Tempe denies AZ HUGS permit to feed homeless population. Why? 'Repeated defiance'

Tempe has banned a local nonprofit from hosting a long-running event to feed the homeless in city parks for at least a year, a move that a city news release said is about permitting rules and resident safety, but local activists are decrying it as an inhuman effort to force homeless people out of Tempe.

The nonprofit, called AZ HUGS, has been hosting the picnics every Sunday for the past three years. It usually takes place in ramadas at Papago Park, where the nonprofit's founder, Austin Davis, hands out free meals to the scores of homeless people who show up and sometimes connects them with needed services.

He never got a special events permit from the city, but Tempe looked the other way until November, when they warned Davis to apply for the event license and stop hosting the picnics until the city signed off. Davis applied for the permit last month but refused to stop the picnics while the city reviewed his request because he saw it as an attempt to deny help to those most in need.

That "repeated defiance" is why Tempe said it rejected the application on Friday and barred his nonprofit from legally hosting the events for at least another year.

“All public open space used for events, whether hosted by a nonprofit organization, resident or business, requires a special event permit. No person or organization is above city code, regardless of the type of event being held,” said Greg Ruiz, the interim deputy community manager for Tempe’s public safety departments.

Davis, however, describes it as a heavy-handed blow to Tempe's most vulnerable population.

"This whole situation is about much more than just the picnic. This is about human rights," he said. "Taking away access to daily necessities like food and criminalizing homelessness in Tempe doesn’t actually solve anything. ... Doing so just shifts the location of where those in need have to hide."

The city's decision comes at a time when Tempe leaders are trying to crack down on homelessness in city parks, where the vast majority of residents feel unsafe at nighttime. The city recently revived its park ranger program and bumped funding for the city’s CARE 7 line that residents can call to have staffers sent out to help homeless individuals.

The city said those broader efforts aren't what drove it to stop allowing Davis to operate without a permit in November, but that the decision to begin enforcing its own rules was prompted by ongoing complaints from nearby residents about the gatherings.

Tempe contends Davis' picnics have hurt those efforts, writing in a news release that it took action against the picnics because of a surge in resident complaints and "an uptick in trash and drug paraphernalia found in the area after the events take place."

"Several residents asked city leadership at the Jan. 11 City Council meeting to address unsanctioned special events in parks, citing safety concerns, excessive trash, hazards such as hypodermic needles, improper use of ramadas, environmental impacts and conflicts with properly permitted events," Tempe's news release said.

Davis vehemently denies that his events are behind those issues. He said that drugs and drinking aren't allowed at the picnics. He added that there haven't been any incidents at the events and that he cleans up the space after each gathering to ensure the is park as clean as they found it.

AZ HUGS: Nonprofit hosts weekly cookouts for homeless people in Tempe

The nonprofit leader said Tempe is shooting itself in the foot by nixing his picnic because it will ultimately reduce the number of homeless individuals who get help. Davis claims that over the past 30 days, he's connected more than two dozen individuals to drug treatment services at the events.

The real reason Tempe is trying to shut him down, according to Davis, is because officials want to hide the homeless population to create the appearance that the problem is being solved, rather than actually solving it.

He believes Tempe has been scrambling to make the unhoused population less visible since it razed the out-of-the-way Rio Salado homeless camp, sending as many as 200 individuals flooding into nearby parks, storefronts and neighborhoods.

Davis has pledged to continue hosting the picnics at city parks, despite Tempe's refusal to grant him a permit.

"Time and time again, it’s been proven that to truly help people through their complicated situations, we need to foster an environment of trust, community and care," he said.

"This criminalization of homelessness is actually what perpetuates it because people don’t have any time to process their trauma or figure out how to make actionable steps forward, they are caught in this quicksand of just trying to find somewhere to rest momentarily. As a city and as a community, it is our responsibility to work towards change for our neighbors experiencing homelessness."

Reporter Sam Kmack covers Tempe, Scottsdale and Chandler. Follow him on X @KmackSam or reach him at sam.kmack@arizonarepublic.com.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Tempe bans charity from feeding the homeless in parks. Here's why