DB: ...sort of the look of the Third World, because you begin to see more and more whole families on the street.
KM: Absolutely. And you see entire little villages, and camps. And so, Food Not Bombs, and many other groups, are out on the streets serving free food. And what we do is we collect free food that can't be sold from grocery stores, and we make vegan meals that we share on the streets, under a banner that says Food Not Bombs, with a literature table with information.
And, of course, right now, information on immigrants' rights and information on how to resist all the crazy things that are going on, as a result of the election of Trump. But also, we were doing that under Obama with his wars, and so on.
So, it's just a ramped-up continuation of this resistance that we've been doing for 30... it'll be 37 years this May 24th. And the numbers for Food Not Bombs groups is just growing by leaps and bounds, all over the world. There's like three groups in Turkey, for instance, that are being arrested, for feeding people out on the streets, as part of the general clamp-down after the coup attempt.
But Food Not Bombs in America has been having tons of trouble, as well. And, most recently, Tampa, Florida, arrested seven volunteers. But the outrage, world-wide, was just so huge that the district attorney dropped the charges.
And right now, as we're speaking, there's a meeting to try to figure out... with the city, to try to figure out what to do about Food Not Bombs. But, fortunately, those young people there, are just so impressive and so amazing, that they are not going to bend to the will of the authorities. Which is, basically, to try to get you to get a permit that then, in our experience, they withdraw as soon as they want to get rid of you. And then they use that as "Oh, well they had a permit, but they did something wrong, now they don't have it. Now it's our legitimate right to harass them."
The reality is, you don't need a permit to do this. We don't get paid. It's just a gift... an unregulated gift of love. And it would be like trying to issue permits for people doing anything to help their community, out of their own free will. Fortunately, we've been able to push back, attack after attack. Orlando, Ft. Lauderdale, Arcata, California, San Francisco, and now there's even efforts in Southern California and some of those small cities, like Corona, where they're trying to outlaw outdoor distribution of free food.
So, it's a growing municipal effort nation-wide to try to make this illegal and difficult, or impossible, for people to feed the hungry, with some kind of a theory that if you stop feeding people, they will disappear.
DB: They will go get a job with their kids. Like they didn't just lose their job. Like there aren't so many people who have been permanently out of work. There are so many struggles. We see this all the time. Keith, about how many times have you been arrested for giving out free food?
KM: The San Francisco authorities said I have been arrested 94 times, there. And that the district attorney at the time, Carlos Smith, said I did 500 days in jail. And then I was arrested twice in Orlando, for feeding people, and did 18 days there, which was even more brutal than the 500 days that I did in San Francisco, because Florida jails are just unbelievably horrible. Horrible. In fact, somebody thought I should make a Lonely Planet guide to city jails in America, [which] I might do.
DB: Now, there is clearly... and I'd like you to talk a little bit about this Keith. There's clearly an attempt, they're continuing collaborations, cities, states... to criminalize both homelessness, and then the folks who become the supporters, like yourself, like people who provide food. This is sort of part of a trend, right?
KM: Right. It is. And there's this odd thing where there's... at least one consultant, and then possibly more, who are going around, helping cities, at a cost of $5,300.00/month, solve their homeless problem by removing outdoor food service. And the most recent one was Phoenix, Arizona, where they actually... the Phoenix Human Resource Department, last September, did this thing called the Street Feeding Collaborative to educate faith and community based groups about why feeding can do more harm, than good.
And the kind of the leader of this, or the most prominent spokesperson for this theory, that feeding people outside will encourage them to stay homeless, and that somehow eating indoors will essentially get them access to addiction services. And his perspective -- this man, Robert Marbut from San Antonio, Texas -- is suggesting that basically people are on drugs or alcohol, and if they'd just get off of drugs and alcohol, by going to one of these multi-service centers, they'd get help, they'd get access to housing, they'd get drug treatment, and so on. But, if you feed people outdoors they won't get those services.
And he's really pushing this idea, but it's been sadly, for him, a failure. And that's where, and sadly for the homeless people that actually have tried to... that have been either denied food because people have been stopped from feeding people, or who also end up in these programs, and actually don't get the help that is so promised.
And most famously he has a program... he started a project that cost $100,000,000 to start up, in San Antonio, Texas, called Haven for Hope. And, even in the last 12 months, there's been news reports ... that actually the homeless population is just huge in San Antonio, and way beyond the capacity of Haven for Hope. And Haven for Hope is in financial trouble, and it's just actually not a solution.
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