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Mayor Nutter's plan to take distribution of free food to homeless people out of the parks to the front of City Hall and, ultimately, indoors was blocked this morning by a federal judge.
Ruling from the bench after two days of testimony and an hour of oral argument, U.S. District Judge William H. Yohn said he saw no evidence feeding homeless people outside City Hall was any better or more dignified than on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.
"It seems to me that . . . the parks provide more dignity than the concrete apron outside City Hall," Yohn said.
So it sounds as though there is a push to get the hungry indoors, away from the public view.
But the judge made it clear that his intention is to block enforcement for at least a year to give the city and representatives of various religious and secular homeless service providers the chance to create a long-term solution that would end distributing food to the homeless in public.