North Carolina church volunteers are being told to stop feeding the homeless or they will be arrested.
Practically riding on the wings of the neighboring state’s law against the homeless, as previously reported by The Inquisitr , it appears North Carolina is following suit, though with slightly more discretion and tact.
Volunteers at Love Wins Ministries in Raleigh, NC, are being threatened with jail time if they don’t stop feeding the downtrodden. The Christian organization has been sending hot coffee and breakfast sandwiches to Moore Square to feed the needy for six years and has had a good working relationship with the Police Department as they did their business from a sidewalk by a public park.
The legal problem with North Carolina church volunteers feeding the homeless is that there is a law against distributing food in said park without a permit. Over the weekend, 70 homeless people watched in horror as the church was forced to pack up their food and leave at the request of the same Police Department. The permit was looked into, but the police told them it was unlikely that the permit, which would cost the charity nearly $2000 a weekend, would be approved.
Love Wins Ministries has been doing this with the knowledge that there are no soup kitchens open on weekends in Raleigh, North Carolina, and they were simply trying to fill in the gap for the needy. They are currently looking for a private building or parking lot from which they can distribute the food.
North Carolina Charity Threatened With Arrest For Feeding Homeless People http://t.co/byCd7docw8
— ThinkProgressJustice (@TPJustice) August 26, 2013
Mayor Nancy McFarlane showed up at a protest rally on Sunday to apologize for the misunderstanding and the confrontation, stating that she would look into the matter and attempt to rectify the situation.
Apparently with the laws being reinforced even as far south as Orlando, Florida, homeless people are running out of luck. The North Carolina church volunteers are still looking for ways to serve the homeless, in any case.
