OPINION | Hot Food and Dry Socks Are No Substitute for Housing

by Jesse Kennemer

This op-ed was originally published on June 15, 2023. In the spirit of Giving Tuesday, we are republishing a series of inspiring articles and op-eds that highlight the incredible ways in which community giving, generosity, and compassion have transformed lives — and remind us of the ongoing challenges and critical work that still lies ahead. These stories are not just narratives; they are testaments to the strength and compassion that flourish in our community when we support each other.

On Thursday afternoons in my one-bedroom apartment, steam rises from the stock pot that towers over the electric-coil stove. It's filled to the brim; every serving is accounted for. Just before 7:00 p.m. I wipe down the counter, fan out clear to-go containers like playing cards, and start ladling, lidding, and packing. Then the rest of the team arrives in ones and twos outside my patio gate and loads a foldable wagon. Hot food, of course, but also water, socks, T-shirts, underwear, hand warmers, cigarettes, lighters, Narcan, first-aid supplies, blankets. Then we head down Broadway to offer up the supplies to anyone who wants them.

When these meal services began in late 2020, the route was defined by the camps scattered across Capitol Hill's parks. Our cart zigzagged across the neighborhood from Thomas Street to Tashkent to Broadway Hill to Cal Anderson. Now, with Parks and Recreation under Mayor Harrell evicting tents from city parks as soon as they pop up, the camps and tents are gone, but the people we serve are still here. Now they're relegated to the sidewalk, is all. Most weeks we run out of meals. Our most reliable stop is right outside the Broadway Market QFC.

At QFC we are greeted by people we've served for years. New faces too. We see people freshly discharged from the hospital in rain-soaked hospital gowns and bright paper bracelets eager for proper clothing. Women in costume jewelry and high heels stoked for a cigarette. Suspicious old men who allow themselves to crack a smile when they realize the food is steaming hot and homemade. Kroger's security guards seem to have mixed feelings about our Thursday night stops. One guard was worried we were hawking goods stolen from inside the store. A different guard slipped me a $20 bill to go towards next week's meals.

Writing about emerging mutual aid efforts for an anarchist press in London back in April 2020, Anna Kleist said, "Most of the 'aid' offered by Covid-19 mutual aid groups is not antagonistic to the logic of capital — it's just shopping on behalf of other people." Well, there's no denying that I do a lot of shopping for these Thursday meals. Socks, underwear, T-shirts, and hand warmers are much cheaper if ordered online in bulk. Wednesday trips to Cash & Carry provide ingredients for meal prep. The companies that sell these goods do not know that I am planning on doing something vaguely subversive with their products. They only care that I paid them money.

So why the hell am I cooking all this food and ordering all these socks? It's not because I believe a warm meal and a kind word will magically translate into housing. I see my friends and me as responding to an active emergency in what meager ways we can manage until real help arrives. Only real help still hasn't arrived.

In "Mutual Aid Can't Do It Alone" Joanna Wuest argued, "Weathering the current crisis requires nurturing useful hope while avoiding palliative delusions." She was speaking in December 2020 about mutual aid efforts that had sprung up in response to Covid-19, but it applies to Seattle's ongoing homelessness crisis. "Our country is coming to resemble a long-sought libertarian fantasy, with only atomized acts of compassion for those left out. We would do well to guard against this despotic individualism — the natural condition of the social without the state — and to be sober about what spurred this renaissance of mutual aid and what it portends."

Fresh wool socks in the rain are useful hope against trench foot. The condition earned its name from soldiers in World War I unable to keep their feet dry in the hellish muddy conditions of trench warfare. Untreated, it leads to infections, swelling, numbness, pain, and eventually necrosis of the tissue. The treatment is very simple: Keep your feet warm and dry. During the nine-month PNW rainy season, that's a nearly impossible task for people stuck living outside, and just about everybody we serve complains of trench foot. Fresh socks are only a temporary fix. The moisture always wins, and what was bone dry will be soaked rotten within hours. For someone with a home, that new pair of socks can be washed and stored away to be used again and again. Shoes can air out and dry. People with apartments don't have trench foot.

The people I cook for are owed far more than our crew can supply from a rolling cart. A ragtag combination of religious charities, nonprofit organizations, and a patchwork of mutual aid crews will never be enough to make up for the absence of universal programs enacted by the government. We will certainly never make up for the lack of affordable housing in the region; the problem is too big. The moment we allow our hot food and dry socks to be held up as a viable replacement for systemic change, we stop providing useful hope and are reduced to the atomized acts of compassion Wuest warned against.

Volunteering your time or money to help people our government has failed is valuable. I believe it is even more important to force our government at every level to provide housing and other basic services to its people. To hold them accountable for these failures. Folks deserve reliable solutions, not to depend on the whims of a religious charity to secure keys to an apartment, or to fear they'll miss our wagon on a Thursday and go without a good meal that night.

With the passage of Initiative 135 in February, Seattle voters created the Seattle Social Housing Public Development Authority. This new social housing authority has the potential to fill a critical gap in the city's housing stock, building apartments for people who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless and unlikely to secure leases from landlords and property managers focused on minimizing risk and maximizing profits. Seattleites with no recent rental history, past evictions, and limited funds for a deposit or first and last month's rent need a housing provider that is prepared to help people who aren't profitable.

I-135 was a huge first step, but the agency can only have a powerful impact if it is well-funded. Demand that your elected officials commit to investing in our city's new public housing developer. Do not accept cuts to SNAP or efforts to criminalize poverty that will only force us backward. The best news we can hear during Thursday meal service is that someone finally secured housing. It means they have a place to dry their socks, to get their own pot steaming on the stove.

The South Seattle Emerald is committed to holding space for a variety of viewpoints within our community, with the understanding that differing perspectives do not negate mutual respect amongst community members.

The opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints expressed by the contributors on this website do not necessarily reflect the opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints of the Emerald or official policies of the Emerald.

Jesse Kennemer is a line cook and writer living in Seattle, Washington. They enjoy cooking for a community meal program in Capitol Hill, studying food history, and growing vegetables in their alley.

Featured Image: Photo via JRJfin/Shutterstock.com