No home cooking for the homeless

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JustAnotherThou

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I am sure this is not the right place to post this, although this is the thread I go to and it does affect my family because it is what we do for our community!!!

Our parish along with many other churches in our community volunteer at our local homeless shelter/soup kitchen. We/They have been in “business” for YEARS (since the Great Depression). The women (sorry men but it is mostly us women) make a crock-pots full of food and take it in. NOT leftovers, it is made especially for the shelter/kitchen.

We were told last week that we are now no longer to make food in our homes unless our kitchens are certified by the food inspector and bring it to the shelter/kitchen.
Just wait till the find out about the Alter Rosary Society Bake Sales, I am sure that will be the next to go!!!
I am just in shock over this. There is a time and place for government. But this I think has overstepped the line!!!
 
Big time overstepping of govmit!!!

We all take turns cooking a set meal once a month. At Old Parish, it was either pot roast from a certain recipe in fall and winter, or sloppy joes in late spring and summer. At new Parish, they get really creative and have a different one each month. But we cook them in our homes, then bring them to the shelter.
 
other than special meals for holidays which are also parish events, we are not allowed to provide a weekly or daily meal for the poor because our kitchen is also used by the school, and it would violate health laws for that usage. Can’t wait til our new church, with new community center and St. Vincent center is built. pray for success of our capital campaign
 
JustAnotherThou said:
I am sure this is not the right place to post this, although this is the thread I go to and it does affect my family because it is what we do for our community!!!

Our parish along with many other churches in our community volunteer at our local homeless shelter/soup kitchen. We/They have been in “business” for YEARS (since the Great Depression). The women (sorry men but it is mostly us women) make a crock-pots full of food and take it in. NOT leftovers, it is made especially for the shelter/kitchen.

We were told last week that we are now no longer to make food in our homes unless our kitchens are certified by the food inspector and bring it to the shelter/kitchen.
Just wait till the find out about the Alter Rosary Society Bake Sales, I am sure that will be the next to go!!!
I am just in shock over this. There is a time and place for government. But this I think has overstepped the line!!!
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Would you happen to know the law they are citing? Is this a local ordinance because if it is it could be amended by a city council.
 
Bureaucracy hasn’t just hit the kitchens. A small local church was recently prohibited from opening its doors to the homeless overnight during a very cold spell because they lacked the code fire alarms.
 
Two goofy questions:

1.) Does the homeless shelter have a kitchen, or are you guys in Indiana doing it like PADS, where every night it’s a different place?
2.) If there’s a kitchen, can you still all donate raw ingredients you buy from the store for that night’s meal?
 
They are trying to prevent a food borne illness from happening and getting people sick. Most food borne illness occur in the home. They don’t know how and when the food is being prepared. I understand the concern of the soup kitchen. They are feeding the public like a restaurant does but only for free. They are required to follow health/food safety rules.
 
There is also a hidden agenda with some of the regulations for homeless shelters.

Here in Colorado, a lot of hunters donate elk, venison, etc to the shelters. The animal rights activists, in their zeal to stop hunting, tried to get a law passed that only inspected meat could be served at shelters. Luckily, word got out about the reason behind it, and it was quickly stopped.

So check and see.

And get the word out to whatever legislative body is responsible for this that they are depriving the homeless of food. Write letters to the editor, too. Get it to your local TV news reporter on consumer affairs or social issues.

God bless you,

Ruthie
 
We went through this several years ago with our big fundraiser for the parish school… a big Thanksgiving dinner… a few yrs ago someone called and got the food inspector involved and we weren’t allowed to bake pies and bring them in or make stuffing… we complied that year but fought it after that and won… now we are back to awesome dinners.
 
I volunteer in a soup kitchen on Saturday mornings (I will be heading there in a few hours). We have health inspectors “drop” in all the time to make sure we are doing things according to their specifications. While most of our food is cooked in the kitchen on site (it is an old Cathoic school cafeteria), we do have one couple that prepares a large tray each week and brings it in. Some people also prepare side dishes and bring them in. We don’t know if we are allowed to do this or not but no one has ever said anything.
 
margya said:
They are trying to prevent a food borne illness from happening and getting people sick. Most food borne illness occur in the home. They don’t know how and when the food is being prepared. I understand the concern of the soup kitchen. They are feeding the public like a restaurant does but only for free. They are required to follow health/food safety rules.
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I totally understand why that rule exists… but it lacks common sense. Can’t make the food at home because who knows how unsanitary these nice Catholic ladies’ kitchens might be so the homeless resort to digging through dumpters for their dinner. How is that better for the homeless?
 
