Alert: City of Asheville Proposes Criminalizing Care

Hey y’all—we wanted to let you know about a proposal being considered by Asheville City Council that would make asking for and offering direct care newly/more widely illegal.

What’s happening:

On July 25, in a meeting with the City of Asheville’s Environment and Safety Committee, the City Attorney’s office proposed a narrow set of amendments to bring the City’s non-solicitation ordinances into compliance with state law. These amendments as originally brought forth included no substantive changes.

But, over the course of the meeting, discussion around further changes quickly escalated, evolving into three additions to the proposed amendments. 

The three additions are:

• Criminalizing the voluntary direct giving of money to people who need it, if you are in your car (it is not clear if giving other things, like food or bottles of water, would also be criminalized. There may be an associated campaign to get people to donate to nonprofits instead)

• Increasing (from 6 feet to 10 feet) the distance that people who are poor must keep from people who are not poor, when asking for anything (solicitation “of any type” per the amendment)

• Expanding the public spaces where there are additional restrictions carrying criminal penalties on people who are poor asking for anything (right now: downtown and Biltmore Village. Proposed: Haywood Road and the River Arts District)

The motion for changes was passed, with the incorporation of those points, and the whole thing will now head to the full City Council for review on August 22nd. 

Here is a Citizen-Times article about the meeting and the changes. 

Here is the video of the meeting (see below for timestamps and details).  

Why it’s significant:

In early 2022, City officials were working on a way to legally limit food sharing in public parks, and then after an outcry, said they weren’t working on that at all. Text messages have made it clear they were specifically targeting the food sharing many of us did in Aston Park, and when that didn’t work, they got the idea to ban community members from public parks, in violation of the Constitution.

Yet again, the City of Asheville is attempting to criminalize both symptoms of and humane responses to the systematic issues produced by their policies, rather than dedicating resources towards meeting the stated needs of members of our community who don’t directly generate tourism dollars. If City Council wants to suggest people donate to nonprofits, ok! They can just do that, without establishing criminal penalties for people who choose to give directly to a human being in front of them, and without legally requiring even more physical distance between folks whose wealth is created and protected by City policies, and those whose visible lack of safety reminds the comfortable that those policies have a human cost. 

Ways to engage:

• We invite you to join us in communicating to City Council that these changes cannot be made; that criminalization produces LESS safety, not more, and always harms Black and Brown folks the most; that you do not want our public resources put towards further criminalizing those who already suffer most in this city and those who provide direct care; and to name what you WOULD like public resources to be put towards!

• Tell your people! We know so many of y’all are well connected in community, in Asheville and beyond. Clergy, nonprofit folks, data mavens, journalists, neighbors, friends: use your platforms to tell your people what is being proposed! Ask yourself and your people what a city could look like that is safer for all who live here. What uses of resources would get us closer to what y’all can envision? 

• Offer written or voiced public comment at the August 22 City Council Meeting.

• Most importantly, we invite you to tell us what you and your people do to stop this misuse of public resources, so that we may join you, and be powerfully together in our commitment to safety grounded in mutual care, and our refusal to accept the lie that criminalization produces safety.

DIRECT CARE KEEPS PEOPLE ALIVE. 

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Here are a few things to watch for in the  video, many of which are pointed out in the article:

@16 min: Discussion on this topic begins

@26:50: City Attorney Brad Branham brings up the example of Charleston, SC having criminalized offering money to people who are poor if done from a vehicle

@29:05: Maggie Ullman (Committee Chair)wonders why people who are poor and asking for help have to stay only 6 feet away from people who aren’t poor; wonders if they could be legally required to stay farther away.

@34:10: A discussion of which areas of the city are currently those in which people who are poor and asking for anything are more heavily criminalized, with suggestions to expand this additional criminalization into other areas

@37:15: Maggie Ullman notes that making asking for money a misdemeanor won’t address the root causes, then goes on to suggest that once it is illegal for people driving to directly give money to people who are poor, there could be a way for them to give to nonprofits. 

@40:05: Maggie Ullman suggests partnering with the local organization who advocates for increased criminalization and policing on choosing which nonprofits to suggest donations go to, once direct giving of money from a vehicle is illegal.

@42-48: A discussion of adding these criminalization measures onto the proposed amendment 

@49.20: The motion for the amendment passes, including the three additions.