Speaker 1: Al Zone Media.
Speaker 2: Hello and welcome to you can happen here exchange today.
Speaker 2: And I'm joined by Luca and Sailor. They're both from Breadlock,
Speaker 2: which is a mutual aid group in San Diego. How
Speaker 2: are you doing today?
Speaker 3: We're doing great, great.
Speaker 1: How are you wonderful?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm thriving. I've just received my seventy fifth COVID
Speaker 2: booster I think, I think, so having a little miserable day,
Speaker 2: but that's okay, not going to get novel coronavirus, which
Speaker 2: is always nice. So can you guys start out by
Speaker 2: maybe explaining, well, what Breadblock does, how long it's done it,
Speaker 2: and why it does it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So we are a mutual aid group. We mostly
Speaker 4: provide hot food. That's like the core of our services.
Speaker 4: We feed about one hundred people like like eighty to
Speaker 4: one hundred people depending on the day weekly in East
Speaker 4: Village in San Diego. We also clothing and harm reduction
Speaker 4: supplies and other things like tampons and plan b when
Speaker 4: we can get our hands on it, and we try
Speaker 4: to be we are there like at the same time
Speaker 4: every day. I will not say the exact location, but
Speaker 4: if you are interested in getting involved, you can always
Speaker 4: reach out and that's like what we're doing right now,
Speaker 4: and that happens weekly and sale am I missing anything?
Speaker 5: Yeah, So this form of what we're doing with bread
Speaker 5: block in a more organized way has We've only been
Speaker 5: doing it a few months. However, Initially we started doing
Speaker 5: it in twenty twenty one when I started getting into
Speaker 5: harm reduction stuff and I was working at a strange
Speaker 5: exchange and realized a lot of people would be asking
Speaker 5: for food and we weren't getting that out there, and
Speaker 5: so that's why the initial idea came about. And then
Speaker 5: we just had enough people who were willing to do
Speaker 5: it in a weekly so that's how we chose that
Speaker 5: location and got started doing that. There's just a lot
Speaker 5: of people down there on those nights, so.
Speaker 4: It's time to happen at the same time that a
Speaker 4: harm reduction services happen the Needle Exchange, So it's at
Speaker 4: a time when a lot of people are down there
Speaker 4: and the amount of time are like collective doing this
Speaker 4: specific thing as exist is. I believe since end of
Speaker 4: March early April is how long we've been like consistently
Speaker 4: providing services every week.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's great, that's a long time. So especially through
Speaker 2: like summer can be a difficult time if you don't
Speaker 2: have a house in San Diego, Like it gets increasingly,
Speaker 2: it gets very hot, and particularly the streets themselves get hot,
Speaker 2: and that becomes dangerous for people.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: So I want to start with like, at some point, right,
Speaker 2: say that you were doing a syringe exchange and you
Speaker 2: are like, these people need to be fed. They are hungry,
Speaker 2: and now we're here and you're feeding them every week, right,
Speaker 2: But you had to do a whole lot of things
Speaker 2: in between here and there. And like, I know this
Speaker 2: because listeners email me all the time. So many people
Speaker 2: want to do that too, and it might not exist
Speaker 2: where they are. They might not know. So, like, can
Speaker 2: you explain how you went about like seeing a need
Speaker 2: and then organizing to meet that need?
Speaker 5: Yeah, so I guess what came before that was we
Speaker 5: had already built relationships with each other around our leftist
Speaker 5: ideals and art and protesting and different stuff.
Speaker 3: So we already knew a lot.
Speaker 5: Of people who who were interested in mutual aid and
Speaker 5: that capacity. Yeah, but I will say things like Instagram
Speaker 5: have helped just meet more people who are looking to
Speaker 5: get involved in mutual aid.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Like Saylah said, we had like had spent some
Speaker 4: time building community with each other and getting a core
Speaker 4: group of people that trust each other, that had gone
Speaker 4: to protests together, that were maybe in like affinity groups
Speaker 4: already with each other, and then there was just sort
Speaker 4: of like enough of us that were in community with
Speaker 4: each other at the time that when Sala was like,
Speaker 4: the encampment ban is like really making things so much
Speaker 4: worse for people in communities and we really need to
Speaker 4: do something, we were like, all just like it just
Speaker 4: happened because we were all sitting in a room together
Speaker 4: one night after a like social event, and Sala was like,
Speaker 4: we need to talk about this, and we were like, okay, yeah,
Speaker 4: we like need to do this, and we had enough
Speaker 4: people where we could pull together a first distro and
Speaker 4: then a second and then gradually adding like more organizations
Speaker 4: so that we could continue doing it sustainably over time.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, that's like I want to be opinion the
Speaker 2: camping ban, because the camping ban is making things worse
Speaker 2: for people who are already having a hard time just
Speaker 2: surviving here, and it fucking sucks and it's tog glorious fault.
