Why so silent on Food For All?

Published: 1 September, 2011

• FOR some years now, the oppression of Food For All’s altruism by Camden and Islington councils has resurfaced repeatedly in your newspaper.

That the councils have refused to reply to Peter O’Grady’s unequivocal open letter in your columns (So where will the homeless get their free meals from? August 18), one can only assume that  they live in hope that the matter will be superseded by another, altogether more opaque one, such as selling off social housing.

Or are they confident that our penchant for apathy along with the media’s short attention span will prevail? Or worse still, the predicament is not worthy of a substantial response.

Dear councils, we are all open to persuasion, that the stalinesque tyranny of debilitating the Food For All service is somehow a benefit to us all.

That to appease local business complaints, and to sustain the five-year plans of Argent developers, in securing real estate investment for an opulent area, is far more important than trivial malnutrition.

I am a former user of the Food For All service.

The only security I had was that they would be on York Way at a given time every day.

They helped me to rise from the abyss, and help many others. (We are not all ‘in this together’, Letters August 25). York Way as a boundary is coterminous and on such a fault line it becomes a fence for both Camden and Islington councils to fly-tip, as they see, unwanted goods.

If both councils refuse to reply to Mr O’Grady’s open letter I propose a mass protest at both of the town halls concerned.

If they want to evacuate every exhibit of penury from King’s Cross to achieve social cleansing, then they need to have the courage to say so.

If they come out to the steps to declare “Let them eat concrete and glass”, then at least we can ask if there are any vitamins in these materials, and if they are they sourced from the cut-offs from Argent developers.

Anything but this insulting silence inflicted on those in need and to the readers and guardians of your estimable newspaper.  

MARK NEWELL
Maiden Lane, NW1

No distribution

• I REFER to the people feeding the homeless and the poor (Food For All) and their woes with Camden Council, which not only slashed their funding 100 per cent but are now finding faults with them over parking, litter, etcetera in a possible attempt to shut them down.

The free food distribution has completely stopped in York Way, King’s Cross, after a spate of tickets, on the grounds that distributing free food for the poor does not constitute loading and unloading.

Is this legitimate?

Is this moral? For the past 23 years, Food For All have operated in York Way and in Camden without a problem.

Why is there a problem now?

Food For All have appealed to the council and they are awaiting their decision.

Will the council bless or oppress them?

Food For All have launched an online film appeal: just Google “Vimeo Food For All”, featuring a great song especially written for them by Red Jen of the Bellestars.

See http://www.vimeo.com /27901276

PETER O’GRADY
Food For All