CITY ATTEMPTING NEW ANTI-HOMELESS REGULATIONS TARGETING CHURCHES, CHARITIES AND GOOD SAMARITANS W/$2000 FINES

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The City is about to pass oppressive $2000 a day fine regulations to shut down visible downtown operations helping the homeless to be proposed at Tuesdays council meeting. This amendment would require government permission to share food, criminalize citizens who do not have such permission (or had such permission taken away), and create a new complicated set of hearings and appeals for those who lose such permission including crossexamination, fines, and criminal charges. said Nick Cooper, a Food Not Bombs volunteer. This blatant attack on Christian ministries and others helping the homeless in the downtown area violates Freedom of Religion, Expression and Assembly under the First Amendment. said civil rights lawyer Randall Kallinen. Increased government regulation described in this amendment will lead to more hungry Houstonians and criminalization of those trying to help the needy. It would have a chilling effect on common-sense, local, and faith-based initiatives to help the hungry in our community, making it increasingly illegal for non-paid citizens to assist other citizens meet basic needs. Houston is now trying to help share food with an estimated 25% more homeless compared to 2011 and twice as many homeless families. Especially in this economic downturn, unwarranted laws will create suffering including: - impose additional surveillance and enforcement requirements on the police - impose an entirely different set of standards on those sharing food with the homeless than those sharing food at picnics or tailgate parties, thereby violating the "equal protection under the law" clause of the 14th Amendment - impose city mandated training in "strategies for working with the homeless" - make sharing of home-cooked food illegal - impinge on first amendment-protected rights to free assembly - require groups to obtain written permission to share space on public property Homelessness isnt a crime and there is no need of City created mandatory strategy courses for working with them than we need classes about working with other ethnic groups. Sharing food in public space should not require permission. Volunteer, community, and faith-based groups do not ask for city money to share food. These groups should be held up as an example by the city. Instead, under these new amendments, they are to be criminalized. Concerned citizens to help the homeless will voice their opinions at a press conference and then speak at City Councils Tuesday public speaking venue. The regulations are at http://www.houstontx.gov/citysec/backup/2012/030612.pdf (p. 33-45) Date: PLACE: Contact: Tuesday, March 6, 2012, 1:15 PM Lobby Outside City Council Chambers 2nd Floor, City Hall Nick Cooper: 281/850-0171 Randall Kallinen: 713/320-3785