Speaker 2: You shouldn't bothe Yeah, let's talk about though, Like I
Speaker 2: want to get into nuts and bolts, right, feeing one
Speaker 2: hundred people? Right, you need to and ass pad, you
Speaker 2: need loads of food, you need a place where you
Speaker 2: can cook. How did you identify all those things and
Speaker 2: how did you get to a place where you could
Speaker 2: regularly have those things?
Speaker 5: So in twenty twenty one, when I had initially started
Speaker 5: this with kind of a different group of people, but
Speaker 5: there were definitely over us, we just did it and
Speaker 5: like used my mom's kitchen and found some big pops
Speaker 5: and just made it happen. And I feel like, if
Speaker 5: you have the will to make it happen, you're going
Speaker 5: to figure it out. And you know, maybe in the
Speaker 5: beginning it was a lot more chaotic, which you know,
Speaker 5: we are anarchists, so we're okay.
Speaker 3: With the chaos.
Speaker 5: But it just after doing it a week after week,
Speaker 5: it just became more streamlined. And you know, we just
Speaker 5: buy a lot of essential bulk food and we have
Speaker 5: a few giant pops.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we like to make soup a lot.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Currently our kitchen is like like our cooking equipment includes
Speaker 4: two large pots and a rice cooker that someone recently
Speaker 4: donated to us. And then we needed a fridge, so
Speaker 4: we got a free fridge off offer up and cleaned
Speaker 4: it up and put some cool stickers on it and
Speaker 4: then plugged it into a garage. Currently, the kitchen that
Speaker 4: we use is like a couple of us just like
Speaker 4: live together, and so we use our kitchen and we
Speaker 4: have access to our garage and we just stored the
Speaker 4: supplies in the garage. We stored the fridge in the garage,
Speaker 4: and we make it work through donations we get on Instagram.
Speaker 4: So we knew some comrades that work with the community fridges.
Speaker 4: There's like some community fridges in San Diego, and so
Speaker 4: they already had a relationship with a grocery store and
Speaker 4: so we were able to hop in on that and
Speaker 4: we get some donations from that. We get some donations
Speaker 4: from What's sale the group.
Speaker 1: Oh Orchporchlight.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and there's so much food waste that I feel
Speaker 5: like if we were to find the right people, we
Speaker 5: could be fully self supporting on just things that would
Speaker 5: be thrown away alone.
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we just have to meet the right people in
Speaker 5: order to do that. But we're getting there. Yeah, And
Speaker 5: I do want to say the kitchen is a small
Speaker 5: slash regular sized kitchen, so you don't have to have
Speaker 5: some big, crazy warehouse typed kitchen to make this happen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then you're feeding people right likeuman you're doing
Speaker 2: it like in the afternoon or evening. Have you found
Speaker 2: there are things that you said you like soup, but
Speaker 2: I know, like we fed a lot of people at
Speaker 2: the border last winter, right, and we found out that
Speaker 2: like certain things work, certain things didn't work, and we
Speaker 2: always tried to keep it vegan because of people's religious
Speaker 2: needs preferences. Right, is there anything like that that you
Speaker 2: found that works or doesn't work.
Speaker 5: We have done a lot of chili with our squad,
Speaker 5: and I know that Luca has done a lot of curry.
Speaker 5: So there are certain things and they can both be
Speaker 5: easily made vegan. Initially, a lot of people when we
Speaker 5: would have vegan stuff would ask for me alternatives, to
Speaker 5: which I understand people, you know, they don't always have
Speaker 5: access to protein, So we tried out both options when
Speaker 5: we can.
Speaker 2: Nice.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it varies what we have because our group kind
Speaker 4: of functions with for like autonomous squads, like well semi
Speaker 4: autonomous that take turns doing the distress so that you're
Speaker 4: only really responsible for it once a month, which helps
Speaker 4: reduce burnout.
