Goodman defends homeless remark

Friday, June 24, 2005 | 9:52 a.m.

Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman says he has received no phone calls critical of a statement he made last week that some homeless advocates "enable" street people by giving them food and water.

At his weekly City Hall news conference, Goodman repeated the statement, but also offered an alternate plan for the homeless, borrowing from the philosophy of Chinese Sixth Century B.C. poet Lao Tzu.

"These good-hearted homeless advocates who feed these poor souls enable them," Goodman said, noting that instead the homeless should go to places like Catholic Charities and Salvation Army shelters so social service workers there can "address the issue to transmit them out of homelessness."

A reporter asked: "Teach a man to fish?"

Goodman responded: "That's it."

The question referred to Tzu's proverb: "Give a man a fish, and you feed him a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime."

Last week at a meeting of the Southern Nevada Regional Planning Coalition's committee on homelessness, Goodman referred to homeless advocates who go out on the streets and give homeless people food and water as "enablers."