able to stay dry and warm, and get clean.
We had stayed away from offering them food for a long time. By distributing supplies to the homeless, we were breaking no laws. But the rules and laws about food are far more stringent. You need a license to serve or give out cooked or open food. And sadly, we learned that those laws were in place because now and then really twisted, malevolent people had poisoned homeless people with cooked food. Others had given them old food that was spoiled. So you were forbidden to give cooked or raw food to the homeless, in our city anyway. It had to be industrially packaged and sealed. Giving them food seemed complicated to me, since they had no opportunity to cook anything, warm it, or refrigerate it. Despite frequent requests, I didn’t want to branch out into food. The big black bags were already chock full, and our budget stretched. But too often, our clients were asking if we had anything to eat, and looking disappointed when we didn’t. So eventually, we began researching what food we could give them, and it turned out to be less complicated than I had feared.
The challenge was to figure out what was good to eat, nourishing, and didn’t need to be cooked or refrigerated. Webought tins of tuna fish, chicken, Spam, and assorted meats that came in cans, with a can opener, of course. We included some tins of fruit. Instant powdered soups, instant hot cereals, which needed only to add hot water, which they could find. Cold cereals, peanut butter, jelly, crackers, potato chips, beans, beef jerky, nuts, dried fruits, Power Bars, cookies, chocolate, and coffee, tea, instant hot chocolate, sugar, and powdered cream. In time, we gave them packaged food that we calculated could last for about three weeks if used judiciously. And our clients were thrilled. It made the bags heavier—we had to order bigger bags once the food was added—but it met a very real need, and no one complained about how full the bags were. And if they were too heavy, for the women for instance, the men would help carry the bags back to their cribs or camps. The addition of the food was much appreciated by all.
We got requests for water too, but that was a problem we couldn’t solve for them. Bottled water would have made the bags much too heavy, both for them and for us. Once the food was added, I already had a much harder time dragging the heavy bags out of the van, and bottled water would have made it impossible, for me and also for any of the women on the streets to carry. Although we were asked often for water, we just couldn’t supply it. So instead we gave out an empty waterbottle that they could fill on their own. It was the best we could do.
Another thing we decided not to supply was any kind of medication. Although many of the people we served on the streets were sick and needed treatment for both minor and major ailments, and cough and cold remedies would have been useful, I was afraid to give them anything that someone might be allergic to and inadvertently cause greater harm. I didn’t want to take that risk. I also felt that giving medication might encourage them not to go to emergency rooms or clinics when they needed to, so we purposely didn’t put them in. All we included were bandages and antiseptic.
People knew when we were on the streets. News traveled fast, and many people had figured out our schedule and roughly when we were due out again. We covered as large an area as possible, combing most of the places where the homeless hung out and lived. We asked people where others were camping, and went looking for them in grocery-store parking lots, back alleys, under overpasses, near construction sites, in places no one would suspect that people were hiding and living. As best we could, we found them. And a lot of them found us.
One of the more useful tools and means of communication on the streets are “cell phones,” and not the kind you putin your pocket. In the language of the streets, a cell
We had stayed away from offering them food for a long time. By distributing supplies to the homeless, we were breaking no laws. But the rules and laws about food are far more stringent. You need a license to serve or give out cooked or open food. And sadly, we learned that those laws were in place because now and then really twisted, malevolent people had poisoned homeless people with cooked food. Others had given them old food that was spoiled. So you were forbidden to give cooked or raw food to the homeless, in our city anyway. It had to be industrially packaged and sealed. Giving them food seemed complicated to me, since they had no opportunity to cook anything, warm it, or refrigerate it. Despite frequent requests, I didn’t want to branch out into food. The big black bags were already chock full, and our budget stretched. But too often, our clients were asking if we had anything to eat, and looking disappointed when we didn’t. So eventually, we began researching what food we could give them, and it turned out to be less complicated than I had feared.
The challenge was to figure out what was good to eat, nourishing, and didn’t need to be cooked or refrigerated. Webought tins of tuna fish, chicken, Spam, and assorted meats that came in cans, with a can opener, of course. We included some tins of fruit. Instant powdered soups, instant hot cereals, which needed only to add hot water, which they could find. Cold cereals, peanut butter, jelly, crackers, potato chips, beans, beef jerky, nuts, dried fruits, Power Bars, cookies, chocolate, and coffee, tea, instant hot chocolate, sugar, and powdered cream. In time, we gave them packaged food that we calculated could last for about three weeks if used judiciously. And our clients were thrilled. It made the bags heavier—we had to order bigger bags once the food was added—but it met a very real need, and no one complained about how full the bags were. And if they were too heavy, for the women for instance, the men would help carry the bags back to their cribs or camps. The addition of the food was much appreciated by all.
We got requests for water too, but that was a problem we couldn’t solve for them. Bottled water would have made the bags much too heavy, both for them and for us. Once the food was added, I already had a much harder time dragging the heavy bags out of the van, and bottled water would have made it impossible, for me and also for any of the women on the streets to carry. Although we were asked often for water, we just couldn’t supply it. So instead we gave out an empty waterbottle that they could fill on their own. It was the best we could do.
Another thing we decided not to supply was any kind of medication. Although many of the people we served on the streets were sick and needed treatment for both minor and major ailments, and cough and cold remedies would have been useful, I was afraid to give them anything that someone might be allergic to and inadvertently cause greater harm. I didn’t want to take that risk. I also felt that giving medication might encourage them not to go to emergency rooms or clinics when they needed to, so we purposely didn’t put them in. All we included were bandages and antiseptic.
People knew when we were on the streets. News traveled fast, and many people had figured out our schedule and roughly when we were due out again. We covered as large an area as possible, combing most of the places where the homeless hung out and lived. We asked people where others were camping, and went looking for them in grocery-store parking lots, back alleys, under overpasses, near construction sites, in places no one would suspect that people were hiding and living. As best we could, we found them. And a lot of them found us.
One of the more useful tools and means of communication on the streets are “cell phones,” and not the kind you putin your pocket. In the language of the streets, a cell
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