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely, how does that work? Explain how you came
Speaker 2: up with that and how it's organized.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So this was kind of like something we've been
Speaker 4: talking about for a while. Some of us are like
Speaker 4: more into the theory than others, but we're just kind
Speaker 4: of talking about, like, oh, well, like how do we
Speaker 4: get more people involved, because I think what happens oftentimes
Speaker 4: with these mutual aid groups is there's like a lot
Speaker 4: of people sitting in a group chat and there's like
Speaker 4: a small core of people who do end up doing
Speaker 4: the majority of the labor, and that often results in
Speaker 4: burnout for those people and building a resentment between like
Speaker 4: the people who are doing a lot and the other
Speaker 4: people because I think also like sometimes people feel left
Speaker 4: out and they don't feel like they can get involved,
Speaker 4: and then they feel like the people who are doing
Speaker 4: the core of the labor are like in charge and
Speaker 4: they have to defer to them, which creates a lot
Speaker 4: of problems, which I'm not saying like we don't have
Speaker 4: any of those problems, Like we're still trying to work
Speaker 4: out the kinks, but the squads sort of like dynamic
Speaker 4: makes it so that groups of about like five to
Speaker 4: ten because a distro you need about like six people
Speaker 4: to make it happen, so about five to ten people
Speaker 4: take turns, so you just rotate, so you know when
Speaker 4: your day is. It's once a month that you are
Speaker 4: responsible for the distro and you are responsible for choosing
Speaker 4: the food that you're cooking, making sure it gets cooked,
Speaker 4: organizing with your other comrades, getting the donations, all of
Speaker 4: that stuff. But you can always ask the larger group
Speaker 4: for help or extra hands if you need it. Yeah,
Speaker 4: But it sort of shares that like responsibility because I
Speaker 4: think the most stressful part oftentimes is like, oh, the
Speaker 4: distro happening tonight is on me and I and if
Speaker 4: I don't do it, it's not going to happen. Yeah,
Speaker 4: And so it sort of spreads like that sort of labor.
Speaker 4: But we have members who like show up to every
Speaker 4: single distro because they want to, and that's totally fine,
Speaker 4: even if they're in like whatever designated squad they're in, right.
Speaker 5: Yeah, or some people who shall like once every few
Speaker 5: months because they have other stuff going on, you know.
Speaker 3: So it's very open and you don't have to be
Speaker 3: in a squad.
Speaker 5: You could just to join whenever you have the time,
Speaker 5: with whoever week it is. So it's pretty loose, yeah,
Speaker 5: I would sell, but it does give a good sense
Speaker 5: of structure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that helps a lot. I remember one day last year,
Speaker 2: that's winter, and I was out building shelters with an
Speaker 2: Uzbek guy and a few Kurdish guys, and we built
Speaker 2: these shelters and we built three of them. And afterwards,
Speaker 2: so sitting down with some of my friends who are
Speaker 2: also there as volunteers, and they're all anarchists too, we
Speaker 2: each trust each other what we did. And then one
Speaker 2: of them said, so what do we all learn? What
Speaker 2: did you learn when you did that today?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: I think that's a really valuable question that we should
Speaker 2: be asking ourselves in our organizing spaces. So like from
Speaker 2: your first distrow to now, I want to ask what
Speaker 2: did you learn?
Speaker 5: I would say, we've really learned how to trust each other.
Speaker 5: We're working on, you know, how to get consensus models,
Speaker 5: how to split the labor between different people, how to
Speaker 5: work with different people, and also, yeah, like I said
Speaker 5: in the beginning, how to really how to trust each other,
Speaker 5: which you know, we all want to see the revolution
Speaker 5: happen at some point and so I feel like one
Speaker 5: of the most important and valuable things we can be
Speaker 5: doing is building relationships and communities with each other where
Speaker 5: we can actually rely on each other. And so having
Speaker 5: a mutual task really helps with that.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I think for me, like we've like tried
Speaker 4: to do stuff in the past, like the and I
Speaker 4: think the issue we've always run into was that, like
Speaker 4: sometimes there's like a tendency to want too much structure
Speaker 4: right away and be like, oh, if we don't have
Speaker 4: everything planned down, we don't know how everything's going to work,
Speaker 4: then we can't do it, and we need to figure
Speaker 4: everything out beforehand. And we learned a lot like doing it,
Speaker 4: and even like we didn't have everything figured out, like
Speaker 4: we're still working on like our consensus structure. We're still
Speaker 4: working on like how we're going to make like big
Speaker 4: decisions as a group and like when the squads can
Speaker 4: make their own decisions and when the group can make
Speaker 4: their own decisions, and like we don't have everything figured out,
Speaker 4: like it's very like loose, but we didn't need that,
Speaker 4: and we're we've been able to do a distro for
Speaker 4: like months and we don't have everything figured out. We
Speaker 4: have something we had enough to get us started, and
Speaker 4: we're like working on like slowly adding things as we
Speaker 4: need to, without like overburdening ourselves because I think sometimes
Speaker 4: like lots of layers and lots of company exodies can
Speaker 4: really make it difficult to organize and adapt to what's
Speaker 4: happening on the ground.
