{"id":22171,"date":"2019-01-30T17:49:03","date_gmt":"2019-01-30T22:49:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/?p=22171"},"modified":"2019-01-30T17:50:53","modified_gmt":"2019-01-30T22:50:53","slug":"new-state-regulations-force-a-california-charity-for-the-homeless-to-close-shop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/2019\/01\/30\/new-state-regulations-force-a-california-charity-for-the-homeless-to-close-shop\/","title":{"rendered":"New State Regulations Force a California Charity for the Homeless to Close Shop"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><center><a href = \"https:\/\/supload.com\/HJ4G5i1VN\"><img src = \"https:\/\/i.supload.com\/Bkx4zcjyNV.jpg\"><\/a><\/center><\/p>\n<h2>\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/fee.org\/articles\/new-state-regulations-force-a-california-charity-for-the-homeless-to-close-shop\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/homeless.jpeg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><\/h2>\n<p>For the past four years, <a href=\"http:\/\/deliverancesd.org\/\">Deliverance San Diego<\/a> has been delivering hot meals to the city\u2019s homeless population every Friday, averaging 200 donated meals on any given evening. Now, due to <a href=\"https:\/\/leginfo.legislature.ca.gov\/faces\/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201720180AB2178\">new guidelines<\/a> passed by the State Legislature of California, the non-profit is ceasing operations and will dissolve by the end of the month.<\/p>\n<p>Through their existing model, hot meals were prepared in volunteer homes and distributed on the streets.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cVolunteers from various churches gather at 17th and Commercial downtown to load four food wagons with chili, soup, cornbread, water, and other snacks,\u201d the <a href=\"http:\/\/deliverancesd.org\/wp\/about\/\">group\u2019s web site explains<\/a>. &#8220;We offer prayer and spiritual support, but one of the easiest things we do is get someone\u2019s name and remember it.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"link-0\">Charity Under Fire<\/h2>\n<p>Through the new requirements, set forth by the San Diego Department of Environmental Health, Deliverance would need to use licensed, state-approved kitchens, implement hand-washing stations, and meet a variety of other requirements.<\/p>\n<p>With a yearly budget of less than $7,000, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sandiegouniontribune.com\/news\/homelessness\/sd-me-homeless-feeding-20190114-story.html\">according to the non-profit\u2019s treasurer<\/a>, Deliverance determined it can no longer sustain operations without extensive and expensive organizational changes. \u201cWe\u2019re on a shoestring budget,\u201d explains volunteer <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=yK9Vv4QmFRw\">Gary Marttila<\/a>, \u201cso working out all those logistics became too big of an obstacle to overcome.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.10news.com\/news\/local-news\/new-california-laws-forces-local-non-profit-to-shut-down\"><em>ABC 10 News<\/em><\/a> in San Diego tells more of their story:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"max-width: 615px; width: 730px; height: 410.699px;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/yK9Vv4QmFRw?feature=oembed\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>As the <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sandiegouniontribune.com\/news\/homelessness\/sd-me-homeless-feeding-20190114-story.html\">San Diego Union-Tribune<\/a><\/em> explains, several of the law\u2019s backers have expressed surprise at the closure of Deliverance. According to Heather Buonomo, a program coordinator with the Department of Environmental Health, some sort of workaround may have been available or achievable. \u201cWe\u2019re happy to work with them to find a solution that works for their charitable organization,\u201d she said. According to Monique Lim\u00f3n, one of the bill\u2019s authors, \u201cThe law would encourage more charities to provide food for the needy while also creating a level of oversight to ensure they follow proper health guidelines.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Yet it\u2019s unclear what exactly would or could have been done if Deliverance had tried to negotiate with the state and find \u201ca solution that works.\u201d And the fact that it didn\u2019t even <em>try<\/em> or <em>think<\/em> it could try says something about the pressure that these policies put on small and vulnerable charities and institutions who don\u2019t feel they have political sway.<\/p>\n<p>Likewise, one can make any number of arguments about food safety, as Lim\u00f3n does, but it\u2019s hard to imagine a scenario in which more burdens, more requirements, and tighter regulations will somehow \u201cencourage more charities to provide food for the needy.