In Florida you can’t use them at restaraunts or for buying prepared foods. However, I do agrees with the homeless arguement. Where are they to store meat and a pack of asparagus?
A good question.
If society really gave a damn about homelessness we would deal with it. In truth, liberals just want to feel like they are helping the homeless without making any hard choices. San Francisco once gave shopping carts to the homeless and showed them videos on how to dumpster dive for food. How compassionate.
The hard core homeless should be housed in "poor houses". They should be given the basics of life, treated with common courtesy and dignity. They should also be given duties that help support the cost of housing and feeding them. Plant and harvest food, work producing as much as possible of the things they need. Communes for the poor, so to speak.
We have a moral duty to help those truly in need. That duty means that in exchange for seeing that they get the basic needs for living that they put forth some effort to assist us in doing so.
Giving people cash to buy junk food is not giving them "dignity" and it's not teaching them how to "manage money", contrary to the notions of the "Great Society". People don't manage money that is given to them, they manage money that they earn.
Some years ago, in the Chicago projects, the authorities attempted to require that those living in free housing share the duties of maintaining that free housing. Clean windows, paint, mow grass and pick up trash. Jesse Jackson and his cronies staged protests and called it slavery. Liberals were apoplectic. Expecting people to pick up their own garbage in exchange for free food and housing is slavery? Well, that idea went down in flames in a hurry.
Anything less than a complete reevaluation of society's obligations to the needy and how to fulfill those obligations is a waste of time. Cutting soda and junk food from food stamps is fine, but changes nothing.