San Francisco opened its Municipal Market on Sundays so eligible residents could pick up “free” groceries, a program that’s costing city taxpayers $5.5 million.
The Food Empowerment Market is meant to ease the burden on food stamp holders who may run out of funds at the end of each month. Jeffrey Morris, who pushed for the bill in 2021 for the city government, argued that the market is a “supplement” and not the only way to feed people.
“This is a supplemental source of food. Food stamps should be the primary source. This is a supplemental source, especially at the end of the month when inflation is hurting families,” Morris told local media.
“If you’re food insecure, you’re also dealing with other issues, and you need to get involved with the services the city has put in place to improve your life and the lives of your children,” Morris said.
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Homeless people are seen on the streets of San Francisco’s Tenderloin district on October 30, 2021. (Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
The market works much like a typical American grocery store: shoppers push their carts through the aisles and pick up the items they need, then at the register, every item is weighed and scanned to track inventory.
Like many cities in California, San Francisco suffers from a serious homeless problem.
Like many cities in California, San Francisco suffers from a serious homeless problem. (Fox News Digital flight risk)
The food program comes weeks after some residents were outraged by another city program that provided free beer and vodka to homeless alcoholics.
“how [some] “How stupid is it to force an alcoholic to drink alcohol,” one man sarcastically asked Fox News contributor Sarah Carter. “That’s ridiculous!”
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The San Francisco Department of Public Health’s Alcohol Management Program (MAP) Regular amounts of alcohol Volunteer participants with alcohol addictions are being called upon to help as part of an effort to keep homeless people off the streets and relieve the city’s emergency services.
Experts say the program can save or extend lives, but critics question whether the government would be better off funding treatment and sobriety programs instead.
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“Giving alcohol to an alcoholic is a very contradictory thing to do, considering they have a disease. Alcoholism is basically a condition in which an obsession in the mind turns into an allergy in the body, and it’s a disease that can’t be helped,” another San Francisco resident told Carter.
“You’re encouraging them to die, end up in an institution or potentially die.”
