Around noon on Thursday, the La Maraude association was distributing around fifty of its lunch bags to regulars in Place de la Riponne. Nothing different from the previous days since the start of the health crisis. Except that this time, two agents of the Lausanne municipal police went there and told the volunteers that they had to stop.
They have, “by order of their hierarchy, orally signified that, from now on, we were no longer authorized to distribute food for health reasons linked to the Covid 19 pandemic,” the association’s statement said on Facebook, Thursday late afternoon.
The association La Maraude has been active for almost five years in the Vaud capital to help the homeless directly on the streets. It has not suspended its activities since the start of the authorities’ health measures, justified by the spread of the virus.
In its press release, La Maraude explains that it respects standards and recommendations. She lists her precautions in nine points, from the preparation of lunch bags to the end of the distribution, to demonstrate that she does not break any rules. There is no longer a distribution of food and drink in bulk, but the food is now prepared, with “wearing masks, gloves, charlottes and use of disinfectant gel”. Volunteers are never more than two or three during their activities, lunch bags are even “prepared in a professional kitchen by a recognized professional partner”. These bags are “closed with double knots so that beneficiaries do not open the bags in front of us”. At each stage, the minimum distances are carefully applied and crowds are avoided, stresses La Maraude.
La Maraude challenges the Municipality through a lawyer. The association wants to know the formal decision on which the agents who came to the Place de la Riponne would have relied to signify the ban. The latter even reported to the volunteers of La Maraude “that, according to the same hierarchical superiors, our action was useless since the Popular Soup serves meals at noon and in the evening in all the structures opened by the city”.
The Lausanne Municipal Police do not endorse the action of the police. “There is no ban on La Maraude’s activity,” explains Sylvain Jacot-Descombes, spokesperson for the police force. Admittedly, there was a communication resulting from exchanges with social services, to direct people to the structures set up by the municipality. On the spot, it was a question of checking the respect of the distances. Unfortunately, there was a misunderstanding, a shortcut on the part of the agents, an unfortunate initiative by saying that the volunteers were not allowed to make this distribution ”. The association will receive an official response Friday, said Sylvain Jacot-Descombes.
“Probably we manage to secure our activities at least as well – if not even better – than other entities that distribute food, believes Christian Roy, of La Maraude. We have the feeling that it is a false trial that we are being made, when we see the people waiting for us there, who never go to the soup kitchen. These are some of the people who are also afraid to go to places of distribution where the crowds are busier. ”
Created: 17.04.2020, 06:49
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