This commentary is by Sam Bliss. He teaches applied economics at the University of Vermont and has spent the last eight years researching and participating in non-market food practices in northern New England.
Anyone who’s hungry is welcome to eat at the free buffet along the low brick wall.
Every day for the past five years, a ragtag group of Burlingtonians has shared lunch behind the Marketplace Garage off Cherry Street from 1-2 p.m. Several thousand neighbors have gifted food, cooked meals and washed the dishes.
We’re called Food Not Cops — the local chapter of Food Not Bombs, an international movement that shares food in parks and plazas to protest the use of public resources for weapons and war instead of meeting basic human needs like food.
Why the wall behind the parking garage? It’s not a comfortable, welcoming environment. When we started, Covid-19 had just broken out. We wanted people to grab food or gear and then leave, rather than gather and breathe on each other. Those were scary times.
In the ensuing years, the wall has become a gathering place. We stay because everyone knows to find us there. Sometimes friends disappear for months — maybe they are traveling, working or incarcerated — and then they reappear one day, waiting at the wall with an empty belly or a request for help. To support homeless neighbors whose lives are wracked by instability, consistency on our end is key.
The Cherry Street garage is near where many of our unhoused friends hang out downtown. Gathering outdoors, in a place where people can depart in three different directions, helps de-escalate conflicts — and it spares the group from having to play bouncer in any doorway. Nearby dumpsters make it easy to clean up daily.
The fact that it’s not a sought-after space has worked in our favor, too: the wall area was unused, so nobody asks us to step aside for more important matters.
Until recently, that is. Local business owners, in an open letter about the “crisis” in downtown Burlington, are asking Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak to kick Food Not Cops out of our spot. Several outspoken members of the business community have been blaming our free lunch distribution for alleged safety issues in the garage where Church Street shoppers park.
Last September, the City of Burlington started paying $1,500 every week to station a rent-a-sheriff in the garage on weekdays from 11:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., a shift that is centered on our hour-long pop-up buffet. Friends now tell me they avoid Food Not Cops, and the assistance on offer, because of the sheriff’s presence. You wouldn’t want to hang out next to a sheriff, either, if you were homeless.
The truth is, Marketplace Garage isn’t a hot spot for crime, despite the city designating it as one. The city government’s open data site shows that since 2020, dozens of Burlington locations have recorded more police incidents than Marketplace Garage, which has seen 126 incidents, with just two of those Priority One, meaning they involved dire threats to physical safety.
Compare that with City Hall Park (2,336 incidents; 156 of them Priority 1 or the intersection of Church and Main (1,008 incidents; 57 Priority 1).
So, why are local business owners blaming us for their downtown woes?
My best guess is that they identify Marketplace Garage as a public safety concern because they don’t want customers to have to interact with any poor people on their walk from their vehicle to the stores they’ll shop at.
That’s understandable. Having to witness suffering or deprivation on one’s way to purchase outdoor gear or lunch at Leunig’s can provoke feelings of not just guilt but fear. I suspect my homeless buddies resent me when I begrudgingly buy them one tall can of cheap beer but then I splurge on a spendy four-pack of some imperial porter with an artsy label for myself.
If we don’t want to have to look at unhoused people, then our best bet is to house them. Let’s work together on that. I don’t like my neighbors being unhoused, either.
The letter from the business class says that our lunch “has had a negative impact on the area.”
I think they’re wrong: Food Not Cops makes downtown safer.
First, fed people behave better than hungry people. Think about how you treat people when you’re hangry.
Second, people are not seagulls; they don’t simply fly away when you don’t offer them food. The letter notes: “Some attendees have repeatedly stolen from businesses or caused harm.” We believe that people deserve to be fed even if they’ve done bad things.
Third, Food Not Cops is an alternative to shoplifting for people with unmet needs but no money. We direct resources toward where they are needed, helping broke and homeless folks with camping gear, phone cards, propane and toiletries. Donate to our fund if you can. With no paid staff or overhead, every dollar buys people things they need.
Our lunches create cross-class relationships of solidarity. Housed and unhoused neighbors eat and chat together. We learn to understand and trust people who aren’t like us — and see others as fully human. These strong relationships help keep the community safer.
