With each passing day, it seems the United States of America, “Land of the Free and Home of the Brave” is becoming more and more like the Communist Russia I learned about in elementary school where people weren’t allowed to grow their own food unless the State “allowed” it.
In this latest crackdown on citizens simply trying to provide for themselves using the most basic of skills – gardening – the USDA’s Rural Development Agency is forbidding Rosie, an industrious 4-year old girl in South Dakota from using a small, unused area outside her subsidized housing unit to grow green vegetables.
Rosie’s mother, Mary (names changed to protect the child’s identity), is single and severely disabled. She and her daughter live on a fixed income disability payment of $628/month. The garden vegetables growing just outside her backdoor lovingly tended by Rosie provide a fresh and healthy addition to their diet that they could not otherwise easily afford.
Rosie started the garden in May 2013, but now the property management company has ordered the garden be removed this week!
The reason?
The property management company claims that gardening goes against the rules set by the USDA’s Rural Development Agency which forbids residents to have structures of any kind within landscaped areas. It seems to me that the practice of growing vegetables by the most needy in our society would take precedence over landscaping, wouldn’t you agree?
I wonder if the USDA plans to establish “rules” about breathing air in subsidized areas too?
The Federal bureaucracy seems to think that it owns those individuals who receive any sort of government assistance and that their behavior is completely within its jurisdiction to control no matter how ridiculous or blatantly un-American the power-tripping “rules” they decide to put in place may be.
Think this is an isolated case? Â It’s not. Â I write regularly on this blog about these outrageous situations where ordinary citizens are bullied by out of control bureaucrats, the most recent being a Mother in Maine who was harassed and threatened by the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) for feeding her healthy, robust 3 month old son homemade goat milk formula instead of horribly unhealthy commercial formula from the store laced with rancid vegetable oils and GMOs!
What You Can Do Now to Help Rosie
It is truly unfathomable that our country has degenerated to the point where a person can no longer garden without permission from bureaucratic thugs who get paid with our hard earned tax dollars to think up these rules – Â not laws –Â rules that have never been voted on by the elected representatives of the citizens expected to abide by those rules.
If you recall, this is exactly the sort of authoritarian insanity that started the American Revolutionary War (tea party anyone?).
Tell the USDA where it can put its “rules” against gardening by those living in rural, subsidized areas.
Sample Email to USDA
You can copy/paste the email template below to send directly from your email provider. Template provided courtesy of Kitchen Gardeners International, the source of this story.
To:Â [email protected]
Cc: [email protected], [email protected]
Subject:Â Allow USDA-subsidized housing residents to grow vegetable gardens
Message body:
Dear Director Meeks,
I urge you to make a loud and clear statement to all the property management companies your agency contracts that USDA-subsidized residents have the right to keep their own vegetable gardens provided that these gardens are actively maintained. Vegetable gardens grow healthy and affordable foods as well as a sense of community. Rather than preventing low-income and disabled residents from providing for themselves, we should be doing everything we can to encourage them. Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Sincerely yours,
(Your name, your town, your state)
Important Updates to This Story
8/27/2013:Â FINAL UPDATEÂ and details on Rosie’s Victory Garden!
8/26/2013:  A detailed update to this story is provided here.
8/25/2013: Â Roger Doiron, Director of Kitchen Gardeners International, has provided more details on this emerging story. The USDA has claimed in email correspondence to Mr. Doiron that it has no written rules preventing Mary and Rosie from having a garden (despite the property management company’s insistence to the contrary). On the other hand, the USDA hasn’t come to Mary and Rosie’s defense either and by allowing the property management company it has a contract with to call the shots and bully Mary and Rosie it is essentially enforcing such a rule no matter what is claimed via email.
Bureaucratic rules are notoriously confusing to understand let alone interpret, but if the USDA stands behind its assertion that there are no “rules” – written OR unwritten – against gardening in subsidized housing, it should stop the property management company under the auspices of the USDA from forcing Mary and Rosie to remove their garden.
The USDA pays most of the rent for Mary and thousands of citizens like her around the United States. Â It should do the right thing and insist that property owners and managers of subsidized housing permit residents to grow their own food in well cared for gardens rather than look the other way when residents are bullied for their efforts at self sufficiency. Â After all, the stated mission of the USDA Rural Development Agency is to “improve the quality of life in rural America”. Gardening surely would be supportive of this important goal.
Source
Kitchen Gardeners International (KGI).  Rosie and Mary’s real names and exact location in South Dakota have not been revealed in order to protect the identity of a minor child.  Please contact KGI Director Roger Doiron, [email protected] if you wish to further verify the validity of this story.
I can’t believe the vitriol in some of these responses and even in the article. I have to take this article with a grain of salt there there are no references given for the information. The only things that come up in a Google search are numerous far right wing sites and blogs quoting Sarah’s article.
