Share or Perish: West Palm Beach FNB faces extinction

No less egregious than the unabashedly unmasked right wing’s protofascist assaults on the freedoms of women, Blacks, LGBTQ people, refuge-seeking immigrants, public school and university students and academics, are the Democrat Party’s decades’ long serial oppression of the least among us.  While the Biden administration touts another slate of half measure reforms to solve homelessness, as has been the norm since the government’s trashing of public housing starting in the 1970’s, and the advent of institutionalized homelessness in the 80’s, city after city, most with Dem leadership, continue to pass laws which undermine houseless* individuals’ very ability to survive.

While those living in shelters, by definition, are also houseless, it’s the unsheltered population which feels the brunt, and often the physical brutality of laws which criminalize their very existence: where they sit, lie and bed down; their ability to ask for help (aka panhandle); and also, striking at their ability to survive, the right of both faith-based and secular, political orgs like Food Not Bombs (FNB) to publicly share meals.  Beyond meeting an essential need by providing healthy food, FNB bears with its name and politics a message opposing militarism and war. In other words, FNB is engaging in First Amendment protected speech, and federal courts have said as much (e.g., the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in FNB Ft. Lauderdale v. City of Ft. Lauderdale).

The reason for invoking D Party culpability is because the vast majority of large cities, many of which are home to FNB groups, are led by Democrat mayors, as Ft. Lauderdale was when it passed its infamous and now rescinded food sharing ban in 2014. FNB in Houston, another D Party led and the fourth most populous city in the U.S., has seen several of its members arrested for sharing food in recent weeks.  And as of last week, West Palm Beach, FL, headed by Dem mayor Keith James, has added its name to the litany of municipal lunacy which dictates that sharing food with hungry and primarily houseless folk is a criminal act. This isn’t James’ and the city’s first foray into an unconstitutional cul de sac.

A little over two years ago, with City Attorney Kimberly Rothenburg backing him with bad legal advice, he pushed through an ordinance banning panhandling despite clearly established case law that defined the ordinance as unconstitutional right out of the gate. James’ bombastic pronouncement from center stage on the city commission dais just prior to the law’s passage at the tail end of 2020 was, “This law does not criminalize homelessness,” which he then repeated for emphasis. But the mayor doth protest too much and, as many predicted, the city was sued in federal court by three houseless plaintiffs and forced to rescind its unconstitutional panhandling ban less than a year after its introduction.  James, a Harvard Law School grad who perhaps skipped his constitutional law classes, spoke not a word. Demagoguery means never having to say you’re sorry.

When it comes to food sharing, even international treaties define having access to food, along with housing and other basic needs, as a fundamental human right.  The United States, notwithstanding its forever genocidal history of slavery, Jim Crow and dispossessions of Native and African peoples both domestically and around the globe, has supported these treaties.  Make that, kind of supported.

About 70 years ago, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), an agreement on the order of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, came into being at the United Nations.  Part 3 of the Covenant laid out the rights to food, housing, health, education and even recognized in detail needs like the protection of children via mechanisms like paid parental leave.

As of three years ago, according to Wikipedia, the vast majority of nations or parties, 171 in all, had ratified their support. The US, meanwhile, signed but didn’t ratify the Covenant.  In practice of course the US, the wealthiest nation in the world, is far from realizing the Covenant’s ideals and in many regards is regressing away from them. And while food prices have skyrocketed over the past two years for those who can still afford to buy it, the denial of food altogether when it comes to houseless individuals is another order of magnitude on the spectrum of pernicious neoliberalism, a feature of which is limiting access to traditional public spaces if not completely privatizing them.

On April 1, Food Not Bombs West Palm Beach members will face the prospect of being treated as criminals for sharing food at Nancy Graham Centennial Square, a lovely triangular waterfront park in the bustling downtown commercial zone.  Like hundreds of FNB members before them, they may be arrested for the simple act of sharing food and for acting on the belief that food is a right, not a privilege.  If the number of hungry people showing up for a meal numbers 25 or more on that or any day going forward, FNB members may be subject to a $500 fine and/or 60 days in jail.

The new food sharing ban – and make no mistake that it effectively is a ban, not simply a limitation – not only requires a permit for sharing with groups of 25+ but limits those permits to two per year per location.  Since WPB FNB’s tradition for 16 years has been to share food every Saturday afternoon, obeying the ordinance would put them out of business and leave a gap in the lives of houseless people who appreciate the camaraderie and healthy food as well as the regular distribution of other essentials, like clothes.  Only food sharing groups must comply with the 25 person cutoff, while other groups engaging in what the ordinance calls ‘public expression activities’ require a permit only if their number reaches 50 or more as stated in the law’s original language.

While the Republican and Democrat parties adhere to regimes of domination characterized by only superficial differences irrespective of how much their own and mainstream media propaganda claim otherwise, the task of those of us who see through their lies is to build humane, truly democratic alternatives as we resist unconscionable laws like bans on sharing food and more overtly murderous and genocidal manifestations of capitalism/imperialism/neoliberalism/techno-feudalism.  That being said, sharing food is even more than a right.  It’s an obligation.

In solidarity with those who are hungry, houseless and under attack…

Jeff Weinberger

October 22^nd Alliance to End Homelessness

SoFL Street Outreach Survey (SOS)