#food not bombs houston

[juliansdiary2]

Houston Really people are homeless and you don’t care. This organization is called Food Not Bombs any feed the homeless in downtown Houston

[gen-z-superheroes]

(Source) Charitable Organization "Food not Bombs" getting ticketed for feeding the Homeless outside of a public library.

Good news is that so far (as of December 21st 2023) all of their cases have either been dismissed or won in court! (source)

The tickets are being written under the Feeding Ordinance passed in 2012 under Mayor Anise Parker (source) Residents of Houston feel free to write to the mayor's office and tell them to get rid of the Feeding Ordinance!

Help them pay the tickets

Donate to the Houston Peace & Justice Center

[nando161mando]

[dagwolf]

HOUSTON, Texas, May 11 (Reuters) - In Houston, Texas, a nonprofit group has been in a stand-off with local authorities over their feeding of homeless people in front of the city's library.

The Houston chapter of Food Not Bombs, an international organization which promotes sharing vegetarian food with others, has been issued tickets by police 23 times since March.

The group argues that the city's homeless rely on them and they have been feeding them four times a week for more than ten years in that location. But local authorities say it has made the area unwelcoming for families and put them off visiting the library.

As the United States battles with an epidemic of homelessness in the wake of the pandemic, the clash goes to the heart of difficulties authorities and advocates face in balancing the desire to help those in need while also considering local residents.

The citations issued by Houston police carry a fine of between $50 and $2,000, under a 2012 city ordinance that requires anyone feeding more than five people on public or private property to obtain permission from the property owner.

Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said he started enforcing the ordinance in March because the environment surrounding the library - located across the street from Turner's City Hall office - had deteriorated.

"Families, parents, are now more reluctant to bring their children and to walk through that population," Turner said. "And so we are losing a critical asset for families, for children, and for others who need to utilize the library."

He said the group could instead use an alternative location - the nearby parking lot of a Houston police station, where the city provides food to the homeless.

Food Not Bombs volunteers said they had not seen any evidence of an uptick in violence in the area of the library and that they were not comfortable with the suggested alternative location, feeling the police would have too much sway there.

"We come out here, we serve, we go, and we do it with dignity. And then you got a lot of homeless that are scared of police officers," said volunteer Shere Dore, adding that many experiencing homelessness also rely on the library to charge their phones, access the internet, use the restroom or simply escape the weather.

For Billy Joe Garcia, a 38-year-old man from Stafford, Texas, who has experienced homelessness for the past two years, the services provided by Food Not Bombs offer him sustenance and social connection.

"Having a place like here to go to ... is crucial," Garcia said. "Because you get to see new people and you get to have a decent way of living."

Soon after Food Not Bombs received their first ticket on March 1, a volunteer filed a federal lawsuit against the city of Houston, challenging the constitutionality of the city's food-sharing ordinance.

In the meantime, Turner is committed to enforcing the law.

"We have said to those who have been feeding people in front of the central library... that that will be no more," Turner said. "And if you persist, even after we have provided a much more suitable location, then citations will be issued."

[joe-england]

Let's talk about Texas, definitions, and people....

[vaguegrant]

A trial of a woman has been delayed after lawyers were unable to find jurors willing to entertain the possibility of fining her for feeding unhoused people outside of a library. [...] It's unclear if the trial against Meadows will eventually proceed, but the delay is nothing new for the city of Houston, which reportedly failed to win any of the 90 cases filed against volunteers from Food Not Bombs. The group, which recovers food that would otherwise go to waste in order to serve people struggling with hunger, has been handing out meals outside of Houston's Central Library downtown for around 20 years, per the Chronicle.

Good.

[irlpretear]

GREAT NEWS EVERYONE!!!

[whitesinhistory]

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punkwithacamera:

In order to have a food service location approved by the city you need to have three things. Two porta potties that are available to the public 24/7. 10 available parking spaces, and adequate trash collection. We’re not sure about the trash collection, but we can confirm that the other two are not being followed by the city. They have ticketed food bombs 93 times for hosting what they call an illegal food service event.

[bfscr]

Houston's Food Not Bombs feeds homeless on Christmas Day

84 tickets and counting; my court dates are in February now

[bfscr]

We won a federal injunction against the court giving us more tickets (already over 90)

Source

Source

[nando161mando]

"A man has been found not guilty of breaking a law against feeding homeless people in Houston, concluding the first trial to be held after dozens of tickets were issued against volunteers for the group Food Not Bombs."

https://bird.makeup/users/ap/statuses/1686882303618727937

[virtuissimo]

Help Houston chapter of Food Not Bombs

The 10-year-old ordinance in Houston making it illegal to provide food for the houseless except in extremely niche circumstances was never enforced, but HPD have begun cracking down on volunteers providing food and aid on the streets.

Since this past March, volunteers have been ticketed and fined from anywhere between $2,000 and $10,000 for feeding the hungry. The official charge on the ticket? "CONDUCT A FOOD SERVICE EVENT (FEED HOMELESS)."

