Rick Wood was delivered a shocking and outrageous surprise on Saturday when he was ordered, under the threat of jail, to stop the practice of feeding the homeless that he’d been doing uninterrupted for six years.
The pastor of the Lord’s House of Prayer, who usually provides a menu of hundreds of hot dogs and bottles of water to homeless people in need in Oneonta, Ala., was told by the city that he had to halt his mission because it had passed an ordinance that regulates food trucks, Think Progress reported.
An exorbitant fee must now be paid to operate such a mission, the city has mandated. For small or single-operated ministries such as Wood, a $500 permit can bring such philanthropic endeavors to a screeching halt.
“I’m just so totally shocked that the city is turning their back on the homeless like this,” An incredulous Wood exclaimed to ABC 33/40. “It’s like they want to chase them out of the city. And the homeless can’t help the position they’re in. They need help.”
A resolute Wood proclaimed his right and spiritual duty to continue his spiritual outreach and confidently said he will circumnavigate the city’s bureaucratic quagmire.
Unfortunately, Wood is far from alone. Other cities have enacted similar ordinances. Last December, Churches on the Street — a mobile ministry in St. Louis — was ordered to stop serving hot food to the homeless until it secured a permit, the Riverfront Times reported.
And last summer, members of Love Wins Ministries, an organization that feeds breakfast to anyone in need on weekends in Raleigh, N.C., when no soup kitchens are open, were told they would be thrown in jail if they did not cease and desist with their selfless acts.
Rev. Hugh Hollowell, a pastor and director at Love Wins Ministries, said he simply couldn’t be deterred from helping those who are desperate for food.
“We will feed people,” Hollowell defiantly declared in a blog for HuffPost. “I am, after all (however imperfectly), a follower of Jesus, who said himself that when we ignore hungry people, we ignore him.”
