Homelessness is a difficult issue to address. But the city of Tempe’s ongoing fight with the homeless charity AZ Hugs is an example of picking the absolute worst option for tackling the issue: criminalizing charity.

On Aug. 14, Austin Davis, founder of AZ Hugs, will face off against the City of Tempe in a legal battle following his arrest and jailing for feeding homeless people in a public park. Davis and AZ Hugs host a Sunday Family Picnic in the local park, providing free meals and water to people in need, as well as seeking to connect them with shelter and other supportive services. The city is demanding a special-

events permit for the picnics, which it denied Davis in January. Davis continued anyway, after which he was banned from Tempe parks and arrested on July 26 for continuing to serve food. He faces more than a dozen charges.

Davis’ story is not unique. There is a growing trend of local governments targeting those who use their own time and resources to help others in need.

In March 2022, grandmother and retired restaurateur, Norma Thornton, was arrested for feeding people in need in a park in Bullhead City. For years, Norma had gone to the park several times per week to share home cooked meals with the hungry, clean up her trash afterward, and move on with her day. What she did not realize until she was arrested was that the city had all but criminalized the act of sharing prepared food in a public park for “charitable purposes.” The city requires a permit to charitably share food, but the permit is so onerous to obtain and limitations on permittees so restrictive that not a single person has applied for one. Meanwhile, no permit is required to share food for non-charitable purposes, meaning that Norma can freely share her food with those who don’t need it while being arrested for sharing with those who are hungry. None of it makes any sense, and even the arresting officer called the decision to arrest her a “PR nightmare.” My public-interest firm, the Institute for Justice (IJ), is representing Norma and we’re currently waiting for the court to rule on the constitutionality of Bullhead City’s law.

Americans have a long-established constitutional right to engage in charity. People have helped others since time immemorial. Charity is a core part of our American identity—which has always favored private solutions to public problems. Local governments’ efforts to stop charity is a recent trend, which unfortunately extends beyond Arizona’s hungry. In North Wilkesboro, North Carolina, for example, officials attempted to weaponize the town’s zoning laws to prevent a local non-profit from opening a homeless shelter on its own property. After the shelter teamed up with IJ and filed a federal lawsuit, the court ruled that it was permitted to open. In the opinion, Judge Kenneth D. Bell said, “While homeless individuals face many challenges, attaining equal protection of the law under the Constitution ought not be one of them.”

While governments are not required to provide shelter or food to those in need, they certainly cannot stand in the way of people who wish to do so. Good Samaritans like Norma and Austin have a constitutional right to engage in charity.

Diana Simpson is an attorney at the Institute for Justice. She represents Norma Thornton in her lawsuit against Bullhead City.