Clientele on the Rise at Biloxi Soup Kitchen

[Louisiana1976]

From soup kitchen director Rita Baldwin's perspective, the notion that "homeless people are the scum of the earth" has returned to her Gulf Coast town, which still struggles four years after Hurricane Katrina.

Baldwin -- formerly homeless herself -- found that "the storm was a great neutralizer. It put us all on the same level." That social pendulum is swinging back to the pre-Katrina world, she said, but she added that the community has shown a renewed sense of compassion.

Baldwin, executive director of the Loaves and Fishes community kitchen in Biloxi, Mississippi, lost her home in Katrina as the storm barreled into the coastal community in 2005.

She said she watched with sadness as storm victims she dubbed "amateurs" -- "people who didn't know how to be homeless" -- attempted to survive after losing everything.

Homeless people who were accustomed to living in the woods and on the streets used their wherewithal to make it through each day, said Baldwin, who relied on the kitchen's services herself before she was hired there.

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more...http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/08/28/biloxi.katrina.loaves.and.fishes/index.html?iref=newssearch