If you have anything to spare, please consider donating to the Houston Peace and Justice Center, the fiscal sponsor for the Houston Food Not Bombs chapter.

[javaveggiedude]

Jesus would certainly ignore those Roman soldiers and continue to feed people.

Food Not Bombs Houston receives their 83rd ticket for conducting food service on public library grounds after hours.

[whiteshipnightjar]

Does art make a difference?

Aw, sure. Of course there are degrees of extremity to the potential change that art can effect, depending on how many people are able to engage with it. The Beatles made a huge difference in the world. But Henry Darger, Jeff McKissack, Karen Dalton, Pauline Oliveros, Kenneth Patchen – there are so many folks who have made great art and not gotten massively famous for it, yet I think there are all sorts of ways their work informs and shapes other people’s work, and brains, and decisions.

Should politics and art mix?

Well, everything mixes, the New Statesman! That’s like asking if a knee-reflex hammer and a quadriceps tendon should “mix”.

Is your work for the many or for the few?

That’s for the many/few to say. I just crank out the hot jams.

If you were world leader, what would be your first law?

Gravity. I feel like we need to tighten up the constitutional protections that particular law enjoys. It’s a ticking time bomb, if you ask me.

Who would be your top advisers?

Cute angel on one shoulder, cute devil on the other.

What, if anything, would you censor?

Maybe we could all agree to not bust each other’s chops all cut-dang day.

If you had to banish one public figure, who would it be?

Don’t know, banishment might be a little extreme, but I’d sure like to take that Stephen Hawking dude down a notch or two. Right? Are you with me?

What are the rules that you live by?

Basically, “bros before hos”. I feel like if you stay true to that, everything else just kind of falls into place.

Do you love your country?

I love William Faulkner, Dolly Parton, fried chicken, Van Dyke Parks, the Grand Canyon, Topanga Canyon, bacon cheeseburgers with horseradish, Georgia O’Keeffe, Grand Ole Opry, Gary Snyder, Gilda Radner, Radio City Music Hall, Big Sur, Ponderosa pines, Southern BBQ, Highway One, Kris Kristofferson, National Arts Club in New York, Ruth Crawford Seeger, Joni Mitchell, Ernest Hemingway, Harriet Tubman, Hearst Castle, Ansel Adams, Kenneth Jay Lane, Yuba River, South Yuba River Citizens League, “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore”, “Hired Hand”, “The Jerk”, “The Sting”, “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”, clambakes, lobster rolls, s’mores, camping in the Sierra Nevadas, land sailing in the Nevada desert, riding horseback in Canyon de Chelly; Walker Percy, Billie Holiday, Drag City, Chez Panisse/Alice Waters/slow food movement, David Crosby, Ralph Lauren,San Francisco Tape Music Center, Albert Brooks, Utah Phillips, Carol Moseley Braun, Bolinas CA, Ashland OR, Lawrence KS, Austin TX, Bainbridge Island WA, Marilyn Monroe, Mills College, Elizabeth Cotton, Carl Sandburg, the Orange Show in Houston, Toni Morrison, Texas Gladden, California College of Ayurvedic Medicine, Louis Comfort Tiffany, Saturday Night Live, Aaron Copland, Barack Obama, Oscar de la Renta, Alan Lomax, Joyce Carol Oates, Fred Neil, Henry Cowell, Barneys New York, Golden Gate Park, Musee Mechanique, Woody Guthrie, Maxfield Parrish, Malibu, Maui, Napa Valley, Terry Riley, drive-in movies, homemade blackberry ice cream from blackberries picked on my property, Lil Wayne, Walt Whitman, Halston, Lavender Ridge Grenache from Lodi CA, Tony Duquette, Julia Morgan, Lotta Crabtree, Empire Mine, North Columbia Schoolhouse, Disneyland, Nevada County Grandmothers for Peace; Roberta Flack, Randy Newman, Mark Helprin, Larry David, Prince; cooking on Thanksgiving; Shel Siverstein, Lee Hazlewood, Lee Radziwill, Jackie Onassis, E.B. White, William Carlos Williams, Jay Z, Ralph Stanley, Allen Ginsberg, Cesar Chavez, Harvey Milk, RFK, Rosa Parks, Arthur Miller, “The Simpsons”, Julia Child, Henry Miller, Arthur Ashe, Anne Bancroft, The Farm Midwifery Center in TN, Martha Graham, Alvin Ailey, Jr., Eleanor Roosevelt, Clark Gable, Harry Nilsson, Woodstock, and some other stuff. Buuuut, the ol’ U S of A can pull some pretty dick moves. I’m hoping it’ll all come out in the wash...

Are we all doomed?

If we keep our expectations pretty low I think we might be fine. I mean, we’re definitely all dying at some point. There’s no getting around that. But between now and then, things might start looking up!

— Joanna Newsom for The New Statesman, 2008