bottom line is the task of feeding the hungry and assisting the homeless should come from government.

Yes, you on occasionally get “red tape” when you deal with branches of the government, but in private industry the bottom line is profit.  When you are dealing with issues like homelessness and hunger your personal profit is not what is important.  What is important is getting people from sleeping on the street and getting them someplace safe to sleep.  Yes I have a priority list of who should get assistance but the government should be the organization that leads the charge.

Once you prioritize that bottom line, which is helping people, then you can properly tackle the problems that arise.  No one should make a profit off another man’s suffering.

I think I mentioned a close friend who works with feeding the hungry and she told me a horror story of how food was being delivered from a company and some of the stuff delivered was rancid.  Some of the fruit was spoiled and other items smelled of rot.  She further amazed me by telling me they had to accept the food.  Some provision in their program made it so they have to accept everything.  What provision prevents the company from giving away food that will make another person ill?  Thankfully my friend is a Christian and took it among herself to throw out the spoiled items.  However the company that dropped that stuff off is probably getting a tax credit for providing food for the hungry.  This is wrong.  The federal and local branches of the Department of Homeless Services should be in charge of providing food to people who need it.  Let private industry provide jobs for deserving people struggling to get back into the workforce.  Instead of workfare, where you humiliate people by having them work hard labor for a welfare check, give them employment which can offset public assistance and eventually get them off the program.