January brought some of the most brutally cold weather in years to the eastern U.S. In Elgin, Ill., Greg Schiller recognized the threat such cold posed to the area’s many homeless people and decided to allow some of them to spend nights in his heated basement.

Last November, officials in Atlanta ticketed people who were handing out free food to the poor and homeless for “unlicensed operation of a food service establishment.” Baltimore also requires organizations to obtain a food-service license before feeding the homeless. Wilmington, N.C., simply prohibits the sharing of food on city streets and sidewalks.

Orlando prohibits sharing food with more than 25 people in city parks sans a permit, which can only be granted to any one group twice a year.

New York City requires all charitable assistance to the poor to pass through one of eight municipally approved organizations. Other municipalities have used zoning ordinances to hamstring homeless shelters.

Of course, few would argue that charity can replace all government efforts to help the poor. But the charitable impulse is still an unequivocal good vital to individual liberty, and every time the government tries to check it, society as a whole loses out.

Read the full article on charity by Michael D. Tanner at Cato Institute