Orlando City Hall  

Dear Ms. Brenner:  

On behalf of the Stop The Ordinance Partnership (S.T.O.P.) I would like to thank you for your letter of September 8, 2006. I would also, however, like to express our disappointment with the city's letter. We certainly appreciate the city's acceptance of our offer for dialogue over the controversial anti-food sharing ordinance, but our experience to date forces us to question the City's sincerity in honestly addressing this important matter.  

To begin, the best time for dialogue would have been prior to the passing of the ordinance on July 24, 2006. During the time prior to this date, the City was well aware that the ordinance had generated a great deal of controversy. According to our investigation of the letters and electronic mail received by City Commissioners on the topic, for every one person in favor of the ordinance, eight were strongly opposed. Similarly, during both of the public readings of the ordinance, the citizens opposed to it greatly outnumbered those in favor. The City hastily passed the ordinance in spite of this overwhelming opposition. In addition, in its haste, the City violated procedure by passing the significantly amended ordinance during what should have been a first, and not a second reading on July 24, 2006.  

Further evidence of the City's refusal to join us in a dialogue on the topic was apparent in the City's immediate enforcement of the unpopular ordinance. Since July 24, 2006, faith-based and secular groups with years of charitable service in sharing food with the homeless in public parks have been harassed by the Orlando Police Department (OPD). In spite of the record number of homicides and the increase in serious crime in Orlando, large numbers of police officers have been frequently deployed to peaceful food-sharing activities and have threatened arrest if such sharing is continued. What is worse, the Orlando City Attorney and the OPD have broadly interpreted the ordinance to include food-sharing activities not contemplated by the ordinance. This arbitrary application of the ordinance has discouraged homeless people and homeless advocates from freely expressing their spiritual and/or moral beliefs in public areas.  

In addition, our attempt at dialogue during our food-sharing at City Hall was rebuffed on August 14, 2006. On that date, during our Dinner Dialogue, you were sent by the City to issue a feeding permit to Brian Nichols, Pastor of the First Vagabond Church of God and member of S.T.O.P. You stated that the permit was issued because the City Hall food-sharing was allegedly in violation of the ordinance. S.T.O.P. representatives explained to you, however, that there was no violation and no need for a permit since none of the several groups present individually planned to feed more than twenty people. When we entered City Hall to initiate a dialogue, we discovered that Mayor Dyer and all of the City Commissioners were unavailable. This was a surprise given the ample notice provided to the City regarding our desire for dialogue.  

Now, more than a month after our last attempt at dialogue, and after several previous attempts to communicate with the City, the City states that it is willing to open a dialogue. However, your letter narrowly frames the issues at stake regarding the ordinance. In fact, the letter evades any mention of the constitutional and public policy ramifications of the ordinance. Instead of addressing these fundamental issues, you have included a laundry list of City initiatives designed to benefit the homeless. S.T.O.P. applauds most of these initiatives, but they do not provide a justification for the anti-food sharing ordinance.  

Furthermore, regarding the list of initiatives you mention, Commissioner Robert Stuart affirms that the City has not been as earnest in implementing policies to remedy homelessness as your letter suggests. As Commissioner Stuart mentions in his letter to Mayor Dyer dated July 21, 2006, the City has effectively reduced Orlando's appropriations for social services and demonstrated with its ordinance a lack of compassion for those in need. Commissioner Stuart also rightly mentions that the ordinance criminalizes the homeless and many of those who try to help and minister to them. This fact brings us to the most important concerns surrounding the ordinance. The concerns are that in criminalizing food-sharing activities with the homeless, the City violates individual constitutional liberties, discourages acts of charity and compassion, and further stigmatizes and endangers homeless people.  

Accordingly, the real question regarding the ordinance is not, as your letter implicitly argues, whether or not food-sharing in public parks is the ultimate solution to the problem of homelessness. That question is a distraction and serves as a smoke screen for a bad policy. The real question is whether there are less draconian legal, moral, and practical alternatives to this ordinance. The answer to this question is resoundingly in the affirmative. We understand that our activities only help to alleviate, but do not definitively resolve, the enormous problem of homelessness. We also understand that every other public and private institution in Orlando only alleviates, but does not definitively resolve this problem. However, it does not matter if individual and group acts of compassion definitively resolve the problem of homelessness; what matters is that we are constitutionally permitted to carry out such acts.  

In light of the above, the City can understand our justifiable suspicions regarding the City's acceptance of our offer to dialogue. You can also understand, given the City's relatively recent policy of incarcerating homeless people in circumstances of apparent entrapment, S.T.O.P. is doubly suspicious. Together with the ordinance, this policy seems to confirm a general strategy to address this issue not by abolishing homelessness, but by making homelessness illegal.  

In spite of these suspicions, S.T.O.P. is interested in having a productive conversation with city officials. We would like to work with you in identifying and implementing legal and effective remedies to the problem of homelessness. As a sign of good faith, and in order to dispel the well-founded suspicions mentioned above, S.T.O.P. requests that the City repeal the anti-food sharing ordinance as soon as possible. The substantial and procedural defects in the ordinance provide sufficient grounds for such a repeal. We may then immediately convene a community summit on homelessness to discuss solutions for this serious social problem.  

In closing, S.T.O.P. looks forward to working with the City on finding viable and humane alternatives to homelessness. We look forward to the day when we are once again afforded the dignity of being able to sit down and share food in Orlando's public parks as our state and federal constitutions allow.

Sincerely,

George Crossley
for the Stop The Ordinance Partnership