Three members of Orlando Food Not Bombs were arrested last week. Their alleged crime was to violate a local statute which outlaws "group feeding" in public parks. The group have been providing food to homeless people for several years. A U.S. District Court of Appeals in April ruled that the city had the right to regulate the 'feedings' and the penalty for violating the ordinance is 60 days in jail, a $500 fine or both.
Here in the UK, Westminster Council in London has now dropped it's controversial plans to ban rough sleeping. The question of soup runs, also originally included in the public consultation, is still being considered.
I worked with people affected by homelessness in London in the early 1990s. The organisation where I worked also had a 'soup run' where we would offer soup, sandwiches, blankets and advice to homeless people throughout the city, including the Westminster and Victoria areas. One of the most profound places to visit was Lincoln's Inn Fields where a large community of long term homeless people slept and congregated. I had by then become quite hardened to the spectre of human misery but some of the people we met in the Fields were some of the most vulnerable and desperate I think it would ever be possible to meet. The local law firms and businesses around the park mobilised and applied enough pressure for Lincoln's Inn Fields to be cleared of homeless people by 1992. In 1998 Lambeth Borough Council evicted rough sleepers from the Bullring, previously the sight of 'cardboard city' where up to 200 homeless people regularly slept.
The reasons given for not giving food to people and making it hellish hard for them to rough sleep or establish communities of mutually supportive rough sleepers, whether in New York, Orlando, the UK or anywhere seem well intentioned. People should be safe, warm and housed. Agreed but from my own experiences of working with people affected by homelessness this is easier said than done unless appropriate resources are invested and accurately deployed. For many people who have experienced homelessness it can be a cyclical experience. Few if any will tell you that this was a choice. The theory that denying people access to food and support where they are at will lead to a parade of vulnerable people looking to be accommodated and 'sorted' is naive. This is the official explanation but as with the Bullring, Lincoln's Inn Fields, New York and elsewhere; there is more than a hint of gentrification and out of sight, out of mind.
The recent issue in Westminster led to housing and homelessness agencies (not all of them mind), concerned citizens and homeless people to come together to campaign against the proposals. A flash mob was organised.
The public response and campaigns led to the plans being reconsidered.
Last year a series of flash mob Iftars were held across England where young Muslims distributed food to people, including in one event homeless people who had congregated around Lincoln's Inn Fields.
I think there is an innate goodness in people and a desire to help those people who we think need help. We can debate what is really the best way to help people as long as we like and I am very sympathetic to the argument that changing understanding, attitudes and the inequity of structures is the only really long term solution to homelessness. Hopefully though these two news items prove that people do care about each other and when they are told not to, they really, really care!
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