City Says Ordinary Citizens Have No Business in Helping Neighbors With Food Insecurity

 The City Took Away the Community Food Table,

Now They're Stopping Even Sidewalk Paint to End

Community Generosity

Children's Hopscotch Courts Will No Longer Be Permitted to Try to Stop Community Food Sharing 

News Analysis
After Emeryville’s City Attorney, John Kennedy issued an order in December to remove a grassroots community free food table, citing an arcane city code against private property on public property, City Hall quickly took away the table and they've been conducting an ongoing campaign to stamp out any and all attempts to facilitate the feeding of hungry fellow community members at the site of the former food table ever since.  By their actions in the face of growing public hunger in the community, the City of Emeryville announces strict adherence to its ‘encroachment’ code is more important than helping food insecure community members.  Most Emeryville residents are Democrats and such a strict and conservatively minded obedience to public policy not related to but impactful of public hunger, is a stance most of Emeryville probably would not condone, seeing it as unnecessarily punitive government action against a noble community impulse.  But Emeryville’s City Council, whom the City Attorney answers to, has long been more conservative than Emeryville's greater community members on the whole and this kind of mean spirited politics, much in vogue in conservative enclaves around the country, has been shown to be ubiquitous in its flowering among the elite, even here in Emeryville.  

After the table was taken by the City,
the Tattler encouraged generous 
spirited community members to
leave food directly on the sidewalk.
The City panicked and sent out workers
to do away with it.

The former food table, located at the corner of Sherwin and Horton streets became very popular during the two months it existed.  Community members were responding in droves; leaving all manner of foodstuffs including expensive and nutritionally dense ready to eat meals at the table.  Hungry neighbors were taking the food at the same pace as it was being replenished.  Community members left food and took food, gathering at the table to commune with one another and fulfilling an official objective of the City of Emeryville to build public infrastructure that encourages such interactions.  The City calls that “enlivening” of our sidewalks creating "vibrancy", a General Plan goal.

  

While the mean spirited politics taken up by Emeryville City Hall may be common throughout modern America, it is noteworthy that Emeryville's neighbors, Oakland and Berkeley have not.  Both those cities have community free food tables that have been allowed to thrive.   Berkeley is even encouraging citizens to give to tables in their neighborhoods.  Local churches have answered the call in some cases. 

City Attorney Kennedy has refused to publicly comment on why adherence to our encroachment code should take preference over community hunger, even with the knowledge that the city attorneys in Oakland and Berkeley have both erred on the side of alleviating hunger despite their own encroachment codes.  

This Public Works employee was directed to 
scrub off the sidewalk paint to stop the community
food sharing.

The progenitor of the Emeryville community food table, the Emeryville Tattler, responded to its removal with sidewalk paint; a sign in orange asking community members to leave food and pick up food directly down on the sidewalk where the table used to be.  Clearly angered by that, Mr Kennedy reacted by ordering the Public Works Department to wash off the Tattler sidewalk paint.  However, when we happened upon the Public Works worker scrubbing off the sign, he beat a hasty retreat, informing us while running away that the City Attorney had ordered the removal of the painted sign.  With the ordered removal job left unfinished, Public Works employees returned later with non-water soluble grey paint and a roller, covering over the Tattler’s free food sign.

All this City of Emeryville work is being done to try to stop community members of means from helping feed fellow community members in need.  

City workers being ordered to remove sidewalk paint begs another question beyond food sharing.  But our questions have gone unanswered.  Neither the City Manager nor the Public Works Director have answered questions about sidewalk paint applied by Emeryville children; hopscotch courts, rainbows and flowers and such.  This kind of juvenile sidewalk decoration has cropped up in the more family friendly sections of Emeryville from time to time and until now, it has always been allowed to stay; left unmolested by the City; no scrubbers or grey paint from Public Works needed.  However with the City's new aggressive zero tolerance push, it appears children's sidewalk art will no longer be allowed.

The City later rolled grey paint over the whole thing,
putting an end to hunger philanthropy in
the community once and for all.

Other Cities Allow Community Food Tables

The Tattler reached out to the owner of a community free food table on a public sidewalk in West Berkeley, a man who goes by ‘Barry’, who has used his table set up in front of his house to feed food insecure community members in his neighborhood for more than ten years.  Barry’s table is well used by the community although most of the food provided now comes from local churches, not as much from Barry himself or other neighbors anymore.  Barry told the Tattler he saw hunger in his community and just put up the table without getting permission from the City of Berkeley.  When the city heard about it, they let the table stay even though it represented (and still represents) a violation of that city’s encroachment code.  Over the years, the table has become very popular with the elderly on a fixed income and other people of limited means so common in the Bay Area.  Neighbors point with pride to Barry’s community free food table and many have made new friends around the table we were told.   

This private community free food table in West
Berkeley is on a public sidewalk and it has 
been there for more than 10 years.  The City of 
Berkeley says it violates their encroachment 
code but they see greater value in feeding
hungry community members.

 

There are other community free food tables around Berkeley as well as in Oakland that are not being harassed or shut down by their respective city halls.  

Advocates for the unhoused have praised the Berkeley  model of direct community help.  City halls outside Emeryville around the East Bay have been listening to hungry people and many are responding favorably to this grassroots food table idea.  Emeryville’s draconian response to direct citizen engagement in helping fellow citizens on the other hand, takes the form of a punitive top down model.  

With the closing down of the Tattler community grassroots hunger citizen activism, the City of Emeryville's ECAP program will be the only feeding source for hungry neighbors they say, despite the long walk many have to the City sponsored ECAP food hand out events and the infrequent schedule the City gives for the handouts.  Many food insecure people complain about the long lines at the ECAP food give aways and the dehumanizing waiting to receive help.  Some people have told the Tattler they feel embarrassed to be so visible as they wait to receive government assistance. 

We reached out to Emeryville’s Mayor Sukhdeep Kaur for this story but she refused our request for comment as did Emeryville’s City Manager, Latonya Bellow.

The Berkeley Free Food Table is Very Popular With Food Insecure
Community Members. 
It's technically illegal but local churches donate to the table and the
City of Berkeley does not try to remove it.  In fact, the city points to this
grassroots direct action by a private citizen as a
good and proper use of public space.

Children doing this has been ruled by the City Attorney in
Emeryville to be illegal and the City will dispatch a
phalanx of Public Works trucks out to stop it. 
It's OK in neighboring cities.