We have had a parish picnic on Labor Day for over a hundred years. We barbaque chicken and stuff. When I was involved, the food inspector came with her son and made a day of it. We were sell to the public, so have to follow the regs.

The county a year or two ago tried to prevent home cooked meals (even peanut butter sandwiches, for Pete’s sake) from being brought in a fed to the homeless. A great cry rose up, and the regs were quashed, if I remember correctly.

Something about feeding the homeless being more important…
 
Yep, it’s time for somebody to step up and get busy making it clear to bureaucrats that people just don’t have the time to run down to the shelter and cook.

If it were a mere matter of keeping food-borne illness out of home food, why not instead give a food borne illness course, such as the ones the counties in Illinois give at community colleges? My first job in the Navy was Mess Management Specialist (I think now they call it Culinary Arts). It is no biggie to teach people about strepolicocci, and what cleaners to use.
 
JustAnotherThou said:
…There is a time and place for government. But this I think has overstepped the line!!!
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Is this because of a law? Sometimes insurance companies, (fearing lawsuits) tell charitable organizations they won’t insure them if they do certain things. People sometimes file lawsuits and sometimes win millions.

I wonder why–*with the supposed “separation of church and state”–*courts and legislators think they can tell religious organization how to cook food, how to build structures, and how much money to pay plaintiffs? 🤷
 
Can’t make the food at home because who knows how unsanitary these nice Catholic ladies’ kitchens might be so the homeless resort to digging through dumpters for their dinner. How is that better for the homeless?
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An excellent point to bring up with the legislators!!
 
OK, I am bad at multi quoting, so I am going to try to remember what everyone asked.

I am not sure at this time if it is a State Law or a City Ordinance. I was just called by someone at the Soup Kitchen asking if I could bring in a Family Size Frozen Entre from a grocery store, like a Lasagna or something because of this new law. 🤷
I am looking into it though and will see who I need to write/call to voice my opinion!!! I am not one for keeping quite about these things.

To the person that said that it is a good law due to food borne illness. I watch EVERYDAY homeless people digging through dumpsters in the alley where I work. We have 3 restaurants on our block. They USED to just meet the homeless out back at a certain time every day/night and give them food in take out containers. UNTIL they were banned from doing that. They then would just sit the food out the back door in take out containers. Again they were banned from doing that. They are REQUIRED to place food in their trash containers. All of them that I know, still try to arrange the food on top in food containers so the homeless people can just come and pick it out of the trash dumpster rather than dig for it. I think someone else pointed it out, although I am 99.9% sure that there is NOT one home kitchen from a Christian lady who is bringing food that is as dirty as the trash dumpster.

We are not in a large city, we are a good size college town, if it was not for the volunteers providing the food and cooking it, the homeless wouldn’t be fed. Our town is applauded on the resources we provide to our homeless.

Yes most of us will just add a few family size frozen entrees to our shopping and drop it off at the shelter/kitchen.

Still doesn’t make this law right. It is just plain ridiculous!!!
 
PaulinVA said:
The county a year or two ago tried to prevent home cooked meals (even peanut butter sandwiches, for Pete’s sake) from being brought in a fed to the homeless. A great cry rose up, and the regs were quashed, if I remember correctly.

…
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we got harrassed for doing this in downtown Cleveland. An inner city church prepared a hot meal for the homeless to serve Saturday morning, because most shelters with meal programs are closed on the weekends. So another group (us) packed bag lunches to give them so they had at least another meal. They shut down the hot lunch folks, so for a few months our bag lunches were all they had, then they shut us down as well. Aren’t laws great? shouldn’t we all be law abiding citizens?
 
Aren’t laws great? shouldn’t we all be law abiding citizens?
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I just had another uncharitable thought. No, not about you, Puzz!

The chronically homeless, like prostitutes, tend to move to where the laws are more accommodating. It may be that some city councils pass such laws in an effort to make the homeless “move on.” :mad:

Anyway, living in a republic, we have the right to do what we can to change unjust laws.

" Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground without your Father’s will."

Heart of Jesus, overwhelmed with insults, have mercy on us.

Ruthie
 
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