An attack on the homeless

I recently read an article in the St. Pete Times which reported that the City of Tampa was asking local soup kitchens to move or discontinue offering free food to the homeless. The reason, according to the article, was that downtown Tampa is in a period of remodeling (not unlike downtown Miami) and rejuvenation. The city hopes to make the downtown area into a residential boomtown, thus removing the homeless who currently inhabit the streets there.

This greatly upsets me. The city has no troubles telling people to stop feeding the homeless, but can't quite seem to do anything to help them. The city of course backed off when media caught on to the story, but its obvious the mindset the city. I am not a proponent of the state doing an unlimited welfare system, but when private individuals take it upon themselves to help the disadvantaged, the state should not get in the way.

This is nothing new though. I noticed a trend a few years ago when cities began "modernizing" benches on the sides of streets and in parks. These new benches had one to two dividers on the seat portion of the bench. The obvious reason for this is to prevent people from sleeping on the benches. Regardless of what some may say, society and our way of life has put these people on the bench, homeless and hungry. Not enough is done to help these people, either by private individuals or the state. To take away what little comfort these people have so the area looks "nice" is absurd and shameful.

Fyodor Dostoevsky once wrote that "The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons." I believe the same could be said of the homeless and disadvantaged in a society, and how that society attempts to help them.