Except just like food stamps or gift cards, the dishonest bum will just sell them for fifty cents on a dollar, and the honest one will get a square meal either way.

While the initiative is clearly well-intentioned you're making the same "error" as those who espouse food stamps: anything that can be traded for goods and services can be traded for cash, usually at a deep discount.

Basically if someone wants to get alcohol, drugs or whatever, it doesn't matter what you give them: someone somewhere will exchange what they have for drugs or cash to get drugs.

I get the idea, and that's kinda nice, but I would see it as a bit unfortunate that McDonald's get your money and that they get to eat McDonald's food (as opposed to something healthier and subjectively more ethical).

I do a bit of dumpster diving and otherwise collecting food that would otherwise go to waste (there are a few restaurants near where I live that will happily give you their leftovers if you go them at closing time). If I ever see a homeless person I always offer them the food that I have.

Believe it or not, to somebody who hasn't had a whole lot to eat in the recent past, everything that one would normally hold against a McDonald's meal becomes a big advantage. That high-fat, protein-heavy, "empty carbs" meal, the one you probably shouldn't have for lunch every day, is pretty much exactly what a homeless fellow ought to be eating in the winter. Sure, it'd be nice if he could get a veg or two to go along with it, but there's a requirement for concentrated calories you probably wouldn't understand.

(I've been homeless in Toronto, back in the mid-'90s. Big recession. Some of you may remember it. It took eight weeks to get a gig shining shoes, and even then I was among the working homeless until I'd saved enough to pay rent up front on a room you probably wouldn't think of living in. And no, eliminating the minimum wage wouldn't have helped -- I would never have been able to afford to move indoors. I do wish I could figure out where these amateur economists get their ridiculous ideas. I'm sure it looks good on paper, if you eliminate things like, oh, the cost of food and shelter from the equation. Remember, the solution should be as simple as possible, but no simpler.)

This part of the article is very informative:

"He wanted to have pork and rice from a Vietnamese noodle joint on Spadina but they wouldn’t take the card. So, he scrambled to McDonald’s. Lunch was a double quarter-pounder with cheese."

McDonald's, for all its downsides, has never in my experience discriminated against a person for their appearance. As long as you've got shoes and a shirt on (no pants?), they will serve you.

I read that as "noodle joint was cash only", like many mom and pop shops are.

That's a really nice initiative.

Bullshit. McDonalds is not the best food in the world but it's not going to have an intoxicating effect on you and de-hydrate you to boot. It also isn't addictive.

Personally I'd eat anywhere but there but you really can't equate giving someone a burger (or perhaps a salad?) with a bottle.

It's a ridiculous thing to say.

And I'm about as anti-Mcd's as it gets, mostly because whenever I go there I feel like crap for the next 24 hours (lack of gal bladder) so I avoid them like the plague.