ASU booted a group that feeds the homeless outside a campus building

For the past few years, Food Not Bombs PHX has set up tables and distributed food on the patio outside the student center at Arizona State University’s downtown campus overlooking Civic Space Park. Volunteers bring scavenged and donated vegan and vegetarian food — curries, pastas, fruits — to serve to anyone who wants it, homeless or not. 

But the last few weeks have been different. Instead of setting up on the school’s patio under the awning, the organization’s tables were on the grass under the trees in the park itself, where a proposed city of Phoenix ordinance may soon forbid its activities.

ASU had kicked them out of their spot.

Food Not Bombs PHX volunteers said that a dean from the school contacted them out of the blue and banned them from the patio that they’d used for years without issue. They find the timing suspicious. A proposed ordinance barring food distribution and medical care in city parks without a permit is set to pass next week at the Phoenix City Council. On the ASU patio, Food Not Bombs was in the clear.

In the new location, if the ordinance passes, it won’t be.

“If they would just let us stand on that little piece of patio over there, we could keep feeding this community without having to worry about this ordinance,” Food Not Bombs volunteer Jonathan Bowerstock told Phoenix New Times.

In a statement emailed to New Times, ASU spokesperson Nikki Ripley said, “Permission for use of the patio was not granted by ASU and was learned of recently. The patio is not ASU property.”

Food Not Bombs PHX is a leaderless group of volunteers. Its food distributions serve as a form of protest against a multitude of societal ills — everything from war to food waste — and it estimates that it serves 50-80 people a week in Civic Space Park. It is one of many chapters around the nation.

The proposed city ordinance restricts medical care and food distributions, such as Food Not Bombs PHX’s, in city parks. If passed, a group or individual who wishes to distribute food or medical care in city parks will have to apply for a permit. Permits will be available for 108 out of more than 180 parks in Phoenix, but only two permits will be issued per park per month. Food Not Bombs PHX could apply for a permit, but not in its current location. Civic Space Park is not among the 108 parks for which permits will be available because it lacks its own parking lot.

Dean gets involved

In screenshots shared with New Times, Dr. Robert Dotson, the dean of students for ASU’s downtown campus, reached out to Food Not Bombs PHX over Instagram on the evening of April 6 to say he needed to speak with someone “immediately.” A volunteer, who asked to remain anonymous, reached out to Dotson by email and offered to set up a meeting with other volunteers.

Dotson asked to connect with local leadership, which Food Not Bombs is not structured to have. He needed to “speak to someone as soon as possible.” The organization responded the next day. Skyler, a volunteer who declined to give her last name, wrote to Dotson explaining that they were a non-violent protest group that gave out food free of charge. She said they were open to meeting, asked what he wanted to meet with them about and invited him to their Sunday dinner so he could see it for himself.

“We would be delighted to share a meal with you and any colleagues or family which might accompany you,” she wrote.

He did not take them up on the offer. Instead, he responded that the school had recently become aware that Food Not Bombs’ meal distribution took place on its patio. “Please note that use of this space is not permitted for non-ASU affiliated entities. As such, this activity cannot continue on the ASU Student Center Patio,” he wrote. He referred them to Phoenix’s Office of Homeless Solutions.  

That Sunday, the group set up in their new spot. Dotson didn’t show. Group members think he watched them from afar with a group of park rangers and Phoenix police officers, they said. Dotson did not respond to a request for comment.

“What we do here is loved by the community, and it is a shame that ASU and the city are collaborating to stand against a good act,” Skyler said. “I don’t know how or who would be willing to make the argument that anything about what we’re doing is morally objectionable.”

The group said it plans to continue its work even if the proposed ordinance passes, which members feel would violate their First Amendment rights. Food Not Bombs PHX will continue its Sunday food distributions in protest.

“There’s a lot of unknowns that come with doing something that the city has deemed to be illegal, regardless of its morality,” said Jeremy Peraza, a volunteer. “This group will continue feeding in this park. It may not be the same size, but there will be people continuing to do that work because we know what’s right.”