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HELP: A vistor to one of the mobile soup kitchens
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'Nuisance' purge on soup kitchens
David Ottewell7/10/2004
MOBILE soup kitchens helping the homeless are being targeted in a controversial "clean-up" of Manchester.
More than a dozen vans handing out an estimated 1,000 servings a week could be swept from the city's streets in a new crackdown.
Shops are being asked not to give them spare food and authorities are looking at what powers they have to force them off the road.
The council and Manchester City Centre Management Company, which have already used anti-social behaviour orders to threaten beggars with jail, say the soup-kitchen service would be cleaner and less of a "nuisance" if provided in buildings.
The soup-runners are strongly resisting the plan, with many saying it could force them to stop providing food to the homeless entirely.
Trevor Lee, manager of Christian charity the Mustard Tree, said: "We will not move to a building. We have four or five groups who come to our soup runs and they don't get on. If you put them in a confined space it would cause chaos.
Need
"A lot of the people we deal with are drug or alcohol users and they are scruffy, but we try to clean up after them. The fact is these people are out there and they need us."
Other organisations which take units on to the street including Barnabus, Manchester group Life Share, and the Hazel Grove Baptist Church from Stockport.
Soup kitchens are also provided by University of Manchester Students' Union, the Seventh Day Adventists Church and local groups the Domino Caravan and Offast.
Charities estimate more than 100 people get food from the soup kitchens.
Pat Karney, Manchester city councillor and the council's representative on MCCMC, said: "We have a number of these mobile units across the city centre. When they give out the soup they leave mess all over the place and we have had a number of complaints from people. We are in consultation to see if we can find a better way of doing it.
"We have got a national record in helping homeless people and are very proud of our work. We are not trying to get rid of the service, just change how it is done."
Should we get rid of mobile soup kitchens? Have your say.
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