This debate is about a number, a simple three digits.
That number is 130, the legal amount of meals Gainesville soup kitchens can give out every day.
But does the debate go beyond a simple figure? Is it about food, or is it about how a city deals with homelessness? Is it about business profits or neighborhood safety? Is it an inhumane practice or an over-publicized necessity?
No one is really sure.
No one really knows how to tell the story of a dispute that started with a piece of paper: where supporters have drawn lines in concrete, where city commissioners are called uncaring and a soup kitchen owner is seen as irresponsible and victimized, depending on who you talk to.
In the 1990s, a rule was added to a city permit that stated soup kitchens could only serve 75 meals a day. This permit is special because all city soup kitchens have to have it in order to serve food.
In the mid-1990s, the St. Francis House opened for business on Main Street.
The St. Francis House has been in Gainesville since 1980. Back then, a Catholic priest, the Rev. Robert Baker, ran the organization out of St. Augustine Catholic Church.
It became an official non-profit business after the limit was in place. It’s not the only soup kitchen in Gainesville, but it’s the only one that has to adhere to the meal limit.
The Salvation Army, which is downtown on University Avenue, was founded in 1962, well before the limit was implemented, so it doesn’t have to abide by it. It can serve as many meals as it wants. A planned one-stop homeless center won’t have to follow the meal limit because it is a city-funded initiative.
In 2004, Kent Vann, the executive director of the St. Francis House, filed a request to increase the limit from 75 to 130. The commission approved his request, and life went on.
Somewhere along the way, the rule became a non-rule. It was loosely enforced, if at all.
Then in 2010, complaints from downtown residents and businesses got the commission’s attention.
People said there were too many homeless people around the St. Francis House day and night. They said the homeless were urinating in their yards, asking for money and making them uncomfortable. Businesses said this behavior was driving away customers.
All of the sudden, the limit became a strongly enforced rule. Activists were in an uproar and still are. City staff checked to make sure the limit was enforced and still do.
A year later, the commission added an exception: unlimited meals on Christmas, Thanksgiving and another day of the St. Francis House’s choice.
But the debate drags on.
Solutions have been suggested. So far, at least one is starting to work its way through City Hall.
Vann sent a request to the commissioners in February, much like he did years ago, to ask for a change in the wording of the permit. This time, he’s asking for a three-hour time limit instead of a meal limit.
“Hopefully, on the board’s standpoint, the board will realize that with the increase in the amount of homelessness in this area, you know, a 37 percent increase from last year, they see that the needs of the people have increased,” Vann said.
Vann will go to the Gainesville City Plan Board on Thursday to argue his case. After that, the board will have the option to recommend a change to the City Commission.
Activists and commissioners alike at least partially agree the text change will help the disagreement, but neither is willing to budge about the existence of the limit.
“What we’d like to see, in a perfect scenario, is the ordinance repealed totally,” said Joe Cenker, a member of the Coalition to End the Meal Limit NOW!
Activists stand firm on both sides.
Dan Harmeling, a downtown resident, was a civil rights activist in the 1970s. He married an African-American woman when it was illegal in some states to do so. He said he knew laws weren’t always moral.
When he, his wife and his two sons moved back to Gainesville from Washington, D.C., he was fine with the St. Francis House and the Salvation Army being in the area. But he fought when he heard of plans for a third shelter nearby.
“I think every community, including downtown, should be supportive of the homeless,” he said. “But an almost total concentration of the homeless in one area is not compatible.”
Harmeling, 69, remained involved with neighborhood issues and wants to keep the meal limit.
He said if the limit is eliminated, more homeless people will come. He’s worried his home, with its three bird-feeders and two boats in the front yard, will start to look like the homes next to the St. Francis House.
“Around the St. Francis House, it’s deteriorating,” he said. “They don’t understand the history of how downtowns are destroyed.”
Max Tipping, executive director of the Alachua County Coalition for the Homeless and Hungry, called the meal limit ridiculous.
Tipping, who graduated from UF last May with degrees in political science and economics, said his time at UF didn’t prepare him for what he’s faced as executive director. No degree could, he said.
As an undergraduate, he bought meals on campus and handed them out in the Bo Diddley Community Plaza, a gathering spot for the homeless downtown.
Tipping would talk with them while they ate. He got to know their names, their stories and their struggles. Now he works with homeless people every day.
Something he hears from meal limit supporters is that there are more than enough free meals in the city.
Yes, he says, there is plenty of food. But it isn’t all served at the same time of the day.
The St. Francis House starts feeding at 10:30 a.m. every day of the week. By noon, it’s reached the 130-person limit.
The Salvation Army starts serving at 4 p.m.
If it’s Wednesday, a small group, the Gainesville Catholic Worker, serves lunch at noon at a location they call the Blue House, 218 NW 2nd Ave.
When asked about the meal limit’s effect on the homeless, Mayor Craig Lowe cited a study done by the county Coalition for the Homeless and Hungry — Tipping’s senior honors thesis — which says shelter is the No. 1 priority for homeless people.
Tipping said the study’s finding is pretty obvious: If people don’t have homes, they are homeless. If they have homes, they are not.
He said Gainesville does do a good job at providing basic services, food, clothing and temporary shelter, but there is a lot of work to be done in terms of getting people off the streets and back into society.
“I know city commissioners, and it makes them look almost sinister,” Tipping said. “It makes them look much more cruel than they really are.”
Lowe said that, while he isn’t set on keeping the limit, the St. Francis House would need to hold its customers responsible for what they do outside of the soup kitchen if the limit was removed.
Vann said he has a code of conduct, which is posted inside the St. Francis House on the main desk. The code includes no drunkenness and addresses off-site conduct.
Vann said he’s abiding by the limit because it’s attached to a city permit. If he disobeys it, he could lose the soup kitchen.
But he equated making him responsible for all homeless people to blaming bars when people are drunk outside.
Joe Jackson, a UF law professor, said the St. Francis House is already doing its part and can’t be held responsible for what happens outside its doors.
“I think the policy was wrong-headed when it was enacted,” he said. “And it remains wrong-headed today.”
People start lining up at the St. Francis House hours before lunch starts. Some in line are homeless. Some aren’t.
Some live in St. Francis House’s transitional housing and can’t always afford food. Others have their own homes, but days come when they have to choose between food and mortgage.
Kim Justice is one of the people in line.
Justice, 50, has been homeless for a little more than a year. She goes to the St. Francis House when it’s cold at night and for food. She said she gets in line every day.
Once, she was meal 130.
“They locked the door right behind me,” she said. “I felt like, ‘Oh, thank God I made it in time.’”
