# Could a homeless person, who has not eaten for 4 days, go to the emergency room and get food? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 31, 2015, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-homeless-person-who-has-not-eaten-for-4-days-go-to-the-emergency-room-and-get-food/736220 "2015-10-31T00:35:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2015, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-homeless-person-who-has-not-eaten-for-4-days-go-to-the-emergency-room-and-get-food/736220/41 "2015-11-01T16:20:11Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Homeless shelter, maybe, if they aren’t already full. Food pantries are only open on certain days for a very limited number of hours(almost certainly never at night), and Goodwill does clothes, not food. Goodwill has food pantries. Maybe you’re confusing their outlet stores where donations are sold. Not sure where you’re getting the idea that food pantries are operated on such a limited basis. The theoretical time from from the op is 4 days. ---
**Author:** ![kopek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kopek/32/337_2.png) [@kopek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kopek)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2015, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-homeless-person-who-has-not-eaten-for-4-days-go-to-the-emergency-room-and-get-food/736220/42 "2015-11-01T18:47:35Z")
> [@steatopygia](#): > > The short answer is no. You can’t be admitted to the hospital for being homeless. You can only be admitted for a medical or psychological condition that requires hospitalization. This although a couple local ERs will make a fast call to one of the local shelters or groups to see if they can find someone who can help. Four days just isn’t long enough to put you into medical distress unless there is something more involved that the OP doesn’t mention. ---
**Author:** ![Ambivalid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a5b964/32.png) [@Ambivalid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambivalid)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2015, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-homeless-person-who-has-not-eaten-for-4-days-go-to-the-emergency-room-and-get-food/736220/43 "2015-11-02T02:13:13Z")
He could go to the ER and tell them he is feeling suicidal, they should admit him to the mental ward of the hospital and hold him for up to a week. ---
**Author:** ![slash2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@slash2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slash2k)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2015, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-homeless-person-who-has-not-eaten-for-4-days-go-to-the-emergency-room-and-get-food/736220/44 "2015-11-02T04:46:37Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > Goodwill has food pantries. Maybe you’re confusing their outlet stores where donations are sold. Not sure where you’re getting the idea that food pantries are operated on such a limited basis. The theoretical time from from the op is 4 days. Goodwill IN SOME PLACES has food pantries. Each of the regional Goodwill organizations (there’s something like 150 in North America) is completely independent group that makes its own decisions concerning what programs and services it offers, and only a handful choose to operate food pantries. The Goodwill in my area ([Western Missouri and Eastern Kansas](http://mokangoodwill.org)) for example offers a range of employment services, including sheltered employment, job training, job readiness, job search, and so forth, but they don’t do food and operate no food pantries. I’m not sure where the OP is located and what services might be available in that locale. If it is New York City, then I’m reasonably confidant that there are food banks open all day every day. There’s not in my town, and yes, here it would be possible to have a four-day stretch in which none of the food banks are open or have food available (not necessarily likely–it would require a holiday falling on an inconvenient day, or one of the food banks running out–but possible). I know of one Kansas town where the food bank is open only twice a month (1st Monday and 3rd Thursday, last I heard), although if you’ve got a food emergency at other times of the month you can contact the pastor at the Methodist church who will try to call the lady who runs the food bank. I think it’s a great idea to refer people to places that might be able to help, but assuring somebody that a given charity WILL be able to help or DOES offer such-and-such a service is not helpful unless you are absolutely certain that the service really is offered in whichever town is relevant. Yes, Goodwill has food pantries, except in all of the places where they have other services but not food. In some towns the Salvation Army has a food pantry with regular hours; in other locations, they operate a soup kitchen but no pantry, still other places have both, and a few Salvation Army outposts will try to meet individual needs but have no regularly scheduled food programs at all. ---
**Author:** ![Robert163](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/4af34b/32.png) [@Robert163](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robert163)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2015, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-homeless-person-who-has-not-eaten-for-4-days-go-to-the-emergency-room-and-get-food/736220/45 "2015-11-02T04:56:24Z")
> [@LibrarySpy](#): > > Your friend may already know the emergency food tricks in his location. > [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > To put it in perspective, lots of people simply cannot manage a monthly budget without any diagnosed mental or developmental disabilities/disorders/diseases. It’s not an easy thing to fix, for some people it just can’t be fixed, they’ll always live paycheck to paycheck and things will get real lean from time to time. I’m not talking about the people whose income is necessarily so low that it’s impossible for them to make it from one paycheck to the next without lean times, but the people who lack the financial management abilities to do so. It sounds like your friend is in that category, possibly due to his developmental disability. > [@Ambivalid](#): > > He could go to the ER and tell them he is feeling suicidal, they should admit him to the mental ward of the hospital and hold him for up to a week. Thanks for the comments… it was easier to help him when I still lived in NYC. Now, I live in another state… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-homeless-person-who-has-not-eaten-for-4-days-go-to-the-emergency-room-and-get-food/736220.md?page=2)