California city arrests a dozen people for passing out food and toiletries to homeless people

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Think Progress


El Cajon made it illegal to pass out food on city property last fall.
ALAN PYKE
JAN 16, 2018, 10:40 AM

A dozen people including a 14-year-old kid were given misdemeanor citations on Sunday in El Cajon, California, after they defied the city’s recently enacted ban on distributing food to the needy on public land.

Local charities intend to challenge the law in court. Sunday’s arrests will help give them standing to bring their case. A group called Break the Ban has vowed to push forward with another scheduled food distribution day near the end of the month.

El Cajon is not alone in using the criminal justice system to intercede between charitable people and those in need. Police in Daytona Beach, Florida, cracked down on food distributors there in 2014. Civic leaders in nearby Fort Lauderdale enacted a similar ban later that year. More than two-dozen other cities around the country moved to criminalize the distribution of food to homeless people that same year, according to research from the National Coalition for the Homeless.

If Break the Ban is able to sue and win, it too will be in good company. Dallas, Texas, ended up paying a quarter-million-dollar settlement in 2014 to a network of charities that sued over that city’s restrictions on service provision to homeless people.

Read more: https://thinkprogress.org/homeless-food-arrests-california-26d00b85a428/

[TheMastersNemesis]

1. Very Nazi Like.

[Fred Sanders]

2. Passing out potentially unsanitary food in bulk is the issue mentioned later in the article.

"El Cajone is a peculiar example of the trend. The city of roughly 100,000 passed the ordinance last November, after a Hepatitis A outbreak in the San Diego area which infected more than 500 and killed about 20 had been in the news for months."

[LanternWaste]

4. Homelessness being nuisance is another issue mentioned.

Curbing charitable interaction with those living outdoors due to being a "nuisance" is also mentioned.

[aggiesal]

3. Just stand 10 feet off the curb, ...

and there's nothing they can do about it!

10 Feet from the curb is no longer city property,
unless of course you're on city property on City Hall.

Other then that, once you're 10 feet off, you are on
private property regardless what the city says.

[Plucketeer]

8. And make sure

the PRIVATE property you're handing out from has given you consent to do so.

[Joanie Baloney]

5. The Hep A reasoning is BS

Yes, we have a Hep A outbreak in San Diego County. But the food is not the issue. It's the lack of bathroom facilities and hand-washing stations that cause the homeless to use the streets as their bathroom. If the city of El Cajon provided proper facilities in the park (the bathrooms were locked), there would be no issue with the food.

I agree - move the food distribution to a private home/yard or church and nobody would be arrested.

I hope the PD who threw these volunteers in jail slept well last night.

-JB

[Vinca]

6. It's as if goodness and basic human decency are being outlawed in this country.

[packman]

7. Blessed is he who is generous to the poor -

Seems to fly in the face of Biblical teachings - feeding the poor and the homeless.

[Plucketeer]

9. That "Operators Handbook" - the Bible -

Is only consulted when it serves them.

[truthisfreedom]

10. Purell should be distributed with food for safe handling.

It’s stupid to hand out food to people who cannot clean up to eat. Use some sense.

[BumRushDaShow]

12. We went through that in Philly 6 years ago

in 2012 thanks to mayor Nutjob. The courts put an injunction on the ban not long after and last year, with a new mayor, the ban was torpedoed altogether.

[turbinetree]

13. Way to go, waste taxpayer money, instead, I don't know and start some programs with

money to help human beings work if able, provide housing so they can get a job with an address, where they are staying...................

what a fucked up country, really.................no common sense, just let human beings go fucking hungry, they cannot even put themselves in that persons shoes, just maybe the civic assholes, should go and stand on a street corner for six months, with nothing , and then come back and have a a fucking conversation-------------other industrialized countries "provide" protection, not here, your a eye sight and your sore, so ship them off, whats next badges on clothes for identification------------------

[aggiesal]

14. Don't give them any ideas n/t