Homelessness Tour, Day 7: The Out-of-Reach Basics

The tall, neatly dressed thin man could have been a poster child for the Sunshine State with his bright yellow tank top and spotless white pants. Instead he was the target of local police. The issue? Drying his clothes on the Gainesville dog park fence across from the St. Francis Shelter and Soup Kitchen.

Pat LaMarche and I are into the 2nd week of our Southern (Dis)Comfort tour. Yesterday after our presentation hosted by the Big Bend Homeless Coalition in Tallahassee,  Pat and I stopped in at a laundromat to clear out our week's worth of dirty clothing and managed to spend about $10. I'd suspect this man didn't have the 10-spot to invest in looking respectable, but that didn't stop him from drying his clothes the old-fashioned way on a sunny, warm day. I watched as the police officer walked from the "offender," who then deliberately and neatly folded his wash, placing it in his carry-all satchel. He disappeared around the fence that supported his habit: hygiene.

Gainesville, Florida is a place where government leaders and power-brokers make life more miserable for those in misery. Their relentless and ridiculous campaign to limit the number of people who can eat at the local soup kitchens is a perfect example. From every angle, this arbitrary limit of 130 is designed to do nothing but harass the do-gooders and afflict the hungry. My December visit to Gator-land gave me the opportunity to examine this conflict firsthand. Food—a basic necessity—is generously donated by members of this community and graciously served by volunteers to hundreds of homeless and/or income-limited adults and children—then the City stepped in to impose a limit of 130 meals.

The controversy continues, with the City holding fast to their easily rectified position. At noon today as we stopped to see how things were going, no one was around except a group of vivacious volunteers from the University of Florida's Key Club standing idle by their pans of delicious looking food. The St. Francis Soup Kitchen had hit their limit at 11:30, after about an hour, and would risk losing their special use license by exceeding the 130. Then they'd lose everything they've worked so hard to do over the last 29 years of service to the disenfranchised and displaced in Gainesville.

I suppose it's a battle as old as the earth—rich developers vs. the poor and those who believe that people have a right to basics of food, clothing, shelter and the like. If it's not rich developers, it's rich and powerful legislators, or police.

So it's even more essential to fire up the petition to get this feeding limit removed. Meeting with steadfast activists from the Coalition to End the Meal Limit NOW! who attended our screening of on the edge, they effusively thanked signers of this petition which has generated over 3,000 emails to the mayor and council members. Yeah, they probably just hit the delete button, but it's 3,000 times that they have to think about being mean to the people in Gainesville who just want to get a bite to eat.

Seems to me that as our nation stumbles through this depression-recession, the least we can do is fight for those who have the least. Sometimes that's a fight for clean clothes and a plate of food.

Photo credit: Diane Nilan