Outlawing the corporal works of mercy?

Social justice news
April 2007

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Outlawing the corporal works of mercy?

Outlawing the corporal works of mercy?
Advocates for the homeless contend that local ordinances against feeding people on the street are part of the trend to criminalize homelessness. They also violate freedom of religion.

"In the past couple of years enough cities have taken up these kinds of laws that we are concerned that this is becoming a new frontier of a way to target homeless people," said Tulin Ozdeger, a civil rights staff attorney with the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty.

Last year, Las Vegas made it illegal to feed an "indigent" person, "anyone who a reasonable person might perceive is receiving assistance," Ozdeger explained. NLCHP is involved in a lawsuit in Dallas opposing an ordinance that severely limits where feedings can take place. In Orlando an ordinance limits groups organizing large feedings to two such events a year to keep the feedings out of downtown parks. Other places with similar ordinances include Fort Myers, Florida; Gainesville, Florida; Fairfax County, Virginia; Wilmington, North Carolina; Atlanta; and Santa Monica, California.

While the ordinances differ, they often have constitutional problems. The vagueness of "indigent," for example, denies people their constitutional right of equal protection of the law. The American Civil Liberties Union has brought lawsuits against cities, saying the bans on feeding violate free speech, right to assembly, and the right to practice one's religion.

"Many groups sharing food are religious organization," Ozdeger said of the Dallas case, "and these restrictions place a burden on them." Some groups have stopped feedings. "We're concerned about the people they reach and whether they have access to food," she said.

While the feeding ordinance does not affect the ministries of Catholic Charities of Dallas, the organization is paying close attention to the case and fears such ordinance could go further and hurt its programs in which participants gets hot meals, said Sarah Burns, a marketing and communications associate. The city wants to protect themselves from lawsuits over food poisoning, she said, but she thinks they are just trying get rid of homeless people in downtown areas.

"We believe in Catholic social justice teaching that you should help everyone," Burns said. "If the homeless is a problem downtown, the city needs to help solve the problem, not just push it away."

The meaning behind such restrictions is just as worrisome as the restrictions themselves, says Jessica Schuler, a policy analyst with the National Coalition for the Homeless. "One of the real problems is these ordinances are sending the message that people homeless are second-class citizens," she says. "They shouldn't be seen in our downtown parks.They are invaluable members of our society."

Both NLCHP and NCH see this trend restricting ministry to the homeless as part of a wider trend to criminalize homelessness and make it less visible in wealthy downtown areas. Laws making it illegal to sleep on a park bench or perform other life-sustaining activities in public are becoming more common and also violate civil rights, according to Schuler and Ozdeger.

A Better Solution
City governments argue that restricting feedings in public places will force the homeless to seek out social service agencies such as soup kitchens and shelters, where they can get the help they need.

Although nationally Catholic Charities has not spoken out on the issue, Dan Buck, who runs a Catholic Charities organization in St. Louis, responded to a query agreeing with this rationale. After St. Patrick Center's outreach program stopped their 19-year street feeding program, he said, its engagement rate (the percentage of people come to the center for other services, such as job training or housing programs) rose from 10 percent to 60 percent.

"We were sustaining their homelessness," Buck said of the feeding program. While criminalizing homelessness isn't the most effective tactic, he added, advocacy shouldn't be focused homeless people's right to stay on the street. "Dignity is not found in protecting a person's right to a park bench."

NLCHP and NCH have taken active roles fighting anti-homeless and anti-feeding ordinances through both legal action and education because they believe such laws are counter productive. Laws against homelessness give people criminal records and make it harder to find jobs and housing, and studies have shown that jailing homeless people cost two or three times more than providing housing, Ozdeger said. Anti-feeding laws in particular just make it harder for homeless people, who often suffer from mental illness and lack transportation, to find a meal, Schuler said. Rather than solve the problem, it just forces them to move to an often less safe area of the city.

Complicating the issue is a lack of places for the homeless to go. In Orlando, for instance, shelter capacity (2,000 people), low-income housing, and permanent supportive housing do not meet the demand of the city's estimated 8,500 people who are homeless, according to the Associated Press.

Still, Schuler and Ozdeger agree with Buck that the solution lies in housing. Before such laws are introduced in other cities, Ozdeger would encourage people concerned with justice to work with their cities to "find ways that can help people move off of the streets without penalizing them."

"The threat of a legal challenge can provide an incentive of a city to find an alternative way" to confront homelessness, Ozdeger said. "But it's really helpful to mention that these [ordinances] are counter productive too."—Megan Sweas

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