From: Elusivebtrfli
Sent: Mon 11/15/2004 7:02 PM
Subject: Talk about mean—food being denied according to the street people on Wilson & D
"Has anyone been told that there are issues so severe in the streets of Wilson and 'D' Street that in order to curtail it food must be withheld? I didn't hear this, did you?
It would seem that if there are problems occurring of such a serious nature that depriving the poor a chance to eat has to be instituted, we should have heard about it. So has anyone heard if this is happening and why it is happening?"
Over a five-day period earlier this month, the Las Vegas Rescue Mission stopped its daily 5 p.m. homeless-feeding program. Intent: To prove to neighboring businesses that its beneficence wasn't causing a particularly odiferous problem, i.e. homeless using nearby sidewalks and streets as bathrooms. Results: hungry people; complaints of class warfare.
Apprised of the food stoppage, Linda Lera Randle-El, whose nonprofit Straight from the Streets program provides food and sanitary supplies to the homeless, brought water, sandwiches and Lunchables to vagrants on Wilson and D streets who were stiffed on meals.
"They were telling me that this went on for several days. This wasn't just a few people. There were lots of complaints—too many voices to ignore," Randle-El says. "They told me they weren't getting food because they were told to move and didn't. These people are already malnourished of spirit, health and diet. Regardless of whether or not there's a problem, you don't starve people."
Take a trip down D during the evenings and you'll see a critical mass of homeless, some sitting, some sleeping, most wanting for something—food, water, shelter. What you won't see amid the rumpled skin, downcast eyes and tattered clothing, says Randle-El, are the less-tangible issues excacerbating the riveting squalor—mental illness, chronic homelessness, underemployment; issues homeless advocates say have largely been ignored.
"I don't want people living in camps and squalor ... but it's all about human rights and dignity," says Randle-El, who returned to Wilson and D last Monday and was told afternoon feedings had resumed. "You think that when it's a Christian agency, they would have more compassion. I'm not sure that not feeding people is going to change behavior, except to make people angrier."
"I am not sure not feeding people ... is the way to help. This tactic has been used before at other locations frequented by the homeless in an effort to get them to move on, but move on to where?"
Created in 1970 by five Christians, the Rescue Mission has fed the homeless and hungry for 34 years. Inundated with homeless people, some using the same sidewalks and gutters they sleep on as restrooms, the Wilson Street corridor has degenerated into an unsanitary and odious squalor. To quell rancor from neighboring businesses, Rescue Mission Executive Director Merlon Saxton temporarily halted afternoon feeding, hoping to show that the food program wasn't primarily responsible for Wilson Street's homeless problem.
"The feeling was that the Rescue Mission was a magnet, since we feed the homeless 365 days of the year during the evenings," Saxton says. "We explained that the Rescue Mission was trying to be good neighbors and keep things clean. We had to something, so we temporarily stopped the feeding. The result was there was not a significant reduction in the number of people living on the street. There are going to be people that are going to be living on the street whether we them or not."
Saxton says he's sure no one was significantly deprived, as the homeless were directed to nearby churches. "Food is available in a short walking distance," he says. "People weren't going hungry."
Saxton and Randle-El say meetings under way between government and law-enforcement officials and activists could result in the implementation and maintainance of a massive cleanup effort hopefully tied to a comprehensive repatriation effort. Still, Randle-El is unsettled by the if-you-don't-feed-them-they-won't-come approach. It merely adds insult to indignity.
"I have been accused many times of enabling people. Say what you want, I am on my way back to streets to feed the spirit and mind of these individuals and also encourage them to make some changes ... but, I will not not give them life-sustaining items," she says. "Everyone knows that encampments exist. We need to make the places inhabitable until we can find solutions. Even President Bush recognizes the problem—but he has a 10-year plan. There is no in-the-meantime plan. At least let's put trash receptacles there, Portapotties, something."