Speaker 2: Definitely, I think, yeah, we can overcomplicate it and like
Speaker 2: be too anxious. Talking of anxious, I'm anxious. So we
Speaker 2: have yet to pivot to advertisements. So let's do that
Speaker 2: and then we'll come back and we're back. Okay. So
Speaker 2: you spoke about like a lot about the logistics of cooking,
Speaker 2: which is great, but I know from experience of feeding
Speaker 2: hungry people can be a challenge, right, and it's none
Speaker 2: one's fault, especially when people are hungry, Like we're not
Speaker 2: our ourselves. It's a whole advertising campaign built around that.
Speaker 2: So how do you organize your distroage such should everybody
Speaker 2: feels that they're being taken care of, Everybody feels safe
Speaker 2: and knows that they're going to get enough to eat.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, that also goes back to something more we.
Speaker 5: Learned is we try to have enough people at the
Speaker 5: distro so we can have different people doing different things,
Speaker 5: and sometimes that means one person is just walking around
Speaker 5: talking to people, de escalating a situation if needs be.
Speaker 5: And then we also figured out that at the end
Speaker 5: when we run out of food in order, but people
Speaker 5: who have been waiting in line don't get mad, which
Speaker 5: it's understandable, you know, they've been waiting in line and
Speaker 5: there's no more food than they're hungry.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Of course, we try to have like different snacks and
Speaker 5: like muffins or granola bars and water just to hand
Speaker 5: out at the end for those people who still need something.
Speaker 5: And so sometimes we have music and we all just
Speaker 5: try to bring a good energy and so far nothing
Speaker 5: that we haven't been able to handle.
Speaker 3: How to happen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that makes sense, I know. We we found
Speaker 2: the music was really helpful and we were disributing food
Speaker 2: when really big groups at the border like play some
Speaker 2: music or have a friend who plays music plays some music,
Speaker 2: and then we'd always ask folks from the group who
Speaker 2: we were feeding to volunteer to help us in that. Oh,
Speaker 2: it helped us so become language barriers and stuff.
Speaker 5: That's happened a couple of times as well, where people
Speaker 5: have just stepped up and wanted to help, which has
Speaker 5: been great.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's nice and it gives us all. Like part
Speaker 2: of what we're doing with mutual Aid isn't just meeting
Speaker 2: material needs. It's also like the difference between solidarity and charity, right,
Speaker 2: Like we're there because we care about you as people,
Speaker 2: not just as like hunger mouths that we can take
Speaker 2: off a spreadsheet like and working together is an integral
Speaker 2: part of that. It's what distinguishes us from charity model.
Speaker 5: And thankfully most of the time we have enough people
Speaker 5: that if somebody needs to step aside and have a
Speaker 5: one on one conversation with somebody because that's what they
Speaker 5: need in that moment, and we can do that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, having floaters is really important.
Speaker 4: Like we always have like two people at least two
Speaker 4: people serving food, and then we have like a snack table,
Speaker 4: water table usually, and then we have a section for
Speaker 4: harm reduction that usually gets served on like another table,
Speaker 4: and then we have like a section for clothes depending
Speaker 4: on what we have, and people sort of like go
Speaker 4: down the assembly line kind of like going down grabbing
Speaker 4: their different things, and we give people like plastic bags
Speaker 4: that we get from grocery stores so they can get
Speaker 4: their things, but we also have like floaters usually so
Speaker 4: that like if someone's like having like a medical issue,
Speaker 4: or someone's like upset or whatever is going on, someone
Speaker 4: can like step aside and spend some time with them.
Speaker 4: Like the other day, we had a woman who was
Speaker 4: not feeling well because of the heat, and she had
Speaker 4: been out and she needed to sit down, so we
Speaker 4: like grabbed one of our chairs and we sat her
Speaker 4: down and got her some water and just like talked
Speaker 4: to her. And we had a couple people who could
Speaker 4: step aside and do that, and then everyone else just
Speaker 4: could keep like feeding people without it kind of stopping things.
Speaker 4: But she still got what she needed.
Speaker 5: And during that heat waves at one of the distros,
Speaker 5: I remember you ran across and thought somebody gating because
Speaker 5: they really were needed electrolyte. So we're lucky that we
Speaker 5: have enough people that we get to be able.