Before retirement, I worked for ten years at a local housing authority. We followed HUD rules and regulations and used federal monies to assist low income people with their rent. However, HUD (Housing and Urban Development) did not get involved in our every day business and only audited us once a year. All of our tenants in public housing units had private patio areas or balconies and could plant whatever they wanted in their space but not in the common areas. Our high-rise building even had built in planters on the balconies where many tenants grew flowers and vegetables. The Housing Authority owned several houses and many of the tenants in those units took advantage of the space to raise gardens. Units in the private market that were subsidized by the Section 8 program were subject to the rules set by the property owner/manager. Those rules were the same for private pay tenants and for subsidized tenants.
I am beginning to think that the positive information that I get from The Healthy Home Economics is not worth also getting this kind of garbage.
Hi Velta, To protect their identities, Rosie and Mary’s real names or exact location in South Dakota are not being disclosed. If you would like to further verify the validity of this very real story, contact Kitchen Gardeners International director, Roger Doiron, [email protected])
Thank you for asking the same questions I did. I wonder, did they ask questions, such as can we plant this here? If not where can we plant a garden? I understand not wanting to hurt the family more, other than saying they are from SD, I think that there is more to this story than meets the eye. I found this article from a friend who was outraged that the girl was not allowed to have her garden, but we only have part of the story. Can you please quote the exact area that the USDA is using for this issue? Can you quote what structure is concerned in this matter (the only thing in the small picture is the pallet. At least please to not leave only 1 side of the story.
I do appreciate the article. I just want more facts to make my own decision about what is going on.
Thank you for this Velta. I also love Sarah’s articles and information, but then I read one of her right wing conspiracy theories and it wears on me. The biggest irony to me is that the revolutionaries she refers to in her article would have Rosie living in a box on the street. This is a sad situation and I hope that the article brings a positive response to the family in spite of the very negative and bitter tone in which it is written.
So, saw idiots such as Michael husband, making comments about comments that say hey, isn’t Russia’s fault that was a bad comparison, So loser, I’ve a dozen ascendants who started and fought in the American Revolution and made it great, I myself, was U.S. Calvary Officer, and made huge improvements on America’s military research. What is a little shit like you telling real people that they ought to consider me? What did a little sawed off like you ever do besides bleat american?
This story needs to be followed up.
This I do know. . .
Now if an oil and gas company were fracking on this property next to the house, there would be no problem (with the government).
The USDA is all but useless.
More than useless, criminal: what about the poor organic okra farmer they raided:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/15/texas-swat-team-conducts-_n_3764951.html
By the way: perfect comment about the fracking!
Unfortunately this is nothing new OR unusual. The restrictions on what can be done in/to subsidized housing has ALWAYS been ridiculously narrow. I do believe this is all written out in their guidelines when people are placed. I have always thought that many of these rules are stupid and counterproductive. I just want to make it clear that this is not evidence of government taking away MORE freedoms. This is old news that has needed changing for a long time.
hey folks, before everyone jumps on the “government is the enemy” bandwagon, is it at all understandable that the landlord is allowed to make the rules and that since they live in a government owned and subsidized housing project the landlord is the government? more importantly, instead of focusing on the fact that the girl isn’t allowed to dig up the property to plant whatever she’s planting (whether we think that’s worthwhile or not) we should remember that without the government’s assistance this little girl and her severely disabled mom would be homeless and broke.
if you want to look at oppressive government, you should all read the news coming out of syria, egypt, china, and any number of countries whose citizens must fear for there lives and/or have nearly no basic rights.
you are a load of pathetic tossers,where are the people who made america great, you let the lawers treat you like shit, you are no better than the communists you were brought up to hate. get real for gods sake, this is a garden,you are not drilling for oil !!!!!!!!
I agree a small garden shouldn’t be a issue.. I do understand the reasoning. They do not allow this because most areas such as where they are living are maintained by pest control and landscape companies and the possibility of accidental poisoning is high.. These could be very different head lines. They could read ” Disabled mother and small 4yr old child poisoned by their own garden” The story would then go on to tell how the garden was effected by pest control agents poisoning the mother and child unknowingly. Then everyone would be screaming why weren’t they warned. It’s a Loose Loose situation anyway you look at it but least they are alive this way..
It sounds more like the property management company may be the bad guy here, not the USDA.
i suggest we write to Mrs Obama who grows and advocates growing veggies in home & community gardens. Maybe she will find a way to have someone intervene & get rid of this nonsensical rule. It’s truly unbelievable!!
Not only should it be allowed, it should be required by all living in subsidized housing, rural and cities. Turn those yards and/or court yards into gardens. They usually all have a designated play area, leave that and garden the rest. There may not be huge areas for gardening but a bunch of small ones will work just as good. Cut the monetary amount they receive in food stamps, and if they refuse to participate in the gardening cut it 100%. I realize not everyone is able to garden due to disability, age, or other circumstance, just as in this article, the mom is severely disabled, but the daughter isn’t and she took it upon herself to do this. Even the youngest of children can do something in a garden! This is just another example of government wanting everyone completely dependent. Here we have a young child wanting to work and the government stops it tsk tsk tsk.