Steve Lopez: Some Dana Point, Calif., residents say free meals just encourage homeless people to stay

They came on bikes, on foot and in vehicles for the nightly dinner at Doheny State Beach. Some of them work, some have homes but most don't, and all of them were grateful for the ham, chicken and sandwiches dished out by volunteers from local churches.

"It helps because it means I save on groceries," said Mandy Pittock, a jewelry designer who arrived in a small motor home that she has slept and worked in since bailing out of an $1,800-a-month apartment she could no longer afford.

But this act of charity, a ritual for roughly two decades in the affluent Orange County beach community of Dana