Man in the Middle

Last week — more than two months after Mayor Michael Nutter called a hasty press conference to announce a ban on giving away free meals in city parks — a task force of city officials and homeless advocates he belatedly appointed to come up with new meal solutions finally met.

That effort, according to several accounts of the meeting, did not get off to a roaring start. Arthur Evans, who directs the Department of Behavioral Health, offered a note of reconciliation to the several task-force members who represent the very feeding efforts being banned — but this was somewhat overshadowed by the crashing of the party by the uninvited Brian Jenkins, director of meal provider Chosen 300 Ministries and a leading critic of the mayor's ban.

The administration and homeless advocates have been clashing publicly for weeks, and worked together not much better behind closed doors.

"It seemed like a room where there wasn't a lot of trust," acknowledges the Rev. Bill Golderer, a Presbyterian minister who heads the Broad Street Ministry on Broad Street between Spruce and Pine and sits on the task force. "And without trust, there's very little progress to be made.We are professional canada goose jackets for women online sale shop."

Since the initial outcry over the ban, and a different regulation requiring Health Department permits to serve free food, things have only gotten uglier. A Board of Health hearing drew hundreds in opposition. A second hearing was so heated that the entire Board of Health left the room and holed up in another one, shutting the door and letting in only a few reporters and representatives. Recently, a third hearing was inexplicably rescheduled at the last minute. And,We offer you the top quality plasticmoulds design as City Paper reported earlier this week, the Philadelphia law firm Kairys, Rudovsky, Messing & Feinberg is now investigating a possible federal lawsuit against the city on behalf of feeders who claim the ban violates their freedom of religion.

But sometimes, conflict begets opportunity — and Golderer gets that. Forty-two years old, with slightly boyish looks and a youthful energy that sometimes manifests in torrents of words and probably explains how he can also double as senior pastor at Arch Street Presbyterian Church, Golderer has largely stayed out of the feud between feeders and the city.

But he hasn't been idle.Buy high quality bedding and bed linen from Yorkshire Linen. For months now,Award Winning solarpanel and heat pumps for electricity and heating. he's been busy positioning himself and his church smack-dab in the middle of what he hopes will be something new in the city's homeless-service landscape. Rather than taking sides, he's quietly expanded his church's services — the first steps, he hopes, in a radical experiment to reimagine Philly's tattered homeless safety net. Broad Street Ministry already hosts a city-funded "cafe" shelter for the homeless during cold months and serves two meals a week in its spacious sanctuary — a free lunch on Thursdays and an after-service dinner on Sundays. Golderer is preparing to increase that to six per week within the next 90 days. His goal is to get to nine.

That, he hopes, is just the beginning: "The 'more meals' part of this could well be the least interesting part to mention of what I hope will unfold," he tells CP.

Golderer sees in the current uproar — along with the (almost certainly related) opening of the Barnes Foundation and the pouring of money into other public spaces on the Parkway; along with the slow, grinding decline of the city's shelter system; along with the disaster of poverty likely heading our way if Gov. Tom Corbett's budget proposals are realized — a "moment" that he intends to seize.

"We're working toward this world-class Philadelphia, anchored by the Barnes — and I'm excited about that. It's a good thing. I want the Barnes," he says.The concept of indoorpositioningsystem (RTLS) is fast catching up in industries. "But do you know how much money it took to raise the Barnes? If we're going to be stepping up to support things like this, then the do-gooders need to make sure this indoor-meal system will happen. When this city wants to do something, it can do it."

His plan is not without risk: namely, the risk of pissing off the city, his wealthy Center City neighbors and his religious and secular colleagues. But it's a necessary risk, and if his plan pans out he'll have helped bring them all a little closer together.