Speaker 2: To do stuff like that when we need to, right
Speaker 2: and I imagine that regularity is really important, Like people
Speaker 2: know that you will be there and that they can
Speaker 2: come and you will feed them. Like that builds trust,
Speaker 2: right like, and everyone I think benefits from mittal structure
Speaker 2: and being unhealthed. It can be really fucking hard to
Speaker 2: find structure.
Speaker 5: Yes, exactly, and it's very hard to get like home
Speaker 5: cooked food.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is something I've encountered living in my cart,
Speaker 2: Like it's hard to get healthy food. The food you
Speaker 2: buy is shit. It's more expensive and it's less good
Speaker 2: for you. And like these things compound over time to
Speaker 2: have health and psychological consequences.
Speaker 3: Yeah, everything we cook we eat as well.
Speaker 5: And you know, if we're cooking or we're helping out
Speaker 5: with sister, of course it's that's.
Speaker 3: A mutual and mutual aid. We can also eat it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, that's definitely something else we learned at the
Speaker 2: border was like, especially if we're looking something that's maybe
Speaker 2: not a cultural cuisine because we're meeting people from all
Speaker 2: over the world. A lot of times, it's like, like
Speaker 2: you were saying, chili and courage, it's like hot wet food, right,
Speaker 2: Like you know that big semi liquid pan of chili
Speaker 2: or whatever that we would cook and spaghetti and like
Speaker 2: folks being like what's that, We're like, oh, do I'm
Speaker 2: going to eat some? Do you want some?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: And like I honestly had some of the happiest moments
Speaker 2: of last year, just like I remember one day. I've
Speaker 2: been building yurts all day with an osbat guy, and
Speaker 2: then we sat down and had our beans and just
Speaker 2: like talked about our lives and it was really sweet.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think that that is a moment of solidarity that
Speaker 2: you don't get when you're you know, I've seen NGOs
Speaker 2: and the US military tossing MRIs or refugees, and I
Speaker 2: think the same thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, No, there shouldn't be like a line between like
Speaker 4: you and the people that you're providing mutual aid to.
Speaker 4: I mean, like it should You should never give someone
Speaker 4: food that you're not willing to eat yourself. And like
Speaker 4: if someone's hungry while we're cooking, like they can totally
Speaker 4: eat the food that we're making too.
Speaker 1: It's not like cordoned off.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Like, of course, we like, you know, we wear our
Speaker 4: ppe and we like you know, aren't getting our hands
Speaker 4: or whatever. But I mean because a lot of the
Speaker 4: people who are like who do provide mutual aid and
Speaker 4: work in mutual aid groups like, are also people who
Speaker 4: may face houselessness or have trouble paying for groceries or something.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, for sure, Yeah, there's no separation you know
Speaker 5: between us and them at the end.
Speaker 3: Of the day.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's super important. So I want to
Speaker 2: talk about the camping ban. Maybe let's take another rab break.
Speaker 2: We'll talk about the camping them when we come back.
Speaker 2: We are back. We are now discussing the topic which
Speaker 2: I love to talk about, which is evil things that
Speaker 2: Todd Gloria has done. Today. It could be the whole
Speaker 2: podcast every day of the week for years, but we're
Speaker 2: going to talk about this camping ban. For folks who
Speaker 2: didn't listen to a camping ban episode, can you give
Speaker 2: me like a sixty second synopsis on the camping ban
Speaker 2: and then we can dive into what it's done.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So basically, earlier this year, the Supreme Court overturned of
Speaker 5: basically an ordinance that you don't have the ability to
Speaker 5: cite or arrest somebody if there's not shelter available. But
Speaker 5: they overturn that, so now they can, and Gavin Newsom
Speaker 5: issue the Sleeping Order that the agencies have to clear
Speaker 5: encampment and ordered that cities and counties do the same.
Speaker 5: So now there's fourteen plus the cities in California that
Speaker 5: do have a camping ban in place. So that's criminalizing
Speaker 5: living outside yea.
Speaker 2: The existence of unhoused people is now a crime. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so what have you seen post enforcement?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 5: So I so like work in the field of harm reduction,
Speaker 5: So you know, I do this in my free time
Speaker 5: because I want to do it, but I also do
Speaker 5: it for work, which there's definitely sometimes I feel weird about,
Speaker 5: like working for an organization and wish that I didn't
Speaker 5: have to.
Speaker 3: But it's just one of those things. And I've seen.
