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Judge blocks, rips holes in, mayor's ban on feeding homeless outdoors
A federal judge today issued a preliminary injunction barring the City of Philadelphia from enforcing a ban on the serving of outdoor meals in city parks - in the process, tearing apart the city's assertions that the ban is part of a larger plan to serve the homeless and that instituting it wouldn't result in an immediate loss of crucial services by the city's homeless.
Judge blocks, rips holes in, mayor's ban on feeding homeless outdoors
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A federal judge today issued a preliminary injunction barring the City of Philadelphia from enforcing a ban on the serving of outdoor meals in city parks — in the process, tearing apart the city's assertions that the ban is part of a larger plan to serve the homeless and that instituting it wouldn't result in an immediate loss of crucial services.
The ban, imposed as an administrative rule by Mayor Michael Nutter, would have effectively put an end (legally, anyway) to a 10-year-old tradition maintained by various groups, most of them religious, of serving meals to the homeless on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway — the locus of recent efforts by the city improve its attractiveness to tourists and the new home of the relocated Barnes Foundation.
The rule, which had been preceded by only a few days by a different rule requiring new health permits to serve food, was billed by the mayor as a move toward greater “dignity” in providing meals for the homeless and hungry indoors — but was unaccompanied by any plan to do so other than the future formation of a task force to study the issue. The mayor also invited “feeders” to serve their meals on the apron of City Hall, adjacent to which a major renovation of City Hall's Dilworth Plaza is underway.
In May, that rule was challenged in a lawsuit by the Philadelphia civil-rights firm Kairys, Rudovsky, Messing & Feinberg, LLP, with attorney Paul Messing representing four religious groups who've been engaging in Parkway “feeding” for years, arguing that the rule violated their constitutional rights to religious practice and free speech.
Whether that's the case was not decided today. While Messing did outline his constitutional case in oral arguments before U.S. District Judge William H. Yohn, the latter focused instead on testimony over the past week by city officials as to the rationale for the ban and the mechanics of the city's plan to provide some alternative.
The judge was not, it seemed impressed with Nutter's plan — or lack thereof — thus far.
In pointed questions to the city, Judge Yohn poked holes in the mayor's assertion earlier this week that the ban was part of a plan to “end homelessness” or that the city was prepared, as it has asserted, to offer alternative services to those eating outdoors. Attorney Paul Messing, meanwhile, was more than ready to assist this line of questioning.
Take the following exchange between Assistant City Solicitor Amanda Shoffel, Judge Yohn, and plaintiff's attorney Paul Messing:
Shoffel: The purpose of our regulation is a transition. It's very difficult to assist these people in need of services [while they're] in the park area.
Judge Yohn: What program is there that would encourage people to take meals inside?
Shoffel: Already, 80 people are [accepting meals on City Hall's apron instead of the Parkway].
Judge: Aside from City Hall, how are we going to get meals indoors?
Shoffel: I have no response to that.
Messing: That is to say, for the record, that there is no program.
At another point, asked whether the city was, in fact, providing resources to those being served on the Parkway or on the apron of City Hall, Shoffel answered, “It's the mayor's intention to provide these services.”
Those answers seemed to be enough for Judge Yohn to decide, on the spot, to issue a preliminary injunction on the ban, citing several instances in which he found the plaintiff's objections “valid.”
Arguments that the city's plan to allow meals to be served on City Hall's apron, the judge said, would mean “the homeless would have to walk five blocks and cross wide streets, [while] many have disabilities,” that the apron, unlike the Parkway, is “dirty, narrow, noisy,” and that it forces homeless, who may feel uncomfortable in such close proximity to police and government, to eat meals “in the seat of government” were “valid objections,” in Yohn's opinion.
And while the city's justification of the ban involved the assertion that it would “be easier to provide social services,” the judge couldn't “discern the reason that these services could not be provided on the Parkway location.”
Perhaps the judge's harshest words came in response to Mayor Nutter's assertion that the purpose of the ban was in part to provide dignity to those receiving the meals.
“It seems to me,” Judge Yohn said, “that the Parkway is more dignified than the concrete apron” of City Hall. No one likes standing in long lines for food, the judge said, “but I couldn't see any mention of why these lines wouldn't be longer'” outside City Hall.
A trial has been set for early next year, but Messing says his clients look forward to further discussion with the city before then.
"Mayor Nutter has been a great leader," Messing said. "We disagree on this one point."
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