It's very obvious that the Fairfax County Health Department would rather homeless people go hungry than risk having an upset stomach:
Under a tough new Fairfax County policy, residents can no longer donate food prepared in their homes or a church kitchen -- be it a tuna casserole, sandwiches or even a batch of cookies -- unless the kitchen is approved by the county, health officials said yesterday.
They said the crackdown on home-cooked meals is aimed at preventing food poisoning among homeless people.
Well, you know what they say. No good deed goes unpunished. But then, what can you expect from a local government bureaucracy except to stymie local efforts to fix problems facing the community? Local governments, police and fire departments aside, are largely useless organizations whose functions could be easily managed by local civic organizations in a cheaper, more effective and friendlier manner.
I really doubt the health officials are that concerned about the homeless because if they were, they would be working with these shelters rather than standing in their way. There are free medical clinics all across Virginia, including Fairfax and Loudon Counties. If the Fairfax County Health Department were serious about helping the homeless, it would encourage greater coordination between shelters and these medical services.
The thing is, who has more of an interest in seeing the homeless helped? A religious charity staffed by people who are clearly there out of a desire to help others, or a bureaucrat who just rubber stamps a welfare check? Who really wants to trust a government agency with policing itself on something like this, knowing the track record that they have for that sort of thing?
"We're dealing with a medically fragile population . . . so they're more susceptible to food-borne illnesses than the general population," said Tom Crow, the county Health Department's director of environmental health. "We're trying to protect those people."
To help the churches prepare, the Health Department is waiving a $60 fee for certification and is holding additional safe food-handling classes for church volunteers. It is also giving churches that do not have approved kitchens a list of other houses of worship with such facilities.
"We're not trying to come across as being a heavy-handed government," Crow said.
The $60 fee waiver really is a great consolation prize. It sure will go a long way to pay for those pesky fees that they are going to have to pay to remain in compliance with local regulations. They could after all cut down on the restrictions or require the churches to simply throw out food instead of refrigerating it at the end of the day. But... that would limit their power to be a nuisance.
The churches are at the forefront of helping these people out. McLean Bible Church alone gave out enough food to feed about 95,000 people over Thanksgiving. All the government is doing is saying, "if we can't guarantee that you're doing it 100% right, you ain't doing it!" In the mean time, every homeless person in Fairfax County can feel free to thank the county government for erring on the side of starvation to avoid theoretical pestilence.
This is just unconscionable. Seriously, how many people are getting sick from meals they're receiving from churches and charitable organizations?!?
Jesus wept.
Keep in mind that Fairfax County is a very liberal part of Virginia. It's one of the few counties that drove the whole state over the edge into getting Webb elected to the Senate in the last election. Most of the people who work around here are government contractors and a lot of the people live in a little fantasy world that exemplifies the worst aspects of the liberal mindset. This is the church that I go to. It's a megachurch, but it's pretty solid theologically and interestingly enough the teaching pastor is a Hebrew Christian.
The churches need to get subtle.
If they declair homeless people as "members" then they can also declair their feeding as an spontanious potluck.
Good idea, but we both know how Fairfax County operates. The liberals would just start harassing them at all hours for things like member lists and would probably challenge that in court under some failure to do right argument.
I think one of the churches should raise funds quietly for its legal defense and then just ignore the issue altogether. Even most liberals would probably be troubled by a small church being told "you can't feed the homeless" if the church has ensured that all of the food and the shelter are clean by normal people's standards.