On Wednesday, April 4, the Houston City Council voted 11-6 to outlaw feeding homeless people anywhere in the city without the permission of the property owner. The version of the ordinance that passed was drastically scaled back from its original form.
The vote followed a month of bitter protests over whether the city could and should restrict where and when homeless people can be fed. Mayor Annise Parker announced the first version of the ordinance in early March as a way to guarantee the safety of food served to the homeless. The original plan proposed that all charitable food be prepared in city-certified kitchens and that at least one person from each feeding effort receive food-safety training. It also required that all people who wanted to serve food to the homeless be registered with the city. The original fines for violating the ordinance would have
ranged as high as $2,000.
