For more than 15 years, volunteers for Houston Food Not Bombs have served free vegetarian meals to the needy in front of the Houston Central Library. But that charity could cost them. Citing a city ban on sharing food with homeless people, Houston has in recent months issued at least 48 citations to volunteers. If those tickets are upheld in court, the volunteers could be forced to pay almost $25,000 in fines.
“Criminalizing the act of charity is a bad law and should never have been passed or enforced,” attorney Paul Kubosh, who is representing some of the volunteers in court, told the Houston Chronicle.
A Houston Police Officer writes up Phillip Picone for violating the city's food-sharing ban in March ... [+]
Although Houston first enacted its ban on “charitable food services” in 2012, it wasn’t enforced until March of this year. Under the law, groups can’t provide free food to more than five people, without the property owner’s permission, which includes public spaces.
Houston’s law is not unique. A 2019 report by the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty found that Houston was one of at least 17 cities that criminalize sharing food with homeless people, either citywide or in public places.
Founded as an antiwar group, the members of Houston Food Not Bombs aren’t going down without a fight. Last week, judges dismissed eight tickets after police officers failed to appear in court. The dismissals came on the heels of the first jury trial for the Houston Food Not Bombs tickets. After a few hours of deliberation, a jury unanimously found volunteer Phillip Picone not guilty in late July.
Picone, a devout Catholic, has also filed a federal lawsuit against the city, arguing that Houston’s food-sharing ban violated his First Amendment right to freedom of expression and freedom of religion. “If you were to look in the Catholic Bible, or any Bible, you’d see many references to feeding the hungry and feeding the poor,” Picone’s attorney, Randall Kallinen, told USA Today.
Similar lawsuits have succeeded in overturning other city bans. In 2021, the Eleventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals unanimously sided with the Fort Lauderdale chapter of Food Not Bombs and struck down the city’s food-sharing restrictions. The court’s decision built on a 2018 ruling that declared that feeding homeless people was “expressive conduct protected by the First Amendment.” “Providing food in a visible public space,” the Eleventh Circuit elaborated, “and partaking in meals that are shared with others, is an act of political solidarity meant to convey the organization’s message.”
Although those decisions only serve as binding precedent for cities within the Eleventh Circuit (which covers Florida, Georgia, and Alabama), their arguments could still prove persuasive for the judges who may hear Picone’s case.
Despite the setbacks, Houston shows no signs of backing down. In a statement, City Attorney Arturo Micnele declared that “the City of Houston intends to vigorously pursue violations of its ordinance relating to feeding of the homeless” and plans to refile the dismissed tickets. And on Wednesday, Mayor Slyvester Turner told the city council that “the citations will continue.”
