About 30 protesters gathered on the steps of City Hall Thursday to publicly oppose a city ordinance that limits the amount of meals served by Gainesville’s homeless shelters.
The rally, organized by the International Socialist Organization, is the latest in an ongoing debate on the ordinance, which limits shelters to serving 130 free meals a day.
The meal limit was started to disperse services so the homeless wouldn’t crowd downtown, said Katie Walters, co-organizer of the rally.
But she doesn’t believe the homeless population presents a problem.
“I work down the street from the St. Francis House, and I’ve never been harassed by a homeless person,” she said. “The only problem I see is people are not being fed.”
Joe Cenker hosted the rally and presented six speakers who discussed the issue, including Walters and Pat Fitzpatrick, an advocate for the homeless who ran for a city commission seat to repeal the meal limits.
The group later entered the commission meeting to present a one-minute, 55-second clip of a pregnant woman who was number 131 in line.
“This is one of the worst things I’ve seen in 40 years as a social worker,” Fitzpatrick said. “They’re doing this to criminalize the homeless.”
The limit has been in place since 1993 but has only been seriously enforced since early 2009, when the city commission threatened to close down the St. Francis House if it did not comply with the code. In 2009, Gainesville was labeled the fifth-meanest city in the country in regards to treatment of the homeless.
“[The commission] is focusing on the wrong problem,” Walters said. “You can’t just make people disappear.”
Editor's note on 10/22/10: The original article incorrectly spelled Joe Cenker's name wrong.
