Food Not Bombs Volunteers Face Arrest on Sunday

On Sunday October 6, 2013 Sacramento Food Not Bombs was kicked out of the Cesar Chavez Park by the Sacramento police. Volunteers were greeted by about 15 officers when they arrived at the park when they normally do in time to start sharing the meal they created by 1:30 p.m. They were told that our stuff would be confiscated and we would get a summons due to an ordinance–that has yet to even be passed–that would prevent any group from handing out free hot meals in the park.

Last week advocates for the poor were told to stop sharing meals with the hungry in Sacramento and Santa Monica, California, Taos, New Mexico, and Olympia, Washington. Groups were confronted and threatened with arrest in Boulder, Colorado; Raleigh, North Carolina, Portland, Oregon, Seattle, Washington and other cities across the United States this summer.

About 50 cities in the United States have passed laws banning or limiting the sharing of meals with the hungry in the past two years with enforcement on the increase this fall.

Surban Poverty on Long Island

Scott Allard, associate professor at the University of Chicago, defined the connotative meanings of urban and suburban poverty on September 26, 2013 Hofstra University. He talked about the truth that lies behind poverty in the surrounding communities.

“Urban means poor and suburban equals opportunity,” he stated at the Changing Geography of Poverty and the American Safety Net Conference.

The community is labeled based off the people within it; Mostly African-American communities are labeled as urban while mostly Caucasian communities are labeled as suburban. Despite the connotative perspectives, Allard stated that there is no formal definition of a suburb because it is more than geography.