<Begin Segment 17>

TI: Well, in the same way, what are some examples of difficult times with the homeless? You've been doing this seventeen years, there must have been some times when it's been really hard.

KA: (Yes). In fact, I have a letter that I wrote to the city. [Laughs]

TI: Well, describe what happened.

KA: (Yes). They said that we had to have a restaurant license, and a fee. A restaurant license was two hundred dollars, I think, a year, or something like that. And feeding (permit) was seventy dollars. And I wrote to them and told them that we don't even have a budget, that I'm totally dependent on the Lord, and we're not a restaurant, we don't charge anybody anything. We do it by faith, and please reconsider, because we're not making any money, it's out of our own pockets. And so they cancelled it, that requirement. But thank the Lord. And then they moved us around. When June and David were doing it, when I first met them, they had been moved from the Pike area, Pike Street, down to more the International area, they were feeding right there at the park, you know, in front of the public health -- I mean, what is that? Near Yesler, south of Yesler, that little area where you see a lot of people.

TI: It's right next to the courthouse?

KA: (Yes), uh-huh. And that's where they were doing it. And then they moved us. They weren't under any... what is it, organization or anything, but they formed what they called Meals Partnership, where they became the overhead of all feeding programs to make sure that we were, we had the food handler's permits and things like that. Because before then, they were just doing it on their own, lot of people. And so we're under the city, and they decided that we should go to the Memorial Plaza, remember, where all the people who were killed in service, their names were engraved, on Fourth and James, between James and Cherry. So we were feeding there, and that was an ideal place because it was close to where most of the homeless people hung around. And sometimes we'd have three hundred people. And then they decided to tear that down. I think they're just beginning now to build something, but I don't know with this recession whether they'll have money to do anything.

SP: So where are you now?

KA: Hmm?

SP: Where are you now?

KA: Oh, and then they moved us to Seventh and Madison at the First Presbyterian Church plaza, the city. And they paid them seventy-five thousand a year just for the use of the plaza. Because they had to get a security guard and garbage collection, and honey bucket. And we were there for one year, and the church refused to renew the contract because of the neighbors in the condos, they would complain that they didn't want the homeless people hanging around. And so they sent us -- we were without a home for maybe about three or four months while they negotiated. And they found a place for us under the freeway, on Sixth and Columbia now, and they put a fence and enclosed it. It's in a parking lot, and they built a, they placed a shed where we could store our tables. And they have a little portable sink, but it's not very good, and they have a honey bucket. But the city gave the contract to Beverly Graham, who was the head of the Operation Sack Lunch, and she, I think, gets the funds from the city. And we don't get anything; I do not get any from any public agencies, or federal or city. It's truly by faith and by friends and relatives, my family. But the only thing free that we receive is bread. I pick it up from Fran, day old bread, down on Sixth Avenue. But in all these years, we have never suffered lack of food. And every time I need something, it seems to go on sale. And different ones, my friends sometimes would drop off a sack of rice. In fact, not too long ago, Jean Wakamatsu, do you know her? Lillian Hayashi's, her sister, I think. She brought me about three hundred pounds of rice from one of the stores, what is that, Country Market or something, run by Japanese. And you know, they had a little hole in the sack, and they couldn't sell it. [Laughs] Amazing grace, truly. These things happen. And in fact, today, I've got to pick up some chicken and start cooking for tonight. [Laughs]

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 2008 Densho. All Rights Reserved.