By: Whitney Hamrick [| Central Florida Future]
Posted: 5/14/07

A Lake Eola park supervisor's call to the police reporting a violation of the city's controversial large group feeding ordinance led to a UCF student getting banned from Lake Eola Park for a year.

Matt Houston, 22, psychology major and member of both Students for a Democratic Society and Orlando Food Not Bombs, said the trespass warning will not keep him out of the park. He plans to be back next week.

"I'm extremely saddened the city would go to these lengths," Houston said. "I have no regrets."

OFNB has shared hot organic-vegetarian meals with the homeless every Wednesday at 5 p.m. for the past two years and refuses to accept the ordinance as law.

Police officer Lac Vo stood before OFNB and the homeless and ordered everyone at the park to leave or receive trespassing citations. Vo drove her police cruiser through the crowded walkway of Thornton Park while she and others ordered everyone out.

The siren blared, and her voice boomed out of a loud speaker, "You are trespassing," she said. "All of you must leave the park now."

The flashing blue and red lights lit up the trees as the police car pushed through the crowd, forcing OFNB members and the homeless to move.

As Vo drove through the park, Houston casually moved picnic chairs in front of the cruiser's path - all the while holding a bowl of soup - to give other members time to get the food out of the park. That was when Houston was given a trespassing warning.

More officers were called, and a helicopter flew overhead as the homeless scattered.

"I understand they want to help people, but we have to do our job as well," Vo said.

Houston was not the first OFNB member to have a run-in with the police.

Eric Montanez, a 21-year-old pedicab driver, was arrested April 4, and is the first and only person to be arrested in connection with the large group feeding ordinance.

Montanez was released after three hours on $250 bond. Violation of the ordinance can carry penalties of up to a $500 fine and 60 days in jail. It's a misdemeanor charge. Montanez vows to continue.

"The government's inability to take care of the problem is a result of why we need to be here," Montanez said. "Because if the government is not going to take care of these people, then the community is going to stand up for it and rise up and take the slack. And until they fill the void, we will be here because we need to be here because people are going to go hungry."

Montanez is also a defendant in a separate lawsuit against the city, challenging the ordinance as unconstitutionally vague.

The ordinance prohibits feeding the homeless in public areas, without a permit, when the action encourages the gathering of more than 25 people within a two-mile radius of City Hall. Groups may have two permits a year.

"The problem is people need to eat more than twice a week," Houston said. "It's ridiculous. You can't feed the homeless, but you can feed the pigeons," he said.

The ordinance has gone through a variety of interpretations, all of which counted the homeless. Now, however, the homeless could be involved in the enforcement of the statute.

"What we are trying to do is make sure they understand the ordinance, not encouraging better organization. They don't want their people arrested. We don't want to arrest them, but if they break the law, they're giving us no choice," said Capt. Janice Kelly, the downtown division commander of the Orlando Police Department's bike patrol.

These confrontations with police lead to the disbursement of the homeless directly, which "effectively evicted people performing life-sustaining activities in a public park" without evidence or documentation that these people, in fact, were involved in the feeding other than assumptions based on appearance, according to John Berry, an attorney in the suit against the city.

After Houston pocketed his pink slip warning, the ACLU lawyers advised the others sitting and standing in the park in protest to move to the edge of the sidewalk at the cul-de-sac of Osceola. There the group stood behind a sign that read, "Orlando Food Not Bombs! We won't stop until the last belly is full!"