AMERICA THE ODD-BALL (CHRISTIANS' ALERT!): Texas Chef Hit With Possible US$2,000 Fine For Feeding The Homeless (What’s The Crime?) - SPECIAL REPORT

Photo By Kin Man Hui/San Antonio Express-News 

Joan Cheever, founder of The Chow Train, puts a piece of bread on a plate given to an individual at Maverick Park on Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2013. Cheever and other volunteers have cooked gourmet-level meals to feed the homeless and the hungry for years. The non-profit group serves meals at various locations around San Antonio and recently served up a Thanksgiving meal to feed the needy. Cheever primarily does the cooking of all the food which she gets from donations.

RT.com / IPS report continue:

A Texas chef who has fed San Antonio’s homeless population for the past 10 years from a non-profit mobile food truck was suddenly cited and fined by local police for feeding the homeless.

Despite the ticket being issued a week earlier, Joan Cheever, founder of a San Antonio mobile food truck called the Chow Train, was nevertheless out feeding the homeless on Tuesday. There has been an outpouring of support for Cheever after news of the ticket surfaced, which she still has to fight in court in June – and which she said she would do under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

Cheever told Texas Public Radio she was inspired by the show of support.

“It warms my heart but it doesn’t surprise me because the community is behind me and they are behind every other nonprofit that does what I do and there are a lot of them,” she said.

A week ago, four bike-patrol police officers stopped in the park where she was feeding homeless people. They asked about her license and her permit. Cheever is a licensed food handler but police found the permit had expired and was issued for a truck – not the car that the food was transported into the park with. Police said she was being cited for transporting and serving the food from a vehicle other than a truck.

The ticket carries a potential fine of US$2,000. As a result, Cheever said she would fight the ticket under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a federal and state law that protects the free exercise of religion, which she says her charitable work qualifies for. She is due in court on June 23.

Cheever’s philanthropy is well-established and her efforts were featured on the nationally syndicated Rachel Ray cooking show in November.

Cheever's fine is the latest in a series of efforts by local governments to discourage people from feeding the homeless in public space. In Florida, Fort Lauderdale police twice arrested a 90-year old pastor last fall for feeding homeless people. In the past two years, 21 cities have restricted street feeding of homeless people, citing public safety.

However, street feeders and their legal advocates say the campaign is part of an effort to keep the homeless population out of sight – and part of a national trend to criminalize poverty.

A new report by the Institute of Policy Studies found that many local governments, strapped for cash after the 2008 financial crisis, were bilking the poor through elaborate schemes of “offender-financed criminal justice services.”

The report argues that while there has always been prejudice and stigma about poverty in the US, the criminal justice system expanded misdemeanor charges in the midst of the financial crisis, which led to an increase in fees, fines and court charges that can be levied.

“As state and local budgets were squeezed following the 2008 recession, local authorities all over the country levied more fines and fees on those people least able to pay – and aggressively pursued them,” said Karen Dolan, an IPS fellow and lead author of the report, titled, ‘The Poor Get Prison: TheAlarming Spread of Criminalization of Poverty.’

These increases also aligned with the privatization of probation services in operating jails and prisons. The report, for the first time, brings together disparate news stories and studies that illustrate the broad movement underway that involves criminalizing poor people and trapping them in the criminal justice system for errant behavior such as truancy, not paying parking fines or sleeping on a park bench.

The report refers to a state-by-state investigation by National Public Radio into the fines, which found that since 2010, 48 states have increased criminal and civil court fees as governments passed many of the costs of running the criminal justice system on to defendants. 

Apart from targeting the poor with fines, and the resurgence of a “debtors’ prisons,” the report shows increased arrests against homeless people, as well as those feeding the homeless, and suggests that governments are criminalizing life-sustaining activities such as sleeping in public when no shelter is available.

Volunteers hand out food to the homeless and needy at McPherson Square in Washington (AFP Photo / Saul Loeb)

Florida Town Threatening Volunteers Who Feed Homeless

Authorities in Daytona Beach, Florida have increased efforts to dissuade unofficial organizations from feeding the city’s homeless, threatening trespassing fines to longtime Good Samaritans should they counter the city’s official social services plan.

A group of volunteers who have prepared food for the Daytona Beach homeless population – or anyone who is hungry, the organizers say – for the past year were given citations and trespass warnings by law enforcement this week.

The city, like dozens of local municipalities across the United States, is attempting to discourage groups outside the approved channels from offering assistance, in hopes of funneling charity to centralized homeless services in the area, the Daytona Beach News-Journal reported.

“The ordinance is there, so if we catch you, we're going to cite you,” Police Chief Mike Chitwood said. “If you want to feed people, and you want to do a good, Christian act, we encourage you to coordinate with the social service agencies.”

Chico and Debbie Jimenez, founders of Spreading the Word Without Saying a Word, and their volunteers were targeted this week at Manatee Island Park despite their reportedly responsible, respected efforts to feed the hungry. Their citations amounted to threats of a $273 fine for trespassing and $100 fine for facility use without a permit.

“We feed anybody that's hungry,” Chico Jimenez said.

“Even if you're not homeless,” Debbie Jimenez added. “We don't care. If you're hungry, eat. We're not here to change any laws or anything. We just want to help. These people have become our friends. They depend on us. It's not like they're just 'some people,'” she told the News-Journal.

The pair said they would challenge the citations.

The city maintains that a no-feeding law has long been on the books, though Chief Chitwood admitted that the city’s efforts to steer social services to its preferred system has boosted police vigilance.

“We've always done it,” Chitwood said of enforcing the law. “But clearly we're hoping we're on the threshold here of making this Safe Harbor project come through. There's plenty of places and plenty of ways you can do acts of charity without violating an ordinance.”

Daytona Beach recently hired a “nationally known consultant,” Robert Marbut, to develop its plans for Volusia Safe Harbor, a transitional shelter still at the proposal level. The shelter would become the city’s centralized outlet for homeless to depend on for food and other services.

Marbut, the News-Journal reported, has told city officials that charity groups feeding or offering supplies to homeless in parks is not the kind of long-term assistance needed to improve the lives of the homeless.

The Jimenezes both quit their jobs to begin their ministry. Their operation seeks to gather donations to assist those in need with hotel stays, power bills, bicycles, and other equipment. They argue that their food is far better and nutritious than what the area homeless get from the local government.

Plus, they say that city and county agencies don’t want competition from groups like theirs, as their efforts take patrons away from local municipalities’ programs, meaning less funding. 
“If we were criminals, it'd be one thing,” said Diane Clester, one of the ministry's volunteers who was cited by police this week. “But we're not...When we leave, there isn't a scrap of paper on the ground, nothing. Within an hour and a half, they're done and gone.”