Speaker 5: It's really hard and really sad because when people are
Speaker 5: in encampment, a lot of times they build a sort
Speaker 5: of community and family and they learn how to take
Speaker 5: care of each other, and constantly being split up is
Speaker 5: destroying these communities. And then they just have to travel
Speaker 5: further and further away so that they're disconnected from not
Speaker 5: only their community but also resources that they do have,
Speaker 5: and so it's just really hard, and sometimes we lose
Speaker 5: connections with people.
Speaker 3: We don't know where they went, you know, or they
Speaker 3: end up in jail or it's been really.
Speaker 5: Horrible, and we're just talking about how it just seems
Speaker 5: like people don't really care and it's crazy that this
Speaker 5: is happening in our communities and people aren't talking about
Speaker 5: it and aren't outraged by it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, these bands also have like a really nasty ripple
Speaker 4: effect because when these people got pushed out of San Diego,
Speaker 4: then they go to other cities that don't have an
Speaker 4: encampment band, like Cheu La Vista National City, and now
Speaker 4: Cheu La Vista National City and other cities are advancing
Speaker 4: their own camping bands and citing an influx from San Diego. Right,
Speaker 4: so it's like creating this really awful, like just progressive
Speaker 4: expansion of these bands.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: And one more thing I'll add is that some people
Speaker 5: are like, oh, well, that's just going to you know,
Speaker 5: be good, because these people are going to get into shelters,
Speaker 5: find alternative ways of getting help. But that's not what's
Speaker 5: happening because we have not had any more shelters. It's
Speaker 5: really hard to get into a shelter actually, And you know,
Speaker 5: since Newsom has been governor, we've had apparently so many
Speaker 5: billions of dollars twenty four billions spent tackling.
Speaker 3: Homelessness, and it's like, what is there to shell for it?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 5: People still don't have a place to go, and even
Speaker 5: if they do get into a shelter, a lot of
Speaker 5: times there's so many rules and regulations that if somebody
Speaker 5: has a high level of mental health needs and they're
Speaker 5: not going to be able to stay there and there's
Speaker 5: just no solutions.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's giving the appearance of doing something to make
Speaker 2: homeowners right, people who they think matter happy. It's really bleak. Yeah,
Speaker 2: let's discuss a little bit then, like this camping band,
Speaker 2: as you say, it's forced people to other cities, Like
Speaker 2: what do you think it does to the unhoused community?
Speaker 2: Like you talked a little bit about breaking up encampments,
Speaker 2: Like where do people end up right when their encampments
Speaker 2: get broken up in the community, and like where do
Speaker 2: they end up? And how can people because this is
Speaker 2: this is nationwide, right, Yeah, Gavin Newson is being a
Speaker 2: particularly odious turd about it, but like other people other
Speaker 2: states are doing it too. It's something of ni San Diego,
Speaker 2: for instance, people ending up in a riverbed. So can
Speaker 2: you talk about like the risks there and then like, yeah,
Speaker 2: the needs that it creates and how we can meet them.
Speaker 3: So you're right, some of them are ending up in
Speaker 3: river beds.
Speaker 5: There's also like what they refer to as an island
Speaker 5: kind of close to Old Town where a lot of
Speaker 5: people have been going, but you know, you have to
Speaker 5: get a rash to go there, and it's not easy
Speaker 5: to get there.
Speaker 3: They don't have a lot of resources there. There's a
Speaker 3: lot of.
Speaker 5: Crime that happens, and it's not the best scenario. And
Speaker 5: other than that, they're making these safe sleeping sites which
Speaker 5: are not actually safe, and they're kind of like concentration
Speaker 5: camps and they're from people I've talked to actually live
Speaker 5: in them.
Speaker 3: They're not good places to be yet at all.
Speaker 5: And it's just kind of like pushing the problem out
Speaker 5: of you without actually doing anything or providing anything meaningful
Speaker 5: to people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, which is the goal. I think it is to
Speaker 2: make poverty invisible.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4: And the other thing that happens is like I live
Speaker 4: in an area where there are a lot of encampments
Speaker 4: and there probably would be permanent encampments if it weren't
Speaker 4: for the band, And personally I would prefer that, because
Speaker 4: like what happens is these people get like moved like there,
Speaker 4: their encampment will like crop up, It'll be there for
Speaker 4: like maybe a week, and then like it'll disappear, and
Speaker 4: like I'll wake up one morning and they're gone, and
Speaker 4: all of their stuff often gets thrown away. They lose
Speaker 4: access to their things if they're not there to take it.
