Cooking up a Revolution : Food Not Bombs, Homes Not Jails, and Resistance to Gentrification

On Labor Day in 1988 two hundred hungry and homeless people went to Golden Gate Park in search of a hot meal, while fifty-four activists from Food Not Bombs, surrounded by riot police, lined up to serve them food. The riot police counted twenty-five served meals, the legal number allowed by city law before breaking permit restrictions, and then began to arrest people. The arrests proceeded like an assembly line: an activist would scoop a bowl of food and hand it to a hungry person. A police officer would then handcuff and arrest that activist. Immediately, the next activist in line would take up the ladle and be promptly arrested. By the end of the day fifty-four people had been arrested for “providing food without a permit.” These arrests were not an aberration but part of a multi-year campaign by the city of San Francisco against radical homeless activists. Why would a liberal city arrest activists helping the homeless? In exploring this question, the book uses the conflict between the city and activists as a unique opportunity to examine the contested nature of urban politics, homelessness, and public space, while developing an anarchist alternative to liberal urban politics, which is rooted in mutual aid, solidarity, and anti-capitalism. During the late 1980s and early 1990s the City San Francisco waged a war with the homeless. During this period over 1,000 arrests and citations where handed out by the police to activists for simply handing out free food in public parks. Why would a liberal city arrest activists helping the homeless? In exploring this question, the book uses the conflict between the city and activists as a unique opportunity to examine the contested nature of urban politics, homelessness, and public space while developing an anarchist alternative to liberal urban politics that is rooted in mutual aid, solidarity, and anti-capitalism. In addition to exploring theoretical and political issues related to gentrification, broken-windows policing, and anti-homeless laws, this book provides both activists, students, and scholars, examples of how anarchist homeless activists in San Francisco resisted these process During the late 1980s and early 1990s the city of San Francisco waged a war against the homeless. Over 1,000 arrests and citations where handed out by the police to activists for simply distributing free food in public parks. Why would a liberal city arrest activists helping the homeless? In exploring this question, the book treats the conflict between the city and activists as a unique opportunity to examine the contested nature of homelessness and public space while developing an anarchist alternative to liberal urban politics that is rooted in mutual aid, solidarity, and anti-capitalism. In addition to exploring theoretical and political issues related to gentrification, broken-windows policing, and anti-homeless laws, this book provides activists, students and scholars, examples of how anarchist homeless activists in San Francisco resisted these processes. Front matter Dedication Contents List of figures Acknowledgements List of abbreviations Turning statistics into people: from sick talk to the politics of solidarity What dumpstered soup tells us about violence, charity, and politics Parks, permits, and riot police: understanding the politics of public space occupations 1988–1991 The war against the homeless: Frank Jordan, broken windows, and anti-homeless politics in San Francisco The homeless fight back: the politics of homeless resistance Bolt cutters and the politics of expropriation: Homes Not Jails, urban squatting, and gentrification Towards an anarchist “right to the city” Coda: theses on homelessness, public space, and urban resistance References Index