Is This Any Way to Help the Homeless?

by John Stossel

Mary Baker and Ruth Neikirk love to cook. What's more, they love to cook for poor people. They do it frequently, preparing meals at home and bringing them to their church in Virginia.

"I love it," Mary says. "I can take a little bit of something, like a soup bone? And I can make a whooole pot of something. Tastes good. With some cornbread you got 'em a meal!"

People hold candles in support of homeless people who have died living on the streets during a Christmas ceremony at Grand Central Station in New York December 25, 2006. REUTERS/Keith Bedford (UNITED STATES) The people they cook for love it too. But there's a problem. It was "criminal activity." The Fairfax County health department points out that -- horrors -- Mary and Ruth are actually preparing food and serving it to people! Without a license!

The health department said it was just looking out for the homeless. But did the officials ever think about where street people eat when they don't eat at these churches?

"They've never stopped me from eating out of a dumpster or a trash can," says James, an astute homeless man who understands Henry Hazlitt's "economics in one lesson," namely, look for the secondary results of government policy. The government can close down the church kitchens, but that'll only send the poor to the garbage cans. Is that better?

"Some of them take their jobs just a little too seriously," said James. "They got nothing better to do than sit around and write legislation."

James has put his finger on another important point: the perverse incentives facing bureaucrats, who get no credit if they never meddle in our peaceful activities.

An old, near-toothless man agreed with James. "I thought they was crazy. I mean, they're [the church people] helping people, and they're trying to stop it."

Rev. Kathleen Chesson said her First Christian Church would not obey the rules. "Our agenda is to feed the hungry. We're going to feed the hungry. That's it."

I asked him, What if the health department had been around when Jesus was feeding the poor? "He might have been, you know, cited," Connolly replied with a laugh.

Abridged >>

John Stossel is an award-winning news correspondent and author of Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity: Get Out the Shovel--Why Everything You Know is Wrong.