General

Picnic in the Park

Sunday, 07 November 2004
All day

Organizer: FOOD NOT BOMBS Tampa

Click here for the history of Food Not Bombs.
Food not bombs is an international movement of people who work along autonomous, egalitarian, decentralized, organization in order to share vegan and vegetarian food with the hungry and homeless, as well as protest social, economic, environmental, and animal injustice world wide.
Our three main principles are food recycling, non-violence, and consensus.
We feel food, being a substance necessary to sustain life, is a right, not a privilege.
According to the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, Article 25: Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
We feel that the government spends too much money on weapons and war, and not enough to attend to the basic needs of its people.
We feel that by spending money on war instead of its own people, the government's main priority lies outside its own borders.
According to the Congressional Budgeting Office, the United State's will spend over $400 billion on defense alone, and only $387 billion on all other services (Table 10).
We do not feed the homeless. We have picnics and share food with anyone. The most hungry happens to be the homeless. We don't feed them. The food is shared; we sit with them, talk to them, and learn from them. This is not a soup kitchen or any other impersonal service.

Who is Hungry and Why?

According to the US Census, 12.1% (34.6 million people) of the population are current in poverty.
According to America's Second Harvest, the number of Americans who were hungry or food insecure was 33.6 million in 2001.
23.3 million people sought emergency food relief from their network of services in 2001.
The number of homeless people living in America is unknown, however the National Coalition for the Homeless cites an Urban Institute study which says that 3.5 million people (1.35 million children) will experience homelessness in any given year.
In Florida, America's Second Harvest states that the poverty rate is 12%, and that the childhood poverty rate is 18.8%.
The Homeless Coalition of Hillsborough County counts 6,481 homeless people.
There is no single cause of homelessness in the United States.
Some reasons include lack of jobs, lack of a living wage, decline in public assistance, a lack of affordable housing, lack of affordable health care, domestic violence, mental illness, substance abuse (this may often begin after becoming homeless, as a way to deal with the harsh reality of living on the street).
The Homeless Coalition of Hillsborough says the two biggest trends of homelessness in the county are a shortage in affordable housing and a rise in poverty, although other factors do have an influence.
There are homeless because our society needs them. It needs people on the bottom and it needs minimum wage earners/"flexible" labor/a reserve army of labor, etc. Why criminalize what we're doing? Doing what we are doing threatens the status quo, social stratification, the "necessary" reserve.. We are lifting the homeless up and treating them as equals - it's revolutionary.

Why Not Get a Permit?

See the main page, Information section, for all the documents the police have given us.
The permit application is expensive, around $100, although the application fee can be waved for non-profit organizations.
We cannot nor do we want to obtain 501(c)3 non-profit status. It is not beneficial to our organization.
The city requires $500,000 liability insurance (3.2).
Insurance purchased through the city costs $240 or more per event.
There is a $25-$50 fee for reservations, plus a $100 clean up fee (although we make no messes).
Permits can only be obtained three times per year.
According to page 2 (#16), of the City of Tampa Special Events Permit Application (the permit we have been arrested for not having) "food and drinks cannot be given away to the public". However it specifies food may be sold, although to do so requires an additional $100 vendor permit.
Overall, we feel that we do not need permission to share our food in our parks with those in need.
We take full responsibility for all food consumed. In fact, we are eating with the homeless, and keep all of our health and safety in mind.

Why Not Feed on Private Property?

Picnics and gatherings are what parks are for.
These are public parks, which means they are our parks, and we have a right to use them.
This is where the homeless live. We feel it is wrong to make the homeless come to us. We wish to share food and have them eat at their homes, and speak with them in their environment.
Tampa Food Not Bombs has been picnicking there for 8 years. The homeless know us and like us; some even prefer our food over others.
Herman C. Massey Park, according to the Tampa Government website, is solely dedicated for picnic use. The fact that there are no bathrooms is something the city must reconcile. What if a family was there to have a picnic and needed to use the bathroom? Where should they go?
The human body takes 4-8 hours to digest food. People are able to find bathrooms within that time, however, are often only able to use them after paying for goods. This excludes the poor, hungry, and homeless.
We have not encountered any problems with waste disposal.

Why is FNB Doing This?

It's the right thing to do!
The government isn't doing it.
We as a community feel we should take care of our fellow humans.
We wish to build and improve our community.
We wish to treat the homeless, hungry, and poor as equals, and raise awareness that they should be treated as such.
We wish to teach self-sustainability.
We wish to build confidence in the homeless.
We are doing this because it should not be illegal. To ignore the laws is to keep sharing food illegal.
We are doing this to change the laws in Tampa. We wish to amend or rescind the current city law that prevents us from sharing food.
For 8 years, we haven't had problems.
We feel this is a violation of our civil liberties guaranteed by the constitution, including the freedom of speech, and the freedom of assembly.
We feel that food is a right, not a privilege or commodity, and therefore it should be given away freely.
We do it out of love.
We feel we must raise awareness that the city is spending more money on redevelopment than on dealing with homelessness and poverty.
There are homeless because our society needs them. It needs people on the bottom and it needs minimum wage earners/"flexible" labor/a reserve army of labor, etc. Why criminalize what we're doing? Doing what we are doing threatens the status quo, social stratification, and the "necessary" reserve. We are lifting the homeless up and treating them as equals - it's revolutionary.

Why doesn't FNB Work with Churches?

We don't need to, the churches are working with us.
The work churches do are important, and we will refer people to utilize their services, however we are not a church, and have different goals, beliefs, and actions.
We are working together to change the laws.
However, we do not share the same goals.
Our organization works on consensus, and we decided through that method that we do not want to be affiliated with churches.
Not everyone in our organization is religious.
We are more secular based.
With religious services, there is no dialogue with the people. You do not get to sit, eat, and talk with those you feed. With us, we ensure open dialogue.
We do not believe humanitarian services should be accompanied by preaching.
We do not believe food should be exchanged for religious ideology.
Churches do not serve vegetarian meals.
Churches are not flexible.
Churches are hierarchical, we are not. We do not want to be entered into their hierarchy and bureaucracy.
Churches should not have a monopoly on feeding the homeless.
There are no requirements to eat food with us.
We feel that religious people often speak to others in a condescending tone.
Religious groups are often exclusionary: excluding different races, ethnicities, other religions, non-religious people, or even gays and lesbians.
We do more than feed. We try to improve lives, provide companionship, promote healthy living, build community, give clothes and books, and teach and learn from the homeless.
We do not push our beliefs on those we share food with.
We don't just feed the homeless; everyone is welcome at our picnics. We also share food at events and protests.

What are the Solutions to Homelessness?

There is no one solution.
We should ask them what they think the solution is.
Taking care of our communities should be our first priority..
We should try to build strong local infrastructures.
We should try to provide more jobs and houses.
We should build more homeless and community centers.
There should be free healthcare and education.
We should end unjust economic practices such as greed; overconsumption; waste; commodification of goods such as food, water, and healthcare; profit fixations, etc.
Mayor Iorio should visit the HUD meetings which have a very detailed blueprint for ending homelessness. She failed to attend the last meeting.
End the stigmatization of homelessness by ending the myths of laziness, violence, etc.
We need to come together to solve the problem because when people suffer, its everyone's problem.
Obviously, there should be money for food, not for bombs.

Location:
Downtown Tampa @ Herman Massey Park

Cost: Free to ALL

Directions: www.tampagov.net/appl_tampa_address_locate/mappage.asp

URL: http://www.TampaFNB.org