Modesto faces balance between hunger, order in park feedings

Robert Glasgow is a regular at Cesar E. Chavez Park during lunch. The 72-year-old is among the working poor, street people, retirees and others who are fed Monday through Friday by the United Samaritans Foundation’s Modesto lunch truck.

Glasgow and about a couple dozen other people were in the west Modesto park Friday for a free lunch of a tuna fish sandwich, apple, doughnut and small carton of milk. USF staff members Glenda Price and Misty Hough also were handing out bags of vegetables and loaves of bread. Glasgow picked up several lunches for himself and other family members at home – a two-bedroom, one-bath unit in a duplex.

The meals are a lifesaver.

“I’ve been coming here every day for 11 years,” he said. “There is not enough money after paying the rent and the bills. There is nothing left.”

The Turlock-based United Samaritans Foundation feeds lots of people in Modesto. It served nearly 116,000 lunches at eight sites last year, including three city parks. It also operates lunch trucks in several other Stanislaus County communities.

This charity comes as Modesto officials look at regulating feedings in city parks because of complaints that the feedings create litter, the food waste attracts vermin and the parks can become magnets for the homeless. And the proposed regulations come as Modesto officials are being inundated with complaints about vagrants sleeping in city parks, taking drugs and drinking, and engaging in other illegal conduct.

City officials say established groups are not the problem. United Samaritans has been feeding people from its lunch trucks for nearly 20 years. Officials say they are concerned about well-meaning church groups and others who have not thought through what they are doing. Police Chief Galen Carroll said at the workshop that some people can drive up in their cars, drop off boxes of food and clothes in a park and drive off within a few minutes.

The City Council held a workshop Tuesday to discuss a proposed ordinance to regulate park feedings. The council also discussed additional restrictions on panhandling and an ordinance that would allow the city to recover its costs and fine hotels and motels that generate excessive calls for police services.

No decisions were made.

The workshop discussion on the park feedings included such ideas as requiring a permit to feed people, whether the feedings should be banned at neighborhood parks that are near schools and even whether park feedings should be banned entirely, though City Attorney Adam Lindgren said Modesto could face a legal challenge if it did that.

City officials say they want the input from those who feed people in parks as they develop the ordinance, and the city will hold a public meeting in early September to discuss the ordinance. City officials say an ordinance could come before the council for adoption in October or November.

United Samaritans Foundation Executive Director Barbara Bawanan attended Tuesday’s workshop. She said the foundation is concerned but wants to reserve comment until more of the proposed ordinance’s details are known. She said it was a positive step that Modesto is including those who do the feedings in the discussion.

She said the Modesto truck feeds not just the homeless but the working poor, the unemployed and retirees, and feeds people where they live because they may not have reliable transportation. In the summer, when school is out, children make up about a third of those who line up for food in Modesto.

Bawanan said a January survey showed 56 percent of the people the Modesto truck fed had homes, and 44 percent were homeless. But she said the truck is feeding more homeless people. A 2014 survey showed 70 percent had homes and 30 percent were homeless. The reason for the change in the percentages is not known.

She said the January survey also showed there was a real need for the meals. For example, 49 percent of the respondents said they used the Modesto truck five days a week, and 70 percent said they used it at least three days a week.

This story was originally published August 15, 2015 at 4:14 PM with the headline "Modesto faces balance between hunger, order in park feedings."