Santa Monica City Council passes ordinance making it illegal to feed more than 150 homeless in public
By Sarah Carrillo
News Assistaint
Helping the needy is usually not considered a crime, but those wishing to serve food to the homeless in Santa Monica may soon be serving something else — jail time.
The Santa Monica City Council passed an ordinance Oct. 22 that makes it illegal to distribute food to more than 150 homeless on a public street or sidewalk without a permit.
Violators of this law may receive a fine of up to $1,000 or six months jail time.
The ordinance will go into effect between Thanksgiving and New Years, but according to Santa Monica Human Services, it will not be enforced until next year.
Other ordinances passed regarding the homeless include prohibiting standing or lying in doorways in the downtown and Main Street areas and increasing protection for tenants of rental properties against the homeless.
The first reading of the ordinance was Oct. 8 in response to a report conducted by the city council regarding the homeless community in Santa Monica.
It passed on a 5-2 vote at both the first and second readings, with Mayor Michael Feinstein and Mayor Pro Tempore Kevin McKeown casting the dissenting votes. The author of the ordinance, City Attorney Marsha Moutrie, said in a press release that the ordinance deals with health code standards that need to be followed while distributing food and that the new law only enforces codes that are already in place.
Feinstein said that the health codes are only a pretense for the real purpose of the law, getting rid of the homeless population.
“It simply was dishonest government,” Feinstein said. “They’re trying to drive out the homeless on a pretense of health codes.”
According to Feinstein, the problem with the ordinance is that it appears to be helping the homeless by forcing volunteers to follow health code standards, but in reality it does more harm than good.
Research has shown that there have not been any reported cases of food poisoning among the homeless in Santa Monica and that diseases relating to malnutrition are the main problems homeless people face.
Malnutrition problems will not be solved by limiting the amount of food the homeless receive.
“It would be a big shame if (feeding the homeless) was curtailed in any way,” Dr. Kevin Iga, assistant professor of mathematics said. Iga often volunteers feeding the homeless and has been working to fight the ordinance. “The law violates the rights of those who want to give out food and violates the rights of the homeless to be fed,” he said.
Santa Monica City Council Member Richard Bloom said he thinks the ordinance will help the homeless get off the streets and get the help they need.
“It’s going to provide an incentive to connect with our service providers and get assistance,” Bloom said. “I think things are so bad, anything we do will move things in a positive direction.”
Critics of the ordinance, like Feinstein, say that it is merely a way to rid Santa Monica of its homeless community. Feinstein said that Santa Monica does carry a burden in that many other cities have pushed their homeless onto Santa Monica, but he also stressed that forcing the homeless away will not solve the problem.
“It is true that other communities take advantage of us,” Feinstein said. “But we must resist the short-term impulse to push (homelessness) away.”
Supporters of the ordinance have said that in light of recent economic problems, businesses would benefit from stricter guidelines regarding the homeless. Feinstein said he disagrees.
“In economic hard times we should be helping the less fortunate, not pushing them away,” he said. “We are playing with fire when we make our compassion be a function of how we’re doing economically. Business is down overall and it is easy to scapegoat the homeless.”
Ashley Nolan, projects coordinator for the Pepperdine Volunteer Center, said she believes that while the ordinance may seem like a good short-term solution, it will ultimately cause problems for the homeless.
“Although this ordinance may provide temporary relief for the city, it only makes it more difficult for the homeless,” Nolan said. “While the ordinance implies that the city is looking out for the interests of the homeless as well as its business owners and residents, it provides no alternative solution. … The city has not provided any real solution for the homeless population in the city; they have merely put a band aid on the issue. … Although taking peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to Ocean Park is not a long term solution either, at least it provides a lunch, a human touch, and a smile to a few more people.”
The Volunteer Center organized a trip to Ocean Park in Santa Monica during Step Forward Day this year to hand out food to the homeless. Other on-campus groups, like Rotoract, Psi Upsilon fraternity and Campus Ministry, regularly distribute food in Santa Monica. In the future, these groups will have to obtain a permit in order to continue their service if they serve more than 150 people.
Currently, the city council has not designed a process for obtaining the necessary permit to feed the homeless, but people are looking for ways to get around the law, like feeding the homeless in smaller groups.
Also, the city is encouraging those interested in feeding the homeless to work with local shelters and serve the food indoors.
“As someone who volunteers with such organizations too, (I know) the people in charge of these groups are already overwhelmed with the magnitude of the homelessness and poverty problems and are turning people away because of lack of resources,” Iga said in an e-mail interview. “If the idea is to get the poor into better programs, then why not push to get more resources to these programs, and as they are able to handle more homeless, their needs can be met, so that this ordinance would be unnecessary.”
Freshman Marcy Madrigal, who regularly volunteers feeding the homeless, said she is worried that the homeless will not go to the shelters even if their source of food is taken away.
“A lot of (the homeless) have too much pride to go to a shelter, but the will take food from me,” Madrigal said.
Feinstein said that the National Lawyers Guild may get involved in changing this ordinance when it goes into effect next year and there is a case involving it. Feinstein said he believes his speeches against the ordinance may provide some help in a case to change or abolish the ordinance in court.
“I feel that I exposed what I thought to be the hypocrisy of the law,” Feinstein said.
October 31, 2002