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"link-1\">The Unseen Costs of Government Action<\/h2>\n<p>The reality is that the state\u2019s dream of regulated soup and sandwiches is taking precedence over the bottom-up activity of neighbors who are passionate about loving their neighbors. Is that really an acceptable trade-off, particularly in an area that so desperately needs an intimate and personalized approach?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ve sought to provide comfort to those who are going through an incredibly difficult time,\u201d says Deliverance\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/deliverancesd.org\/wp\/latest-news\/\">press release<\/a> on the closure. \u201cIn many situations, they are without a home due to no fault of their own. This action by the state creates significant barriers to those organizations like ours who simply want to show God\u2019s love through a hot meal and some conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Given the good\u2014and thus far, <em>safe\u2014<\/em>work of organizations like Deliverance, such regulations represent a prime example of the \u201cunseen costs\u201d of government action.<\/p>\n<p>In some cases, well-intended government policies lead to trade imbalances or economic surpluses or corporate cronyism or community inequities\u2014all of which yield their own forms of social corrosion. But in cases such as these, we see the ill effects of these policies on charitable activity, resulting in real and tangible barriers to human love and relationship.<\/p>\n<p>Is it really worth it?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.acton.org\/archives\/106038-when-red-tape-hits-the-homeless-san-diego-charity-closes-due-to-new-restrictions.html\"><em>This article was reprinted with permission from the Acton Institute.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<div>\n<h5><a href=\"http:\/\/fee.org\/people\/joseph-sunde\/\"><br \/>\nJoseph Sunde<br \/>\n<\/a><\/h5>\n<p>Joseph Sunde\u00a0is an associate editor and writer for the Acton Institute. His work has appeared in venues such as The Federalist, First Things, Intellectual Takeout, The City, The Christian Post, The Stream, Patheos, LifeSiteNews, Charisma News, The Green Room, Juicy Ecumenism, Ethika Politika, Made to Flourish, and the Center for Faith and Work. Joseph resides in Minneapolis, Minnesota with his wife and four children.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p style=\"font-style: italic;\">This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the <a href=\"https:\/\/fee.org\/articles\/new-state-regulations-force-a-california-charity-for-the-homeless-to-close-shop\/\">original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/fee.org\/counter\/178780\" alt=\"\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n<p><center><iframe src = \"https:\/\/megalextoria.neocities.org\/dclick.html\" width=\"560\" height=\"360\"><\/iframe><\/center><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 For the past four years, Deliverance San Diego has been delivering hot meals to the city\u2019s homeless population every Friday, averaging 200 donated meals on any given evening. Now, due to new guidelines passed by the State Legislature of California, the non-profit is ceasing operations and will dissolve by the end of the month. Through their existing model, hot meals were prepared in volunteer homes and distributed on the streets. \u201cVolunteers from various churches gather at 17th and Commercial downtown to load four food wagons with chili, soup, cornbread, water, and other snacks,\u201d the group\u2019s web site explains. &#8220;We offer prayer and spiritual support, but one of the easiest things we do is get someone\u2019s name and remember it.\u201d Charity Under Fire Through the new requirements, set forth by the San Diego Department of Environmental Health, Deliverance would need to use licensed, state-approved kitchens, implement hand-washing stations, and meet a variety of other requirements. With a yearly budget of less than $7,000, according to the non-profit\u2019s treasurer, Deliverance determined it can no longer sustain operations without extensive and expensive organizational changes. \u201cWe\u2019re on a shoestring budget,\u201d explains volunteer Gary Marttila, \u201cso working out all those logistics became too big [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[371,2410,3361,2236],"class_list":["post-22171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-politics","tag-california","tag-charity","tag-homeless","tag-statism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22171\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}