Speaker 4: They basically can take only what they can carry on
Speaker 4: their backs if they're lucky. If they happen to be
Speaker 4: there when their stuff is being thrown away, they're sighted,
Speaker 4: they could be arrested. And then usually I see sometimes
Speaker 4: the same people come back, but they just had to
Speaker 4: like go find somewhere else. So they're basically being forced
Speaker 4: to be like migratory rather than like staying in one place,
Speaker 4: which means that it also makes like the people who
Speaker 4: live in neighborhoods like because I can't form relationships with
Speaker 4: these people as much as I could before. Like I
Speaker 4: can't know my neighbors as much because my neighbors are
Speaker 4: constantly getting moved around, So like I'll like former relationship
Speaker 4: with someone and I'll be like, you know, like I'll
Speaker 4: be like their beer guy, and I like, you know,
Speaker 4: like there's people that I'll know that I'll like go
Speaker 4: buy a beer for, go get water for if I
Speaker 4: see them and I know their name and that. But
Speaker 4: then when with the encamp ban, they might just disappear
Speaker 4: one day and I don't know if they got arrested.
Speaker 4: I don't know if they've just been displaced, and that's
Speaker 4: like not great for me, not great for them, not
Speaker 4: great for literally anyone around, because it's like people are
Speaker 4: safer if they're able to have like a stable place
Speaker 4: to be, Like everyone is safer.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if as stated goal is getting people off the streets,
Speaker 2: like chasing them around the streets, isn't doing that? They
Speaker 2: can get hot for people to find stability.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And you know, I've talked to people also about
Speaker 5: the reason sometimes I don't like the term homeless is
Speaker 5: because they're like, yes, we may not have a house,
Speaker 5: but we make our homes, we make a community, we
Speaker 5: make a home, and losing that sense of security, any
Speaker 5: little bit of security they have, constantly having to move,
Speaker 5: not ever feeling comfortable or safe.
Speaker 2: You know, that's traumatizing, taking a bad situation and making
Speaker 2: it worse, just what the state likes to do. I
Speaker 2: wonder like, before we finish up, a lot of people,
Speaker 2: like I said, want to start a mutual aid thing,
Speaker 2: do you have any advice for them? Things that you
Speaker 2: would do if you were starting over, things that you
Speaker 2: felt like you did well, if you wanted to start
Speaker 2: bread buck now how would you go about it?
Speaker 5: Start a group chat, maybe make an Instagram where you
Speaker 5: can post about it and find people who are also
Speaker 5: interested in that.
Speaker 3: Go to a local event.
Speaker 4: What else Luca having like a place where people can
Speaker 4: like congregate with each other, like having a regular like
Speaker 4: community event to meet people and get to know each
Speaker 4: other and trust each other. I really wish that we
Speaker 4: had started like sooner, because I think we had the
Speaker 4: capacity to start sooner, like way beforehand. And I think
Speaker 4: it was like the incamment ban and like Salah being
Speaker 4: like we need to do this, like happening it Like
Speaker 4: it just takes like one person being excited enough about
Speaker 4: something and then like their comrades being like, yeah, no,
Speaker 4: you're right, like we do need to do something. And
Speaker 4: I think people are really afraid to be that person
Speaker 4: to like push for something, to try to like wake
Speaker 4: other people up or like convince other people that you
Speaker 4: have to capacity to because I think the state can
Speaker 4: be really disempowering and they make you think that you
Speaker 4: need like a budget and you need like all of
Speaker 4: these things to like be able to provide people like
Speaker 4: aid or or like like mutually to provide people anything.
Speaker 4: And like we did it with like literally just like
Speaker 4: a couple of our members just like gave some money
Speaker 4: that we had and that we had, like you know,
Speaker 4: like we had like a couple hundred dollars that we
Speaker 4: got from people, and then that was enough to start
Speaker 4: and like you could literally start with like fifty bucks
Speaker 4: and figure it out.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we did not come from a place of any
Speaker 5: of us having a lot of money, so we've basically
Speaker 5: just had to figure it out. And anybody can figure
Speaker 5: it out, you know. I feel like our culture is
Speaker 5: so individualized, but we do have the capacity to come
Speaker 5: together and yeah, just take somebody being like all right,
Speaker 5: let's do this, and you'll meet enough people who are
Speaker 5: also interested in that, because people do want community at
Speaker 5: the end of the day, and people do want.
Speaker 3: To help people.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Is there anything else you guys want to mention
Speaker 2: before we go?
Speaker 5: Yeah, the only last thing I wanted to mention is
Speaker 5: that we do have a lot of future goals of
Speaker 5: expanding and doing more street medicine as well and expanding
Speaker 5: to different areas.
