Earlier this fall, I sat in Chicago’s Daley Plaza during my lunch break. It was nice until a woman beside me fed French fries to a pigeon. Despite the adjacent “DO NOT FEED PIGEONS” sign, she seemed shocked when one pigeon became five, became 12, became 37. Birds swooped in from every direction. Feathers landed on shoulders and in salads. People grumbled as they scooted to new benches, away from bird land. Everyone glared at this French fry woman—this urban bird newbie. You just don’t feed pigeons in Chicago.
On Twitter this week, I noticed a photo of a similar “PLEASE DO NOT FEED THE PIGEONS,” sign, except someone drew a line across “pigeons” and wrote “homeless.” The photo was from an article NPR published about cities that have made it illegal to feed people experiencing homelessness. It’s a disturbing comparison. But it accurately reflects several city ordinances.
A report from the National Coalition for the Homeless says 21 cities have successfully restricted food-sharing practices since January 2013. More than 10 other cities have or are in the process of doing the same. Others have made homelessness itself a crime. Police in Birmingham, Alabama even barred a pastor from handing out hot dogs to homeless people beneath a viaduct because he didn’t have a food truck permit.
Food-sharing opponents argue the practice perpetuates homelessness. They argue handing out food is counterproductive and does not address the root cause of the problem.
The NCH report, however, addresses this argument and calls it a myth. The truth, the report says, is that individuals do not remain homeless because of food-sharing programs; people remain homeless due to a lack of affordable housing, a lack of job opportunities, mental health or physical disabilities. The homeless don’t ask for food because of some sort of pigeon-like operant conditioning. They ask because they’re hungry.
The report also addressed the assumption that food programs and meal centers are easily accessible and always available to the homeless, when this is rarely the case. “This belief grows stronger when the general public witnesses individuals/groups sharing food with people experiencing homelessness in public areas,” the report says. “People assume there must be places for low income people to eat three times a day, seven days a week.”
Michael Stoops, director of community organizing for NCH, told NPR that “in the best of all worlds, the homeless agencies get out of the office and go with ministry programs to bring services to where people are.”
Those ministry programs should be allowed to do just that. Because people are not pigeons. Feed them.
Image: Flickr Photo cc by aka Kath
