The Gift That Keeps on Taking

Tonight, the City is hosting a dinner for Jackson's homeless. It's a gift to that population the city insulted and injured the rest of this year. It reminds me of the gifts the Wise Men took to Bethlehem. There they found a homeless, hungry, freezing child. Did they give the child and his family a home, food and clothes? No; they gave gold, frankincense and myrrh. All symbolic gifts--which made the Wise Men very proud, but did very little for the neediest in that manger that night.

What other gifts has the City given the homeless this year? In November, the City Council passed an ordinance criminalizing panhandling in downtown Jackson. If one of the homeless men at tonight's dinner walks outside afterwards and asks someone for a dollar, that man can now be arrested.

Over the summer, our mayor declared a curfew that specifically required homeless men and women be indoors by 10 p.m., overlooking the problem that homeless people, by definition, have no doors to go into,--not to mention the greater problem that the City had no compelling reason to pass such a curfew. When the curfew drew national attention (none of it good), the mayor declared that the curfew would be voluntary. A voluntary curfew? Under penalty of disapproval, I suppose.

The mayor will be at tonight's dinner. I hope he runs into the same homeless men he patronized over the summer. I heard him during the curfew debacle promise about two dozen homeless men and women that he would get them each apartments with, as he put it, doors with keys that lock. I hope they ask where those apartments are. I hope they ask him why the City feels that one warm meal eclipses a year of harassment and empty promises.

One ironic note about the City's new anti-panhandling ordinance (beyond the obvious): When the Council was discussing the merits of the ordinance, they mentioned in shocked tones that some homeless are actually going inside churches to ask for money. Imagine! The nerve of those homeless going into a House of God to ask for charity. Perhaps they'd heard Jesus' words that as we do unto the least of humanity, we do it unto Him.

Tonight, unto Him the City does something right and kind. Tomorrow they will put Him in jail.

posted by L.W. on 12/22/06 at 12:43 PM

posted by Jeff Lucas on 12/22/06 at 01:20 PM

posted by ladd on 12/26/06 at 12:05 PM

posted by pikersam on 12/26/06 at 12:25 PM

posted by Brent Cox on 12/27/06 at 05:56 PM

posted by ladd on 12/27/06 at 06:50 PM

posted by Kacy on 12/27/06 at 07:32 PM

posted by Brent Cox on 12/27/06 at 08:56 PM