Can we fix this?

DALLAS - In the words of millionaire restaurateur Phil Romano, his Hunger Busters charity feeds the homeless "wherever they are."

On a recent Thursday, around 7 p.m., that happened to be the sweeping plaza in front of Dallas City Hall.

"I love these people because they love me," said Enrique Martinez, 57, one of about 120 homeless men and women who lined up for the last of four stops the Hunger Busters' van made on its tour of freeway underpasses and glass-strewn back lots.

A volunteer handed Martinez a cup of freshly prepared vegetable soup, a sandwich and a banana. He found a curb to sit on and tucked into his meal.

Starting Sept. 1, Dallas will begin regulating such mobile feedings, setting up a clash between a city policy and those who want to feed the poor.

Under a new ordinance, charities, churches and individuals will be allowed to serve food only at approved locations. Violations will be punishable by fines of $200 to $2,000.

Ignoring the rules

Some, including Hunger Busters, say they plan to ignore the new rules.

"Maybe we'll get arrested for getting tickets and not doing what they want us to do and see what the public says about that," said Romano, founder of several national restaurant chains, including Romano's Macaroni Grill, Cozymel's and Fuddruckers. "It's all a matter of public opinion."

The new ordinance aims to discourage street people from establishing encampments and prompt them to seek services at shelters and the city's homeless center, said Boadicea White, who manages the city's homeless programs.

"One reason the camps can exist is because of the feeding. It's enabling," said White. "People are out there and say, 'We're doing fine.' But we know there are services that they need. Any way we can bring them in and get them into the mainstream. This is an effort to try to do that."

A city crew recently bulldozed the largest camp, which was under an Interstate 45 overpass just south of the city center. About 100 people had moved in with cardboard structures, portable toilets, shopping carts and TVs powered by electricity stolen from a nearby billboard. It had become a regular stop of charity feeders.

Hunger Busters' white van visited the site last Thursday. About 50 men and women had already moved back.

Cutting down on litter

Another reason for the new rule is to cut down on litter in areas where the street feeders are most active, White said.

In the Cedars, a slowly gentrifying, industrial neighborhood directly south of downtown where most of the city's nonprofit homeless shelters are located, residents say the mobile soup kitchens leave behind drifts of cups, plates and plastic bags.

At a recent neighborhood cleanup "we filled three 40-yard trash bins with trash and at least 50 percent of it was from street feeders," said Gwen Gaylen, a neighborhood activist. "There's a tremendous amount of food coming into our neighborhood and downtown."

Sometimes, she said, street feeders will bag trash and leave it on the streets.

"By the next day, dogs or people or whatever will have ripped that up and there's plates everywhere," she said.

Gaylen said members of the charity groups — many from affluent North Dallas — would probably not welcome the homeless on their own streets. But in her neighborhood, she said, they trespass with their trucks and spar with businesses and homeowners who complain.

"None of us think it is wrong to feed the poor. But to have people believe they are above the law because they are doing God's work is troublesome," she said.

City officials have not yet specified feeding sites under the new rules, but they say the City Hall plaza, where Hunger Busters has been feeding for the past four years, will not be among them.

"Downtown, we want to focus the meals at the Day Resource Center and at this point that is pretty much it," White said, describing the city's homeless facility at the southern edge of the central business district.

City officials say there are about 100 groups and individuals who feed the homeless at least once a year. They include everyone from Romano's nonprofit, which feeds three days a week and has an annual budget of $130,000, to individuals who go out once a year with leftovers from holiday parties.

Betty Lou Bramble, who is known on the street as the Chicken Lady, and a neighbor feed between 250 and 400 people every other Friday. Last week's menu included baked chicken, fried chicken, chicken pot pie and about 20 side dishes, fruits and desserts.

"I'll go to their designated spots, but if I have leftovers, there will be people I won't be reaching," said Bramble, who says she caters to "the whole person, body, soul and spirit."

Bramble, who has been feeding the indigent for 20 years, says she doubts all of the homeless will assemble at the city's approved locations.

"There's a lot of mentally ill people, people with drug problems and alcohol problems and I don't think they're gonna go. They're paranoid. They're gonna fall between the cracks."

Romano agreed.

"They want us to be the Pied Piper. They want us to say, 'Here's the food, come and get it," he said, explaining that the approved locations are likely to be in less high-profile areas than, say, City Hall.

"The problem is that isn't gonna work. The homeless aren't gonna go there," said Romano, whose group serves about 1,200 meals a week. "Most of the people we feed don't want to go to shelters.

The city pegs the number of chronic homeless — those who shun shelters or have been kicked out of them for substance abuse — at roughly 1,000.

The presence of large groups of homeless people downtown has been a sensitive issue in recent years as city leaders have tried to revitalize Dallas' core. Business groups have said the concentration of homeless people downtown, particularly in the southern end of the central business district, has impeded redevelopment.

New shelter planned

Nevertheless, City Council voted in April to locate a new city shelter downtown, about four blocks southeast of City Hall. A bond issue is needed to pay for the proposed facility.

"Organizing the feedings will be good for everyone, even the homeless" said Bennett Miller, who has redeveloped several industrial buildings into lofts and accepts the presence of homeless as "a fact of inner-city life."

Under the new ordinance, street feeders also will be required to take a course on food safety, which is aimed at preventing food poisoning.

Some of the groups are so zealous, Miller said he is not surprised they are balking at limits on their activities.

"They don't care about the side effects," he said. "They feel they are doing the Lord's work and nothing is more powerful than that. That is their truth."

For more info about Hunger Busters go here : http://www.hungerbustersdallas.org/about.html