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Organizations distributing food to homeless individuals in downtown Dallas say the city’s crackdown is persisting as the World Cup winds down.
As morning temperatures sat in the low 90s Sunday, organizers for Sandwich Sundays moved their twice-monthly street feeding from behind Dallas City Hall to the shaded section of the plaza. From a row of coolers parked on a sidewalk, volunteers handed out over 200 sandwiches and hot meals, roughly the same number of bottles of water and some canned goods to homeless individuals. Organizers also said that 10 people were registered to vote the day after July 4 at an expanded distribution dubbed “The People’s Picnic.”
But while volunteers started lugging supplies to the plaza, security guards approached the group almost immediately, Wade Padgett, vice president of the People of Dallas Houseless Aid, said. He told them to vacate the property. After organizers refused, Dallas Police units arrived, who were in turn followed by city code officers. That’s when the group’s president was cited for illegal vending under Chapter 50 of the Dallas City Code.
In May, the group was forced to vacate its longstanding corner for the first time after code compliance officers said their tables were blocking sidewalk traffic. A few weeks prior, the Dallas City Council voted to amend the code to include charitable distributions in its definition of a vendor — although stopping short of requiring permits for distributions — following pressure from downtown residents and shelters.
“Every time they’ve set up a regulation or a rule, we have tried to comply to the best of our ability, and it just feels like every time, as soon as we were compliant with it, they found a reason why we weren’t compliant,” Padgett said.
Shifting expectations
Homeless feeding events in downtown have become a controversial subject in recent years amidst Dallas’ push to combat the issue in the inner core. Residents have raised concerns of large groups assembling for the handouts and the trash often left behind. In The Dallas Morning News, Downtown Dallas Inc President Jennifer Scripps wrote in an editorial that “Street feeding undermines the very strategy Dallas has embraced to reduce and ultimately solve homelessness: connecting people to housing and services.”
Organizations feeding the homeless already have to comply with a few ground rules. First, as Padgett’s group learned in April, tables or stands can’t touch the ground. Second, prepared meals must be kept at safe food temperatures. Organizations must also notify the code department at least a day in advance and bring enough trash bags to clean up after a distribution is over.
Padgett said the group complies with all of those standards, although he admitted the coolers were the code issue Sunday. But the restrictions, he said, are contradictory and inconsistent.
“They said, well, you can’t distribute on coolers or anything touching the ground on public property, but they want us to hand everything out by hand, so they want us to walk down and distribute by hand,” he said. “Well, the coolers keep cold things cold and the hot things hot… So it doesn’t always seem like it’s about food safety.”
The group is considering legal action against the city, Padgett said, adding that he does not know why they’re being targeted — mostly because of lack of clear direction from the city.
“In one newsletter and then their website, they say, ‘Hey, we thank you for what you’re doing, we encourage you to go to these other units to distribute,’” he said. “On the other, they’re like, ‘Well, you can distribute but don’t do it that way.
“I’m not gonna guess what the reasoning is,” he added. “The fact is that when we try to meet the goals that they set forward, again, it feels like every week there’s something different.”
‘Keeping our streets clean‘
Some city officials have previously expressed dissatisfaction with the state of downtown homeless food service. In a 2025 Morning News interview, City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert called street feeding “problematic.”
In response to questions about the citation issued Sunday, a spokesperson for the city pointed the Observer to the section of city code governing street vending.
“The City of Dallas Code Compliance Services enforces Chapter 50-158 of the Dallas City Code, which regulates the distribution and sale of goods on public property,” the statement reads. “Our aim is to keep shared public spaces safe and sanitary while supporting groups that want to serve residents in need.”
City council members were divided on how to approach the issue in April. Some, including Jesse Moreno, argued that adding a permit requirement would reduce street trash and help fight foodborne illnesses. Others, led by Adam Bazaldua, said the move could be seen as restricting an act of faith — something which the city settled a lawsuit for in 2014 after even stricter feeding regulations were proposed.
“It’s not our place to take that away. So I am opposed to trying to restrict something that is clearly, to me, a First Amendment right that a couple of neighbors don’t like,” Cara Mendelsohn, District 12 council member, said. “We need to do a better job enforcing the codes we already have on our books, which are reasonable, but not try to limit something that’s clearly an expression of faith and compassion.”
Mendelsohn also said staff had failed to provide confirmed reports of foodborne illness stemming from street feedings when asked, adding that the issue being used to justify further restrictions “seems not plausible to me.”
As the council ultimately deferred the permitting discussion to a still-to-be-held committee meeting, the issue underlying the debate was mentioned by several council members and clear to those watching the meeting. The city has its own plan for fighting homelessness, and street feedings don’t fit neatly in that picture.
In 2025, the city and Housing Forward launched the Street to Home initiative, a robust program designed to connect homeless individuals with housing and provide support to keep them off the streets. Moreno told the council in April that Housing Forward supported further restrictions. Other major homeless organizations have also voiced concerns that charitable street feedings may encourage unsheltered homelessness, despite organizers’ earnest efforts to help.
“So I want to be clear that this is not necessarily meant to hinder folks from serving, but it’s really meant to drive us towards a collective effort so that we can serve the whole person—not just feeding, but also keeping our streets clean,” said council member Zarin Gracey, who spoke in support of the restrictions.
In the city statement, a spokesperson said: “Education is and has been central to how we approach this work.”
“Whenever our teams engage an individual or organization, we provide informational materials that explain lawful ways to distribute goods and try to connect them with established service providers in the area who can assist with compliance,” the statement reads.
Adapting
Houda Bakr is the founder of Dallas Street Feeders, another nonprofit that has been distributing food downtown since 2025. Her organization relies on donations from local restaurants to deliver meals to homeless individuals downtown, who can also get hygiene products, condoms and clothes on the last Sunday of each month.
She said she is resistant to the notion that she should funnel her services through a city-supported organization, noting that the people she meets “are the ones that go to the shelters, and they’re turned away. They’re at mass capacity.”
“I do not want to lose my autonomy as a nonprofit ever, and being monopolized by government-funded centers and shelters doesn’t make any sense for the way that my nonprofit operates,” Bakr said. “Every other nonprofit is free to operate in the way that serves them best.”
Since she received a citation at the end of May for illegal vending on public property, Bakr and volunteers have had to adjust the operational model. Clothes aren’t handed out as frequently, and they don’t have the time for mobile STD clinics. They have also ended feedings at a centralized location; instead, volunteers take food from a drop-off point and fan out to distribute meals at satellite spots around downtown. So far, there has not been another incident.
Before the May citation, Bakr said the group had not had any prior issues with the city and that her first citation was issued without warning, despite having emailed the code department at least 24 hours prior. She said the instructions from staff have been confusing at best and contradictory at worst, adding that “they still want to stop us.”
“This is my public property, and we share it,” she said. “So, for there to be inconsistent communications… I mean, their point was to protect the PR of the city of Dallas to international tourists and the international image that we have. But I think, in fact, that they’ve severely damaged it.”
While the group held its first distribution in Fort Worth recently, Bakr said she is still committed to downtown.
“We started there,” Bakr said. “We’re never going to leave that community; we’re going to expand and help other communities as well, because that’s very important. But we’re not going to be bullied.”
