Fort Lauderdale recently made national headlines for criminalizing charity under a new law regulating “Outdoor Food Distribution Centers.” One of the first people cited for violating the law was Arnold Abbott, the 90-year old founder of Love Thy Neighbor, the nonprofit interfaith organization that he founded in 1991 “to reduce and mitigate the existence of homelessness in Broward County.”
Any prosecutions under the law will undoubtedly fail, as Abbott and Love Thy Neighbor beat a similar Fort Lauderdale effort in state court in 2001.
However, Fort Lauderdale’s law evidences the disturbing national trend to criminalize people who organize themselves to share food charitably and publicly with people who are hungry, including “the homeless.”
In the post-Recession era of government austerity, anti-food sharing laws constitute the opposite of good governance: rather than criminalize charity, cities should seek to stimulate social solidarity and to cultivate charity among the citizenry.
Whether motivated by religious belief, like Abbott and Love Thy Neighbor, or by political belief, like the individuals who share food under the slogan of “Food, Not Bombs!,” cities should respect, rather than criminalize, individuals who exercise their liberty to associate for the purpose of sharing food — especially in publicly owned properties like parks, sidewalks and streets, which the United States Supreme Court has recognized since 1939 as “traditional public forums,” places held in trust for public assembly in order to discuss pressing questions of the day, such as hunger in America.
Marc-Tizoc González is an associate professor of law at St. Thomas University School of Law.
