Globally Green Living

Food Not Bombs is an anti-poverty group dedicated to providing vegetarian food to anyone who is hungry. They do this voluntarily and because it is done publicly have drawn a lot of attention.

“For over 25 years the movement has worked to end hunger and has supported actions to stop the globalization of the economy, restrictions to the movements of people, end exploitation and the destruction of the earth.” (Story of Food Not Bombs)

• Every Saturday Food Not Bombs was handing out food in front of City Hall in Kitchener, Ontario with no major issues. More recently, complaints have been reported from neighboring businesses, which resulted in a cease and desist letter from the city telling the group to stop feeding hungry people at City Hall.

Assaults, drug deals and panhandling have all been claimed to come about because of Food Not Bombs existence, although I suspect such things existed before. Volunteers include professors and other professionals who insist there have been no problems with violence in the nine years they have been serving food there.

But Kelly Anthony, a member of the group who is also a health sciences professor at the university, said the group hasn’t decided if the other locations are acceptable.

To be off the main street “would completely fly in the face of our mandate, to bring visibility to issues of hunger and poverty,” she said.

In the nine years the group has been distributing food, there hasn’t been any fighting or other intimidating behaviour, she said. “We just don’t see it, or we would call the police.” (The Fight for King, Luisa D’Amato, The Record, May 5, 2008)

A compromise has since been reached and a new location has been agreed upon that is still visible from King Street. There has been a lot of stress on the fact that it’s not feeding the hungry that people have a problem with but that they’re visible and scaring away customers. So it seems some are aware of their existence but they just don’t want to see them out in the open or in public places such as City Hall.

This is not the first time Food Not Bombs has had this issue. Some members have even been arrested for feeding homeless people because of a law that makes it illegal to feed more than 25 people without a permit. The law is supported by many business owners who feel the homeless are an eyesore and not good for business. (Feed Homeless Face Arrest)

Like Mike Farwell said, ignoring the problem does not make it go away.