Please Don't Feed the Homeless or You'll Go to Jail

Love Wins Ministries won, at least for now. The Raleigh, North Carolina Christian organization has been feeding the homeless for the past six years on the sidewalk outside a city park. To use the park for such an event would cost the group $800 per day. Last Saturday they were told they could not pass out their coffee and sausage on biscuit sandwiches.
"An officer said, quite bluntly, that if we attempted to distribute food, we would be arrested,” the Rev. Hugh Hollowell wrote on the group’s website. “We asked the officers for permission to disperse the biscuits to the over 70 people who had lined up, waiting to eat. They said no. I had to face those who were waiting and tell them that I could not feed them, or I would be arrested.”
While the group said it was aware they could not use the park itself, they had set up on the sidewalk for the past six years without issue, their website said.
“No representative from the Raleigh Police Department was willing to tell us which ordinance we were breaking, or why, after six years and countless friendly and cooperative encounters with the Department, they are now preventing us from feeding hungry people,” Hollowell wrote.
The Rev Hollowell's blog worked wonders. Even left leaning Think Progress was offended. Sensing she had more than just a messaging problem Mayor Nancy McFarlane said in a statement the police officer was "trying to let everyone know this is the existing ordinance, and this is why it's not really working right now."
"We're going to find a better way," she said, noting the issue would be taken to the public service committee "immediately" to work out a plan "to reach out to those in need."