How can we pass out food directly to the homeless?

What exactly do we need to do in order to accomplish this?

This should be one of our more urgent priorities so it can show people we DO give a damn about people. That's what this movement is all about right?

I'm thinking to begin with we get whatever permits they require in order to pass out lunches directly to the homeless.

As a long term goal, we could work to change the laws and legislation so that permits are no longer required to feed the homeless or least a lot less expensive. I realize when dealing with food you have a lot of rules and regulations to follow and we would most certainly want to adhere to them. I would just like for it to be easier to help those who need it.

Thank you for your input and consideration. <3

i just googled and this is sad. If its for religious reasons no permit is required. Thats a shame. If we wanna do it outta the kindness of our heart thats illegal but if its religious reasons thats ok. WTF kinda world is this?

http://www.coj.net/Departments/Environmental-and-Compliance/Docs/application-for-feeding-the-homeless-rev-jan-2011-.aspx

So, could we get a church or 10 to come out? Maybe not to the GA meetings but plan an event where all the churches get together or plan their own little events with the intention of feeding some people?

Eric Beckley just suggested to me that we obtain a peddlers license and "sell" the food for $0.01 per person.

Would something like this work??

We might have to get some more licenses to sell prepared food but for just selling things like apples, bananas and other fresh produce shouldn't be a problem right? We could also sell non-perishables for 1 cent.

Your thoughts??

i think we need to make this issue know to the rest of the people of jax and get this fixed!

i cant find anything on the city site about this

I agree. We need more awareness about how hard it is to help those in need.

Maybe we should get our legal team to look into what our options are to try and change this. Hopefully the city of Jacksonville will be supportive.

Maybe we have the homeless guys sell us something for a penny. Then they'd have the penny to buy the food? They could sell us something silly like a flower or something crafty that they've made with us like a heart made out of tissue paper or something cheap. Or maybe they pick up some trash or bring us some cans and they trade it for a penny and then use the penny to buy food?

I'm just weary about getting a church involved, or religion in general.

OccupyProChoiceJax wrote:Maybe we have the homeless guys sell us something for a penny. Then they'd have the penny to buy the food? They could sell us something silly like a flower or something crafty that they've made with us like a heart made out of tissue paper or something cheap. Or maybe they pick up some trash or bring us some cans and they trade it for a penny and then use the penny to buy food?

Maybe we could make a stop at the next city council meeting and bitch about it? But, you know, organized and whatnot.

Contact your city councilman or woman, now. Attend the meetings, the second and fourth Tuesday of every month at 5pm. We need good citizens to take back our power to care.

We were just informed that it's a state law so CC wouldn't be able to do much. We'd have to go higher up the food chain so to speak.

Interesting ...

Yeah, I'm not defeated though. There has to be something we can do.

I understand wanting to help the homeless but I would hate to have this turn into what happened in Orlando. I know the food bank here is in short supply, why don't we do a canned food drive? We could coordinate with the food bank and get the media involved. We could make up care packages with things like trial size toothpaste, soap etc.

OccupyProChoiceJax wrote:I'm just weary about getting a church involved, or religion in general.

http://www.venganza.org/ Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and yes I'm an Ordained Minister with credentials to prove it. If the city doesn't like that idea, I'm also Ordained by the Universal Life Church http://www.themonastery.org/ with credentials as well.

There are a number of things that religion benefits from that those without do not. If the law doesn't specify what is considered a religion (Usually vague), then either of these two could easily be used to provide free handouts.

Just my $.02

It's possible I'm missing the point here, but is there some reason that I can't go to a park, sit down to eat something and share it with someone I meet there? Furthermore, if I am arrested or harassed by the authorities for sharing my food with someone else, won't this just bring media attention to how stupid and pointless these laws are? Maybe we're overcomplicating it.

I think the idea of using FSM for this is hilarious and rather appropriate. Also, while I think a peddler's license is rather expensive, if one were obtained, I don't see why we would need to charge a penny. Perhaps a creative currency is in order. Perhaps, for the cost of one lunch, the price could be one lunch's trash. We hand the homeless person his or her lunch, they eat it, give us the trash, and the meal is then considered payed for. Plus, that makes sure the park stays clean.

Yeah, after thinking about it, if we can ever get an actual occupation established, we'll have food on site to feed our people and of course we wouldn't refuse ANYONE. So if someone is hungry, they get fed. It's that easy.

We just have to set up somewhere.

The Unitarian church on the expressway is supposed to be cool with most things. I have never been there, they had some deal going to rent plots at tree hill for public gardening, I don't know how that went, it was pretty expensive to get in. But, as it's non denominational, could be a thing to look into.

With a peddlers license, there could be issues with the health dept rules and I'm pretty sure they are crooked as a snake, don't want no part of that. Had a friend who got a BSN hot dog cart, went through hell to get it ok'ed to sell out of.