Lord Mayor Doyle, although a former conservative politician is not a heartless man. He has actually cleared out the permanent homeless from our streets, a great thing for our city and for them. All services for the homeless within the City of Melbourne have been withdrawn. I hope he moved them into suitable accommodation, but does it really matter? As long as we can't see them, it is good. But as he said, there will always be transient homeless element in Melbourne.
His latest project after cancelling all permits for charity organisations to serve meals to the transient homeless is gift voucher incentives to encourage restaurants and cafes to leave out trays of healthy sandwiches for the homeless at tram and bus stops. If the operator of such a business leaves out sandwiches every night of their opening, the vouchers are quite generous to the provider of such largess. After a nice meal in town one evening, on our way home we walked past tram and bus stops, and sure enough, there was a tray of sandwiches left at each, there for the hungry and homeless. What a kind and caring city we live in. Go Doyle!
I am sure no one would object if you chose to be proactive and leave some sandwiches out for the poor at our city tram and bus stops. It won't cost you much, and while these sandwiches are freely available in the city, there is not much in the way of such donations for the needy in the suburbs. So if you are in the 'burbs, it it is up to you to do your part and leave some sandwiches out. The next time we go to see Mother, I will insist R make up a tray to leave in her scummy town main street. I hope they don't expect brie. I just can't get past how kind Australian people are. Even if you are in a country town, what about you leaving some sandwiches out for the poor and hungry? What about cake? Would cake for the poor be too much and make them too reliant on our charity?
Probably best we don't feed them cake. I have a vague memory of someone suggesting feeding cake to the poor and it didn't end well for her. Let's just stick with sangers. Do your bit for the poor.