Speaker 3: We're also having mobile teams where we.
Speaker 5: Can go out and leach people who aren't in one
Speaker 5: location or who maybe have certain disabilities and can't walk
Speaker 5: and get there. So we have a lot of ideas
Speaker 5: for that, and that just takes meeting more people who
Speaker 5: are into this and getting more funds and yes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so hopefully that's something we can do.
Speaker 4: And I just wanted to briefly mention one of our
Speaker 4: men first did some really great research on the way
Speaker 4: the Hillcrest Business Association is using the Encampment band to
Speaker 4: further harm and using they're actually using like private security
Speaker 4: to push people out so people can enjoy their night
Speaker 4: life without having to deal with an objectionable minority that
Speaker 4: wants to live however.
Speaker 1: It pleases.
Speaker 4: For fuck's sake, the quote from mister Ben Nicholas, oh
Speaker 4: god of the Hillcrist Business Association. So they have a
Speaker 4: initiative called Hillcrest Clean and Safe Program where they displace
Speaker 4: people from Hillcrest for the benefit of the businesses.
Speaker 1: And they have like if you go on.
Speaker 4: A Voice of San Die you can hear some like
Speaker 4: just the way they talk about these people is really
Speaker 4: insane and really dehumanizing, and it kind of notes how
Speaker 4: business is, how like capitalism in the state are working
Speaker 4: together hand in hand to displace our community members. So
Speaker 4: the business associations and the businesses themselves are being empowered
Speaker 4: by these encampment bands to further repetuate violence on people jeces.
Speaker 5: Yet, Yeah, and on that topic, the way that people
Speaker 5: actually are dressing it here is making it so much worse.
Speaker 5: Like San Diego has a hot team which is part
Speaker 5: of the police department.
Speaker 3: It's called the Homeless Outreach Team.
Speaker 5: And they're supposedly supposed to help get people into shelters
Speaker 5: and stuff like that. But anybody I've talked to who
Speaker 5: have tried to reach out for them and ask, you know, okay,
Speaker 5: if you're going to move me, like I need to
Speaker 5: get into a shelter. One of them who I was
Speaker 5: talking to about this was in his seventies and very
Speaker 5: medically vulnerable, and instead of helping them find somewhere to go,
Speaker 5: they just put his car which he was sleeping in
Speaker 5: because it was unregistered, and so they're not actually helping
Speaker 5: at all.
Speaker 2: It's just a cop.
Speaker 5: And that's why, you know, just us regular people have
Speaker 5: to do something because the state's not going to.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's a great thing. That's the fucking
Speaker 2: doc about I hip GRASPAS is association for people who
Speaker 2: aren't familiar with San Diego San Diego is like lgbt
Speaker 2: q A. A neighborhood is called Hillcrest. One in three of
Speaker 2: our trandth youth are run housed and like I guess
Speaker 2: they don't manage to the Hillcrest Business Association. Not surprising
Speaker 2: but just fucked up. Where can people if they want
Speaker 2: to support you, they want to follow you, if they
Speaker 2: want to come out and do food distro, where can
Speaker 2: they find you on the internet?
Speaker 4: Yeah, they can find us on Instagram. Our instagram is
Speaker 4: bread Block Underscore Distro if you want to provide like
Speaker 4: direct funds. Bread Underscore Block is our Venmo.
Speaker 3: Block with a CE not o k b l o
Speaker 3: c oh.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah b l oc like block.
Speaker 3: Yeah. We are anarchists, so yeah.
Speaker 4: And I also wanted to mention a couple of comrades
Speaker 4: of ours are facing housessness themselves and there's a mutual
Speaker 4: aid post on our Instagram and you can also find
Speaker 4: them at ruster dot music that's our u s t
Speaker 4: Er music or their Venmo is also in a post
Speaker 4: on our page. They could really use some help because
Speaker 4: they are really big individuals who like show up all
Speaker 4: the time and help us cook and our a big
Speaker 4: part of our group and you know also could use
Speaker 4: some mutual aid, yeah.
Speaker 2: People to help them. Thank you so much for your time, guys.
Speaker 2: Thank you for doing all that important work, and thank
Speaker 2: you for sharing it with us. If people have questions,
Speaker 2: they can reach out to you, right, Yes.
Speaker 3: Yes, of course. Thank you so much for having us.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you so much. It's much appreciated.
Speaker 2: It can happen here is a production of cool Zone Media.
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Speaker 1: You can now find sources for it could Happen here,
Speaker 1: listed directly in episode descriptions.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening.